History of Oregon Literature/Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
As Told By the Trappers
…over 23,418,109 animals destroyed for their pelts and furs, besides 19,233 swans, in four years.J. HENRY BROWN.
David Douglas, the early botanist, said there was not an official in the Hudson's Bay Company with "a soul above a beaver-skin."
If Dr. John McLoughlin had been fond of reading poetry, which from the Scotch in him he ought to have been, his warm adherents among the historians would not have left us so much in the dark about it. Not a great deal has been said about a pipe-and-book side of him, and a solicitude to get reading matter to employes at lonely posts is not included in the long inventories of his benevolences. The first circulating library on the Pacific Coast was established by Dr. Tolmie and Donald Manson, not by Dr. McLoughlin; and at the northern posts, not at Fort Vancouver.
In the contemporary descriptions of the old Fort or in the accounts of historians, one cannot help being impressed by the relatively scant reference to books and reading, and in general to the kind of subjective life lived there. We are told that "the annual ship brought books, reviews, and files of newspapers" and there are occasional brief sidelights to indicate that this material was sometimes read, but no picture of any simultaneous and eager grabbing for it when it first arrived, not a single revealing incident like that of the young Mountain Man who came to the camp of Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding in the Snake River country and asked "if they had any books to sell, or they could spare."
Dr. McLoughlin "lived in impressive pomp," said Thomas Nelson Strong, "and all down the river the story of the stately halls and the wealth and magnificance of Fort Vancouver was told by Indian to Indian with bated breath." But all this outward magnificence that so impressed the natives, and the decorum that so impressed the visiting whites, were indeed not accompanied by much genuine culture. Fort Vancouver, it would rather definitely appear in confirmation of the old botanist, was a place that, in the character given to it by the Chief Factor, was not conspicuous for its soul. At morning and at evening, or in the serenity of a summer noon, Dr. McLoughlin could stand with his cane and look across the "swift-flowing Wauna," but any uplift that may have been given to his spirit by all the beauty encompassed in his gaze has not been told by himself or by others. The objective features of his life have been detailed over and over, but we do not know how he lived inside himself.
His own writings, on the basis of moods expressed, may be said to fall into three general classifications—instruction and controversy and command, explanation and alibi, and complaint; and these moods at least are sadly revelatory from the inside in paralleling the periods of his rise and fall.
The trappers as a whole, however, and different from their king, have left us a considerable body of literature, some of which is even of a subjective nature. Among them, of course, there were many good story tellers, modern Irvin Cobbs, whose stories unfortunately remained oral and unrecorded, so that we know about them but do not have them. There was Tom McKay, for instance, who always started his stories with "It rained, it rained and it blew, it blew" and sometimes for additional emphasis added, "and, my God, how it did snow." Part of the recreation of the trappers was telling their own stories and listening to the stories of others; and a man who could spin a good yarn and tell a tall tale, with picturesque embroidery, was accorded thereby a social advantage.
Hubert Howe Bancroft tells how two men of the fur-trade might meet in camp, hear a story from a third and then go their separate ways to repeat the tale as their own. Specially good yarns might thus secure a wide word-of-mouth currency in which the teller would be the principal actor. Washington Irving in his Anventures of Captain Bonneville repeats some of these classical or bromidic episodes.
These trappers did not come west primarily to seek new conquests and find greater glory for their country, but for their own personal gain from the fur-bearing animals of the Pacific. Their ambition was to get rich quick and then return to their homelands and relax in idleness and reminiscence. Many of the trappers allied themselves with companies. Thus grew up the powerful Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Company. There were also many free-lancers who, like Nathaniel Wyeth, were willing to face the dangers and vicissitudes of this wilderness country on their own.
We must read the diaries and journals of these daring adventurers for a complete understanding and appreciation not only of their tremendous courage and stamina but of the zealous spirit which moved them to find their fortunes in a strange land. There was nothing dull about the trail-blazers of early Oregon. The fertile imaginations and buoyant personalities of these “rovers-by-instinct” color all of their writings and make of them fascinating and even thrilling reading.
