Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 26/Extract from Exploration of the Oregon Territory, the Californias, and the Gulf of California, Undertaken during the Years 1840, 1841, and 1842, by Eugene Duflot de Mofras
EXTRACT FROM EXPLORATION OF THE OREGON TERRITORY, THE CALIFORNIAS, AND THE GULF OF CALIFORNIA, UNDERTAKEN DURING THE YEARS 1840, 1841 AND 1842
BY
EUGENE DUFLOT DE MOFRAS
(Translated from the French by Nellie Bowden Pipes)
Introductory Note
Eugene Duflot de Mofras came to Oregon in October, 1841, as an agent of the French government on an errand which appears to have been solely commercial, and to have had no political significance. He had been an attache of the French Embassy at Madrid, but at the close of the year 1839, was transferred to their Legation at Mexico, with the special mission of visiting the provines of Western Mexico; Lower and Upper California, the Russian forts, the British and American posts on the Columbia, and the region of the Columbia River and the Oregon Territory; he was to "ascertain, independently of political considerations," as he himself says, "what advantages might accrue to France from commercial expeditions and the establishment of stations in these regions, still so little known in France."
He arrived at Fort Vancouver in October, 1841. After a sojourn of about six weeks, he took a return passage on the Hudson's Bay Company bark, Cowlitz, sailing December 21.
De Mofras' visit to the French settlement on the Willamette is of especial interest. He was most hospitably received and describes with obvious fidelity and sympathy the manners and customs of these people, their religious and political problems. His reception by the Hudson's Bay Company officers at Fort Vancouver was not over cordial, owing to a misapprehension of the purpose of his visit. His observations of those other than his compatriots were not always accurate, but the value of his narrative stands out as an interesting attempt to set down the condition of the country from the point of view of one who was a Frenchman, first, last, and all the time.
His report included geographic description, history of discoveries, hydrography of the coasts, statistics of the country, customs of the inhabitants and of the Indians.
The following are Chapters VII and VIII of Volume II, of his work which was published in Paris in 1844, by order of the King.
CHAPTER VII
All the forts of the Company are built on almost the same plan; they are in the form of a quadrilateral of one or one hundred and fifty meters[1] along the front, and are surrounded by a stockade six meters high made of logs'; around some of them there runs an upper gallery; at the four corners are bastions armed with four or eight guns of small calibre. These rude fortifications suffice to hold the Indians in awe, and, in case of need, to repulse their attacks. There is not a single English soldier in the Territory of the Company; but in places where the Indians are to be feared the engages are subjected to a sort of military service. In all the forts, except Van Couver and Nesqually, the population is composed only of the English agent, who is in charge of the post, a small number of French Canadian engages, trappers, porters, boatmen, and some Indians and "Bois brules," or half breeds.
Fort Van Couver
The headquarters and the most important of the English establishments is the one founded in 1824 by Doctor John MacLoughlin, and which he named Fort Van Couver. It is situated on the right and north bank of the Columbia River, thirty leagues[2] from its mouth, in a little plain a mile wide and extending two leagues along the river. The ground rises gradually; the lower part is prairie, and the hill is crowned with fine timber. The situation is extremely picturesque; before the fort in the distance extend immense plains covered with verdure; in the foreground, the limpid waters of the river, shaded by gigantic trees, and to the southeast, Mount Hood, whose eternal snows contrast with the sombre color of the pine forests which surround it.
The fort is three hundred meters from the bank; the stockade which looks to the south has a clearing of two hundred and forty by one hundred and thirty meters in depth. There are neither moats, nor armament of any kind; in the middle of the court yard two old spiked cannons only. The wall encloses thirty different buildings: Lodgings of the Governor, the superintendent, and the other employes of the Company and their families; carpenter shops, iron mongery, cooperage, blacksmith shops, storehouses for furs, warehouses for European goods, a pharmacy and a Catholic chapel used as a school. All these buildings are of wood, except the powder magazine, which is of brick and stands by itself. A large kitchen garden filled with fruit trees adjoins the fort, around which are sown annually six hundred hectares.[3] On the shore are the sheds and a dock yard for barges, and boats, and at some hundred steps from the fort, the cabins of the employes. There are also at a short distance a dilapidated shed used as a hospital, barns, two sheep folds, a dairy, stables, granaries and a threshing-mill.