Although the trappers came west for commercial purposes, there is less evidence than would be expected of this in their narratives. They are more deeply concerned with the novel ways of the Red Man, with the nobility of Mount Hood “covered in eternal snow,” and with the grandeur of the Willamette Valley which reminded one of them of “Byron’s description of Italy.” This one was James Clyman, who apparently had the classics for his models. He makes frequent and off-hand reference to Milton, to the Bible, and even to Shakespeare. Whatever Clyman’s Diary lacks in form it more than supplies in imaginative appreciation and intensity of feeling.
The fur-traders as a group had little formal education, and were thus seriously hampered when trying to describe the sights they saw, and the hardships they met. But such a handicap did not deter them. At the end of a day spent in fording streams, breaking through dense underbrush, hunting food, and often-times fighting with the Indians, they still had the strength and will to sit down by the lonely campfire, and by means of its flickering light write down their experiences in vivid and glowing terms. There is romance and perhaps a little pathos in the picture of a rough and work-hardened old trapper struggling to find words to express what he felt when he first saw the mighty waters and forests and “heaven-piercing mountains" of the West. Yet the untutored mind of the trapper lends something of freshness and impulsiveness to his journals, which, one feels, was in entire harmony with the wild new country that was being described. At any rate, one is inclined to be lenient with syntax when style and content are so delightful.
1
The Indians Have a Good Laugh By Alexander Ross
Alexander Ross was on board the ill-starred Tonquin when it made its memorable voyage in the winter of 1811. As Irving would have it, he was one of the "scribbling" clerks, together with Cox and Franchere. The dour Captain Thorn did not think much of the way they were on the qui vive to put down a note on something, in preparation for the histories they expected to write. Just the same, some of these clerks did write famous books. Two by Ross are Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon and The Fur Hunters of the Far West.
In July of 1811, Ross, with a group of men, left Astoria to establish a trading post in the interior. At the portage of the Columbia River, they surveyed with discouragement the road they would have to take: "To say that there is not a worse path under the sun would perhaps be going a step too far.. . ." Then an Indian comes to the irate Ross's assistance.
July 28, 1811
Having landed the goods, and secured the canoe, we commenced the laborious task of carrying, and by dividing our selves in the best possible manner for safety, we managed to get all safe over by sunset. Not being accustomed myself to carry, I had of course, as well as some others, to stand sentinel} but seeing the rest almost wearied to death, I took hold of a roll of tobacco, and after adjusting it on my shoulder, and holding it fast with one hand, I moved on to ascend the first bank; at the top of which, however, I stood breathless, and could proceed no farther. In this awkward plight, I met an Indian, and made signs to him to convey the tobacco across, and that I would give him all the buttons on my coat; but he shook his head, and refused. Thinking the fellow did not understand me, I threw the tobacco down, and pointing to the buttons one by one, at last he consented, and off he set at a full trot, and I after him; but just as we had reached his camp at the other end, he pitched it down a precipice of two hundred feet in height, and left me to recover it the best way I could. Off I started after my tobacco; and if I was out of breath after getting up the first bank, I was ten times more so now. During my scrambling among the rocks to recover my tobacco, not only the wag that played me the trick, but fifty others indulged in a hearty laugh at my expense; but the best of it was, the fellow came for his payment, and wished to get not only the buttons but the coat along with them. I was for giving him—what he richly deserved—buttons of another mould; but peace, in our present situation, was deemed the better policy; so the rogue got the buttons, and we saw him no more.
2
Fort Clatsop Seven Years Afterwards
By Alexander Henry
Elliot Coues tells what a hard task it was to edit Alexander Henry's Manuscript Journals consisting of 1642 pages of legal cap. "The composition seemed to me to be that of a man who knew what he wanted to say, and could talk to the point about it, but always wrote round about it, as if he had a notion that writing was some thing different from speaking, needing bigger words and more of them." Henry was a prominent Northwester who arrived at Astoria shortly before it became Fort George. The historical importance of the journal he kept while there, was to add him to Franchere, Ross and Cox to make an authoritative quartet on early Astoria—the historians taking their customary dig at poor old Washington Irving and refusing to use him for a quintet. At Fort George he caught Jane Barnes, blond English barmaid, in her rebound from Governor M'Tavish, the latter, though it had been his idea in a period of romantic fatigue, found that after all he did not like it too well when she had actually rebounded, so that the two men quarreled. They were both drowned, and drowned together, at the mouth of the Columbia on Sunday, May 22, 1814. Alexander Henry's journal was "minutely and precisely kept up to the day before his death."
Dec. 14, 1813. Fort Clatsop
We walked up to see the old American winter quarters of Captains Lewis and Clark in 1805–6, which are in total ruins, the wood having been cut down and destroyed by the Indians; but the remains are still visible. In the fort are already grown up shoots of willows 25 feet high. The situation is the most pleasant I have seen hereabouts, and by far the most eligible, both as to security from the natives and for hunting. The place is deeply shaded with spruce, pine, sapin, etc.; the woods seemed gloomy and dark, the beams of the sun being prevented from reaching the ground through so thick a foliage. Having examined this spot, we returned to our horses, which are left in care of the Indians; there being no grass near the fort, we allow them to graze on the salt marsh along the bay and river.
Dec. 24, 1813
The almost incessant rain we have had is truly unpleasant, and I fear will have a bad effect on our men, who are now building a house for themselves; they are daily exposed to the inclemency of the weather, wet to the skin, tramping through mud and water all day, and at night without other shelter than bars covered with mats, which must be very damp. Even in the garret of our storehouses; which is perfectly tight and stanch, things become moldy and will rot. During the rainy season there is no moving out of doors, except in mud and water. If you step on a stone or billet of wood, ten to one you measure your length on the ground; everything is slippery with green moss; even the stockades and buildings are becoming incrusted.
3
Plunder at the Rapids
By Gabriel Franchere
Gabriel Franchere, one of the literary clerks about whom Captain Thorn wrote rather scornfully to Astor, had his notes rounded out and published in a book several years in advance of volumes by his friends, Ross and Cox. The first edition of Franchere's book was in French, published in 1819. Irving acknowledged it as a supplementary source in the preparation of his Astoria, Benton quoted passages from it in the Senato, and when he revisited Montreal in 1853 "he was treated respectfully as a noted author." So much can the "scribbling" derided by Captain Thorn sometimes do for one who keeps at it unashamed and honestly. He was 25 when he came to Astoria. He died in St. Paul, Minnesota, at the age of 77.
Franchere was an eye-witness to all the history-making events which occurred at Astoria from 1811 to 1814. Among the interesting encounters with the Indians which he relates is the attack on James Keith and his party up the Columbia. In January, 1814, Keith, Clarke and Stuart were sent into the interior with merchandise and some important messages. On seeing the heavily-laden canoes of the party, some Indians forcibly took possession of the property.
Jan. 3, 1814
Having arrived at the foot of the rapids, they commenced the portage on the south bank of the river, which is obstructed with boulders, over which is was necessary to pass the effects. After they had hauled over the two canoes, and a part of the goods, the natives approached in great numbers, trying to carry off something unobserved....An Indian seized a bag containing articles of little value, and fled: Mr. Stuart, who saw the act, pursued the thief, and after some resistance on the latter's part, succeeded in making him relinquish his booty. Immediately he saw a number of Indians armed with bows and arrow, approaching him: one of them bent his bow and took aim; Mr. Stuart, on his part, levelled his gun at the Indian, warning the latter not to shoot, and at the same instant received an arrow, which pierced his left shoulder. He then drew the trigger; but as it had rained all day, the gun missed fire, and before he could re-prime, another arrow, better aimed than the first, struck him in the left side and penetrated between two of his ribs, in the region of the heart, and would have proved fatal, no doubt, but for a stone-pipe he had fortunately in his side-pocket, and which was broken by the arrow; at the same moment his gun was discharged, and the Indian fell dead. Several others then rushed forward to avenge the death of their compatriot; but two of the men came up with their loads and their gun (for these portages were made arms in hand), and seeing what was going forward, one of them threw his pack on the ground, fired on one of the Indians and brought him down. He got up again, however, and picked up his weapons, but the other man ran upon him, wrested from him his war-club, and despatched him by repeated blows on the head with it. The other savages, seeing the bulk of our people approaching the scene of combat, retired and crossed the river. In the meantime, Mr. Stuart extracted the arrows from his body, by the aid of one of the men: the blood flowed in abundance from the wounds, and he saw that it would be impossible for him to pursue his journey; . . . Presently they saw a great number of pirogues full of warriors coming from the opposite side of the river. Our people then considered that they could do nothing better than to get away as fast as possible.... abandoning . . . the goods to the natives. While the barbarians were plundering these effects, more precious in their estimation than the apples of gold in the garden of the Hesperides, our party retired and got out of sight.