Two kilometers[4] above the fort and on a little ever-running stream, which flows into the Columbia, there has been built a grist mill and a sawmill which can cut three thousand feet of lumber a day. This mill employes a score of workmen, all Sandwich Islanders, and a proportionate number of horses, ox-teams and carts. Not far from the houses, but on the other side of the river are thirty lodges of the Flat Head Indians, who bring to the fort the products of their fishing and hunting. The total population of Fort Van Couver is seven hundred persons, of whom twenty-five are English and one hundred French-Canadian engages with their families. These whites, who for the most part are married to Indian wives, speak only the French tongue. As to the Chinooks, whose huts are in the neighborhood of Van Couver, they use a jargon formed of Indian words mixed with French words and some English expressions. As do all the other Indians of this Territory, the Chinooks distinguish readily at first sight the different nationalities of the whites; they designate the Spaniards of California by the name of Spagnols; and the English by that of Kinjor (corruption of the words King George) as being subjects of King George; they call the Americans Boston, doubtless because almost all of them come from this city; and the French-Canadians, Fransé or Pasayouk, that is to say "white faces," the French being unquestionably the first whites to cross the Rocky Mountains. It is with these last that the Indians associate the most familiarly.
The commercial movement is quite considerable at Fort Van Couver, because this is the point where the products of the other forts of the Territory generally arrive; and it is also from there that the caravans leave, and the brigades which go to distribute the goods to the stations of the interior. The result is that Fort Van Couver, which on the exterior resembles a large farm, surrounded with buildings for agricultural purposes, is in reality, within but a shop and counting-house of the city of London. About fifteen clerks are employed for bartering with the Indians, for making the sales and for the accounts; they assemble at their desks at the sound of a bell, at seven o'clock in the morning, and work there till nine o'clock at night, save for the time necessary for meals, which are taken in common, and are presided over by the governor.
In the evening the young clerks come together to smoke in a room called Bachelor's Hall; each tells of his travels, his adventures, his fights with the Indians; one has been forced to eat his moccasins, another is so sure of his rifle that he takes aim at the bears only in the mouth, so as not to damage the skin; and then sometimes as the Scotch melodies mingle with the Canadian songs, one sees the hardy Highlanders enlivened by the gaiety of the French. The dwellings are a kind of barracks, where nothing recalls the comforts of the English. The furniture consists of a little table, a chair or bench and a camp bed of boards, infested with insects, with two woolen covers. We must say, however, that this modest furnishing would seem superb to any one who has passed two years sleeping in the open air, and whole weeks exploring the rivers in uncovered canoes, in cold and incessant rains. On Sunday the dining room is converted into a chapel, and one of the employes reads the prayers of the Protestant liturgy; the Company had an Anglican minister[5] sent out in 1837, but at the end of two years he was obliged to retire on account of the continual controversies which arose between him and the Scotch Presbyterians. As to the French, they assemble in the chapel for pious readings, assisting at the services, and singing canticles in the absence of any priest. There is now a missionary at Van Couver. Prior to his arrival only a short while ago, those from the Willamette or Nesqually used to come there once a month. The fort is the residence of Doctor MacLoughlin, formerly one of the most active members of the Northwest Company, and now special agent and superintendent of the Hudson's Bay Company for all the territory west of the Rocky Mountains. He, a fervent Catholic, was born at Montreal, of a Scotch father and a French mother. He has been several times to Paris, where his brother, one of our most distinguished doctors, resides, and he professes the warmest sympathy for France. It is to MacLoughlin that the Company owes the extension of its establishments over the region washed by the Pacific Ocean. From the moment of his arrival, his tall figure, majestic countenance, and athletic power impressed the Indians; he married the daughter of Concomly,[6] one of the principal chiefs, and by so doing acquired over all the tribes of the Columbia an influence most favorable for his plans for colonization. In 1824 he founded Van Couver, and since then he has not ceased to give his care to its agricultural development. He favors heartily the immigration of new families from Canada, and the settlement of those Frenchmen who are retired servants of the Company. Dr. MacLoughlin has just laid out in the Willamette Valley the plan of a city to which he has given the name of Oregon, and with one accord the colonists, English, American and French, have offered him provisionally the government of all the Territory. He is aided in his duties by a chief factor, a Scotchman, Mr. James Douglas, a very intelligent young man, who is occupied more especially with the active and mercantile part of the business. Following some travels in California, Mr. Douglas, having, thoroughly understood all the advantages the Company would derive from an establishment in that province, founded a post there in 1841, at the same time that he had those located in the Sandwich Islands.