4
Speech of Chief "Morning Star"
By Ross Cox
Ross Cox, or , as some of his comrades knew him, "the little Irishman," has put humor and feeling into the report of his six years on the Columbia, published in London in 1831 as Adventures on the Columbia River. He was employed by Astor until 1813, afterwards entering the service of the Northwest Company. Since he completes the roll call of the Astor literary clerics, it might as well be fully told what the captain of the Tonquin thought of the whole lot, as related by Washington Irving: "Some of the young clerks, who were making their first voyage, and to whom everything was new and strange, were, very rationally, in the habit of taking notes and keeping journals. This was a sore abomination to the honest captain, who held their literary pretensions in great contempt. 'The collecting of materials for long histories of their voyages and travels,' said he, in his letter to Mr. Astor, 'appears to engross most of their attention.' We can conceive what must have been the crusty impatience of the worthy navigator, when, on any trifling occurrence in the course of the voyage, quite commonplace in his eyes, he saw these young lands men running to record it in their journals; . . " Reference has been made to four important books by three of the most inveterate of these note-takers and journal-keepers.
It was in December, 1814, near the mouth of the Lewis River, after his party had just had a skirmish with the Indians, that Cox gives an admirable account of honor among them. While attempting to seize some of the goods of the white men, two Indians were killed. The relatives of the slain men demanded the lives of two white men to cover these deaths, particularly that of the red-haired chief, McDonald, who, on hearing it, "grinned horribly a ghastly smile." "Morning Star" interceded, "and the orators of Greece and Rome, when compared with him, dwindled in our estimation to insignificance." The oration is taken from Adventures on the Columbia River. The whole speech lasted two hours.
Friends and relations! Three snows have only passed over
our heads since we were
a poor miserable people. Our enemies the Shoshones, during the summer, stole our horses, by
which we were prevented from hunting, and drove us from
the banks of the river, so that we could not get fish. In
winter, they burned our lodge...
night;
they killed our
relations; they treated our wives and daughters like dogs,
and left us either to die from cold or starvation, or become
their slaves.
They were numerous and powerful; we were few, and weak. Our hearts were as the hearts of little children: we could not fight like warriors, and were driven like deer about the plains. When the thunders rolled, and the rains poured, we had no spot in which we could seek a shelter; no place, save the rocks, whereon we could lay our heads. Is such the case today? No, my relations! it is not. We have driven the Shoshones from our hunting-grounds, on which they dare not now appear, and have regained possession of the land our fathers, in which they and their fathers' fathers lie buried. We have horses and provisions in abundance, and can sleep unmolested with our wives and our children with out dreading the midnight attacks of our enemies. Our hearts are great within us, and we are now a nation!
Who then, my friends, have produced this change? The white men. In exchange for our horses and our furs, they gave us guns and ammunition; then we became strong; we killed many of our enemies, and forced them to fly from our lands. And are we to treat those who have been the cause of this happy change with ingratitude? Never! Never! The white people have never robed us; and, I ask, why should we attempt to rob them? It was bad! very bad!—and they were right in killing the robbers. Yes I say they acted right in killing the robbers; and who among you will dare to contradict me?
You know well my father was killed by the enemy, when you all deserted him like cowards; and, while the Great Master of Life spares me, no hostile foot shall again be set on our lands. I know you all; and I know that those who are afraid of their bodies in battle are thieves when they are out of it; but the warrior of the strong arm and the great heart will never rob a friend.
My friends, the white men are brave, and belong to a great nation. They are many moons crossing the great lake in coming from their own country to serve us. If you were foolish enough to attack them, they would kill a great many of you; but suppose you should succeed in destroying all that are now present, what would be the consequence? A great number would come next year to revenge the death of their relations, and they would annihilate our tribe; or should not that happen, their friends at home, on hearing of their deaths, would say we were bad and wicked people, and white men would never more come among us. We should then be reduced to our former state of misery and persecution; our ammunition would be quickly expended; our guns would become useless, and we should again be driven from our lands, and the lands of our fathers, to wander like deer and wolves in the midst of the woods and plains. I there fore say the white men must not be injured They have offered you compensation for the loss of your friends; take it! but, if you you should refuse, I tell you to your faces that I will join them with my own band of warriors; and should one white man fall by the arrow of an Indian, that Indian, if he were my brother, with all his family, shall become victims to my vengeance.
Let the Wallah Wallahs, and all who love me, and are fond of the white men, come forth and smoke the pipe of peace!
5
Typical Day of a Trapper
By Peter Skene Ogden
Peter Skene Ogden, of a picturesque and enlivening personality, rose to positions of importance with the Hudson's Bay Company, becoming a chief trader at the age of 30. He was a practical joker, and of nimble wit in tight places, as he often had need to be in his journeyings up and down the Northwest wilderness. The Indians called him "Old Whitehead" and the voyageurs called him "M'sieur Pete." He died at Oregon City in 1854 at the age of 60, having been "still fond of tricks in later years." He was one of the great trapper leaders. Because of his hungers and dangers, his energy and shrewdness in savage Oregon, how many men had worn lofty hats along gracious thoroughfares!
What is most interesting to us here is his connection with literature. There is a book by the name of Traits of American Life and Character. Only about a half dozen public libraries in the Pacific Northwest have it in the original edition. It was priced at $60 in 1928. However, it was reissued in 1933 by the Grabhorn Press of San Francisco. Now, who was the author of that book? There has been much speculation about it. The book itself says it is "By a fur trader. "
It is accredited to Peter Skene Ogden, and evidence in the case has been the subject of some interesting essays by historians. Jesse Applegate read this book or some book by Ogden in manuscript: "...it comprised his own early experiences; ... we had no reading and Mr. Ogden gave it to me as a Winter's amusement. It was full of interesting episodes.... Mr. Ogden brought it to Washington Irving who undertook to edit it, but died before its completion." George T. Allen, at one time a clerk at Fort Vancouver, said "Mr. Ogden ... wrote some very interesting sketches of his adventure...the Indian country, which I perused in manuscript and partly copied for him in 1849. I believe they were afterwards published, but I have never seen the book."
Archibald McKinlay, Ogden's son-in-law, wrote to Elwood Evans in 1882: "Peter S. Ogden did publish a book. I never saw but one copy. I have the dedication written by Washington Irving dedicated to Lady Simpson. It is in his own handwriting. It was more of what I would call a romance."
T. C. Elliott, the historian, after indicating the possibility though not the certainty of Irving's connection, goes on to this conclusion: "The book referred to by Mr. McKinlay can hardly be the same as the writings described by Mr. Applegate, though it might be the part copied by Mr. Allen. It is readily identified as a small and now very rare volume published in London in 1853 anonymously and entitled Traits of American Indian Life and Character, by a Fur Trader. The style of its writing has little semblance to that of Mr. Ogden's letters, it is entirely lacking in that quaintness and humor so common to him . . . But the incidents related just as certainly refer to Mr. Ogden as the actor and realtor and check closely with portions of his own career, and must have come from him."