We arrived at Fort Van Couver on board one of the Company ships, coming from California and furnished with letters of recommendation and credit from Mr. William Rae, son-in-law of Doctor MacLoughlin, an agent of the Company at San Francisco. The Doctor received us cordially; but it must be said that Governor Sir George Simpson, who had been at the fort several days, was at first astonished at our appearance[7] That very evening we had the explanation of the uneasiness that our presence had seemed to cause Governor Simpson. There was at the Fort a member of the United States scientific expedition, Mr. Hale,[8] who had been left at Van Couver for the apparent purpose of studying Indian languages, but in reality to follow the movements of the Company, and later render an account of them to his government. We understood, Mr. Hale and I, that our presence could be nothing but disagreeable to the agents of the Company, who monopolizing all information concerning the Territory in dispute, could see only with a certain displeasure the country explored by two envoys of the French and American governments. Doctor MacLoughlin gave us lodging in the fort, and was full of kind attentions to us, and as soon as the agents of the Company saw that they need not fear any commercial competition on my part, and that I was in no way occupied with mercantile affairs, their anxiety ceased, and they treated me as perfect gentlemen. Sir George Simpson declined to accept the price of my passage on board one of their ships, but I was unwilling to accept the favor and I acquitted faithfully at London all the expenses on land and at sea. All the time I could not help comparing the cold and formal reception of these English merchants with the frank, cordial and I repeat it, truly imperial welcome that I received from the Russian officers at Bodega.
The only event which interested us during our sojourn at Van Couver was an earthquake shock, which occurred December 2, 1841, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We felt three oscillations, of a second at most, and in the direction of north and south.
The Hudson's Bay Company possesses, several days' journey from Fort Van Couver, two important agricultural establishments; these are Forts Nesqually and Kaoulis [Cowlitz.] Fort Nesqually is situated on the little river of that name, which rises at the foot of Mount Rainier, and flows into Puget Sound. The distance from Fort Van Couver to Nesqually is sixty leagues or six daysmarch. To avoid leaving the Columbia and entering the Straits of Fuca, you go down the river to the mouth of the Kaoulis, which you ascend in canoes for some time, and then on horseback to the sea coast.
The fort, built as those we have already described, and armed with several pieces of cannon, encloses the lodgings and the shops. It is built a half league from the sea, which is cut off from view by a wood and a slope of the ground. In the environs they have cleared about two hundred hectares for the Company. The Nesqually River is not more than sixty feet wide. Its banks are bordered with cedars and enormous pines; it is navigable only for small boats; in the summer, and at some leagues from the sea, it can be forded. This river runs in the midst of a large prairie called Mound Prairie, which, over a space of several leagues, is covered with little conical mounds, two to three meters high, and whose formation is due without doubt to volcanic eruptions. The width of Puget Sound is about a half league; its shores, as well as all the surroundings of the fort, present the aspect of a long series of prairies, scattered with clusters of trees, and cut by streams, and the illustrious Van Couver was right in saying before our time that he was leaving to the trained pen of a capable writer the task of describing this magnificent country.[9]
Fort Kaoulis or Cowlitz is situated on the river of that name, in the center of a plain six miles long and about two wide; this river, on the banks of which are found coal and lignite, rises in the sides of Mount Rainier, and emerges into the Columbia, on the right bank, several leagues above its mouth. Its bed, navigable only for barges, is extremely winding; the fallen trees, rocks and rapids which obstruct it make its navigation dangerous. In several places its shores are of perpendicular rock, and these great masses of granite, encumbered with thick forests, give a wild and sombre character to the country; however, as soon as the ground becomes lower, you see fields covered with excellent pasturage. The number of hectares put in cultivation by the direction of the Company is about 100.
The Hudson's Bay Company has no establishment on the Willamette except a little wooden house, kept by one man, and situated at the fall of this river which rises to the southeast in the Sierra Nevada, and empties into the Columbia six miles below and opposite Fort Van Couver. Between its two arms is Ouapatoo [Wapatoo,] or Multnomah Island, now unhabited. Up to twelve leagues from its mouth the course of the Willamette is perfectly navigable for ships of two hundred tons. You encounter at this distance a vertical fall of forty feet, formed of layers of basalt which take up the whole river, the width of which is about four hundred meters. Ships can come to anchor under the fall; the depth at the right is from five to six fathoms. During the summer, when the waters are low, you can see three distinct cascades, and the division of the waters is made by an island and some rocks in the middle of the stream; but during the season of rains and melting snows, the three canals are united and the falling sheet of water extends from bank to bank. It is evident that these falls, possession of which is already assured to the Company, will acquire importance later; with the aid of small canals and by dividing the course of the water, it will be able to put in operation a large number of factories, grist mills and sawmills, already in use in the country. When you arrive at the falls of the Willamette, you are obliged to make a portage of about two hundred paces; you can then go up the river nearly forty leagues. The small tributaries that it receives are also navigable for canoes.