So if you want to pay $60—maybe more now—for that first edition, you can be pretty sure you are getting a book by Peter Skene Ogden.
Father Morice and the editor of the new Grabhorn edition and F. W. Howay, the historian, have all taken part in the speculations. Ogden emerges with his authorship contradictory in spots but still circumstantially as the writer of the little book, with its 16 sketches dated from 1823 to 1848.
His Journals, from which the following selections are taken, furnish an excellent picture of the daily life of a trapper.
Nov. 5, 1825
—about 12 o'clock came to the end of the hills—a grand and noble sight—Mount Hood bearing due west, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Nesqually (Mt. Adams) Northwest, covered with eternal snow, and in a southern direction other lofty mountains in form and shape of sugar loaves. At the foot of all these mountains were lofty pines, which added greatly to the grandeur of the prospect. Could anything make it more so?
Jan. 1826
Cold has decreased, but still severe for the Columbia—Another horse killed for food. Except for seven beaver the men without food this day.—All hands out with traps.—The mountains (Blue Mts.) appeared about 30 miles distant covered with snow and trees. They gave hope of red deer.—Snow at night—Many of the horses can scarcely crawl for want of grass, owing to frozen ground.—We are now on the very high land and expect soon to see another river from the long range of mountains visible.—About dusk we reached the sources of the Day's River, which discharges into the Columbia—Our course—(was) along the main branch of Day's River, a fine large stream nearly as wide again as it is at the Columbia—From appearance this river takes its source the same quarter as the River of the Falls and Utakka—Here the grass is green, no snow, the frogs croaking merrily as in May—
Friday, March 31st (1826). Counted 40 horses dead in Snake winter camp; 27 beaver today, which makes our first thousand, and leaves two to begin the second thousand. I hope to reach Vancouver with 3000.
Monday, 5th (March, 1827, in Shasta country). Men killed 2 deer and report bears numerous. These gents will soon leave their winter quarters and ravage about in quest of food after 4 mos. of quiet.
August 24 (1827). Left Ft. Vancouver for the Snake Country with 28 trappers and hopes far from sanguine. 1st Sept. we reached Nez Perces (Walla Walla), on 5th Sept. set off.
Friday 26th (September, 1828). Started at an early hour 6 A. M. and encamped on the Grand Ronde at 2 P. M. our horses fatigued, 8 in the rear—wild horses are very unfit for a long journey. Two trappers joined us with 4 beaver.
6
By Harrison G. Rogers
The Journal of Harrison G. Rogers gives a vivid account of Captain Jedediah Smith's trip from California by way of the Umpqua Valley in July of 1828—the first time white men had entered Oregon by the Southern route. He was clerk of the party. Nothing is known of him before 1826 and he was never to see the end of the journey he was reporting. His Journal, like Alexander Henry's, was abruptly ended by death. He made his usual note book entry on July 13 at the Umpqua River, ate breakfast the next morning and was then massacred with eleven other of Smith's men by the Umpqua Indians, "into whose hands fell all the property of the little band, including the furs, the outfit, and the journals themselves.... For many months the journals were in the Indians' possession. Why they did not destroy them is a mystery. Perhaps they regarded them as an unknown and powerful medicine. Finally recovered, however, they were brought out by Smith from the mountains in the fall of 1830." Still the vicissitudes of the 112 pages of the dead man's journal were not over. Smith himself was killed the following summer. The Rogers journal went to William Henry Ashley. Generations later, in strange survival, it found final security with the Missouri Historical Society.
July 3, 1828
We made a pretty early start, stearing N. along the pine flatts close by the beach of the ocean, and travelled 2 m., and struck a river (Coquille), about 2 hundred yards wide, and crossed it in an Ind. canoe . Capt. Smith, being ahead, saw the Inds. in the canoe, and they tried to get off but he pursued them so closely that they run and left it. They tryed to split the canoe to pieces with their poles, but he screamed at them, and they fled, and left it, which saved us of a great deal of hard labour making rafts. After crossing our goods, we drove in our horses, and they all swam over, but one; he drowned pretty near the shore.
July 12, 1828
We commenced crossing the river early and had our goods and horses over by 8 o.c., then packed up and started a N. E. course up the river and traveled 3 M. and enc. Had several Inds. along; one of the Ind. stole an axe and we were obliged to seize him for the purpose of tying him before we
could scare him to make him give it up. Capt. Smith and one of them caught him and put a cord round his neck, and the rest of us stood with our guns ready in case they made any resistance, there was about 50 Inds. present but did not pretend to resist tying the other. 7
Trapper Philosophizes
By Nathaniel J. Wyeth
An admirable tribute to Nathaniel Wyeth paid by James Russell Lowell in a letter to the Portland, Oregon, High School in April, 1890, instigated a search for Wyeth's own accounts of his expeditions. This effort brought to light an almost complete record of his marvelous journeys. Of the man himself, Lowell said, "He was a very remarkable person whose conversation I valued highly. A born leader of men, he was fitly called Captain Nathaniel Wyeth as long as he lived."
Wyeth, a New England Yankee and an independent fur trader, who had a great deal of hard luck in his enterprises, was founder of the trading posts at Fort Hall and Fort William on Sauvie's Island.
Jan. 11, 1835
Last night grew cold and set in for a hard snow storm with a gale of wind from the W. S. W. which continued with out intermission until sunset today so we did not move camp, the crackling of the falling trees and the howling of the blast was more grand than comfortable, it makes two individuals feel their insignificance in the creation to be seated under a blankett with a fire in front and 3½ feet of snow about them and more coming and no telling when it will stop, tonight tis calm and nearly full moon it seems to shine with as much indifference as the storms blow and wether for weal or woe, we two poor wretches seem to be little considered in the matter. The thoughts that have run through my brain while I have been lying here in the snow would fill a volume and of such matter as was never put into one, my infancy, my youth, and its friends, and faults, my manhood's troubled stream, its vagaries, its aloes mixed with the gall of bitterness and its results viz under a blankett hundreds perhaps thousands of miles from a friend, the Blast howling about, and smothered in snow, poor, in debt, doing nothing to get out out of it, despised for a visionary, nearly naked, but there is one good thing plenty to eat health and heart. Letter to Weld, Apr. 3, 1835
This Wappato Island (Sauvie's Island) which I have selected for our establishment is about 15 miles long and about average of three wide. On one side runs the Columbia on the other the Multnomah (Willamette). It consists of woodlands and prairie and on it there is considerable deer and those who could spare time to hunt might live well but a mortality has carried off to a man its inhabitants and there is nothing to attest that they ever existed except their decaying houses, their graves and their unburied bones of which there are heaps. So you see as the righteous people of New England say providence has made room for me and without doing them more injury than I should if I had made room for myself viz killing them off. I often think of the old knot of cronies about the town with whom I used to spend so much time especially of an evening. When I sit down in my lodge on the ground and contrast the past with the present and wonder if the future will give as much difference and which way the difference will be for better or worse?
8
An Appreciation of Oregon Scenes
By James Clyman
Poesy by a Native
On inside back cover of James Clyman's Diary, 1844–46
As yet remains in doubt
But Tradition throws an obscur light
That many had grown Quite out of sight
Ere Hood Began to Sprout.
An Address to Mount Hood
On inside front cover
What brot you forth to etherial light
From Earths inmost deepest womb
Was central earth so Jamd so pent
That thou arose to give it vent
Or for some other purpose sent
A Monumental Tomb
The Earth had flowed a burning sheet
Of melted wavering fire
That animation Flaming lay
A molten Mixed wase rocks and clay
When thou a bubble rose to play
Above the funeral pyre.
The Willamette Valley
Notes on Oregon written in 1845 to Dr. Elijah White.
scenery in this I know I shall want Language. In richness and variety of Scenery this country cannot be surpassed, assend one of your smoothe Handsomely rounded eminences and you have at one glance all the variety of Scenery that nature ever produced, six or eight Heaven towring peaks are visable at once covered in eternal Ice and snow thier ruged time worn sides softened by distance, your eye desending the region of bear Rocks and Nightly Frosts in a Broad Belt around the Peaks attracts your attention with lower peaks of the same attitude Still desending long ranges of deep green Firr clad elivations of great veriety of shape and apearance Extend themselves to the right and left far beyond the stretch of vision. The Eye still desending your catch the softly rounded grass clad hills with thier shrubby oak groves and Prarie vallies with various shades of green drapery untill at last your (eye) rests on the broad vally Striching itself parallel withe mountain here too you have the veriety of Timber and Prarie with all the meanderings of the large and small streams that wind and intersect the vally in all directions. Bring your eye closer and you Distinguish farms and fields still closer and houses and herds appear and last not least of all a few horsemen are seen going like the wind over some smoothe Prarie and disappearing in an oak grove pardon me sir those rapid coursiers ware gentlemen and Ladies out on a ride of plesure.
Oct. 25, 1844, Shores of the Willamette
... I soon found a stripe of open Prarie land overflown in high water but now dry and pleasant walking with here and there a pool of mud and water which has stood the drough of summer.
These pools or ponds are now overgrown with several kind of vegitation and litterly and completely covered over with water fowl of various kinds from the nobl and majestick swan down to the Teal & plover. For miles the air seemed to be darkened with the emmenc flights that arose as I proceeded up the vally The morning being still thier nois was tumultuous and grand the hoarse shrieks of the Heron intermingled with the Symphonic Swan the fine treble of the Brant answered by the strong Bass of the goose with ennumerable shreeking and Quacking of the large and Smaller duck tribe filled every evenue of Surrounding space with nois and reminded one of Some aerial battle as discribed by Milton and all though I had been on the grand pass of waterfowl on the Illinois River it will not begin to bear a comparison with this thier being probably Half a Million in sight at one time and all appearantly Screaming & Screeching at once.
9
How the Trapper Gets the Beaver
By Osborne Russell
Osborne Russell gives an intimate and detailed account of all aspects of the trapper's life, in his Journal of a Trapper which includes the years from 1834 to 1843. Like James Clyman, he had his poetic moments, and closed his Journal with some stanzas which he called "The Hunter's Farewell." He was never married. When he quit his life as a trapper, he moved to the Willamette Valley, was one of the "men of Champoeg," and became a widely respected leader in public affairs. He was a candidate for governor in the first election of 1845, but was defeated by George Abernethy.
Its average size is about two and one-half feet long from the point of the nose to the insertion of the tail.—The tail serves the double purpose of steering and assisting it through the water by a quick up and down motion. The hind feet are webbed and the toe next the outside on each has a double nail which serves the purpose of a toothpick to extract the splinters of wood from their teeth. As they are the only animals known to be furnished with nails so peculiarly adapted to the purpose for which they are used.—The hair is of two sorts, the one longer and courser, the other fine, short and silky. The teeth are like those of the rat but are longer and stronger in proportion to the size of the animals—(there are) four gland openings forward of the arms, two containing oil with which they oil their coats, the others containing the castorium, a collection of gummy substance of a yellow color which is extracted from the food of the animal and conveyed through small vessels into the glands. It is this deposit which causes the destruction of the beaver by the hunters. When a beaver, male or female, leaves the lodge to swim about their pond, they go to the bottom and fetch up some mud between their forepaws and breast, carry it on the bank and emit upon it a small quantity of castorium. Another beaver passing the place does the same, and should a hundred beaver pass within the scent of the place, they would each throw up mud covering up the old castorium and emit new upon that which they had thrown up. The trapper extracts this substance from the gland and carries it in a wooden box. He sets his trap in the water near the bank about six inches below the surface, throws a handful of mud upon the bank about one foot from it and puts a small portion of the castorium thereon. After night the beaver comes out of his lodge, smells the fatal bait 200 or 300 yards distant and steers his course directly for it. He hastens to ascend the bank, but the trap grasps his foot and soons drowns him in the struggle to escape, for the beaver, though termed an amphibious animal, cannot respire beneath the water.