The Hudson's Bay Company having engaged to furnish the posts of Russian America annually 5000 fanegues of wheat (2815 hectoliters[10]), and on the other hand seeing the number of fur bearing animals diminish every year, had to turn its attention to agriculture. It harvests on its own account, at Van Couver, Nesqually and Kaoulis, almost 4000 hectoliters of wheat, 2000 of barley, 2000 of oats, 4000 of peas and 1500 hectoliters of potatoes. As the settlers have no other market for the sale of their products than the forts of the Company, it is apparent that it can impose upon them arbitrarily whatever price it thinks fit. Thus it pays for wheat at the rate of from two and a half or three dollars a hectoliter and even then takes the grain only in exchange for merchandise from England, on which it realizes a considerable additional profit. The Company has in its forts 6000 sheep, 7000 horned cattle and 2000 horses; it sells cattle to the settlers for an average of $40 a head, and when it lends them any cattle it shares the increase with them.
Lumber, dressed and squared, which it sends to the Sandwich Islands, does not bring a large enough price, notwithstanding its mediocre quality, considering the scarcity of export markets. The size of the trees is enormous. All travelers agree on the measurement of some pines reaching a height of 300 feet and having a diameter of 15 to 18 feet; but these trees, growing in an always humid atmosphere generally show a very thick and spongy grain; in summer they are easily seasoned and their flexibility diminished on account of the quantity of water which remains in the pores. We must recognize, however, that oaks of various kinds, ash, birch, alder, aspens, larch, maples, firs and the royal laurels, all of which attain large dimensions, are much less permeable. more pliant and easier to work. It would be, however, very easy to improve the quality of these woods by making them absorb salty or alkaline liquids, according to the skillful process of Dr. Boucherie, a discovery which, once spread abroad, must bring about a lower price of lumber, and thus give a wide extension to civil and naval building.
ARTICLES OF EXPORT
Every year the Company exports to the Sandwich Islands and to London about 600 barrels of salmon. So abundant is this fish in the Columbia River, and consequently so moderate in the price, that the salted fish can easily meet the competition of the fresh salmon from Scotland which is consumed in Great Britain. Whale^ bone and whale oil, smoked buffalo and goat tongue, buffalo hump, castoreum, swansdown and feathers, sealion tusks, and fish glue are important articles of export.
The value of peltries and furs exported by the Hudson's Bay Company it not less than seventy-five or eighty thousand pounds sterling, about two million francs; but this is diminishing every year. On the other hand the original cost of European merchandise given in exchange to the Indians does not exceed eight or ten thousand pounds (two hundred and fifty thousand francs). Beaver skins, which in the interior of the country serve as a kind of money, are estimated on an average at three dollars a piece; they are sold at London at from twenty to twenty-five shillings. Bear skins are worth from one to two pounds sterling; those of the deer and elk, three shillings; lynx from seven to ten shillings; muskrat half a shilling; blue and silver fox from ten to twelve shillings; hair seal, four shillings; fur seal, twenty-five to thirty shillings; fresh water otters, thirty shillings, and sea otters, eight and ten pounds sterling.
Furs exported from America to Europe and coming from the Hudson's Bay Company territories are estimated at more than five million francs, or two hundred thousand pounds sterling, in an ordinary year.[11]
To give an idea of this immense commerce, we will limit ourselves to giving from the official abstract the quantity of principal goods sold at public auction December 20, and January 17, last:
528,000
22,000
4,000
7,000
10,000
7,000
18,000
60,000
1,000
5,000
6,000
50
700
3,000
600
1,000
It is unnecessary to mention other less important articles. In this enumeration beaver and otter skins constitute a very considerable value.
IMPORTS
The articles imported from England by the Company, generally of inferior quality, consist principally of coarse cloths, wearing apparel, ordinary fabrics of various kinds, calico, crockery, glassware, household utensils, common cutlery, copper ornaments for the Indians, carpenters' and joiners' tools. Let us add that if the Company was wrong in selling firearms and powder to the
Indians, it has, at least up to the present, avoided spreading among them the use of spiritous liquors. PUGET SOUND AGRICULTURAL COMPANY
The charter of the Hudson's Bay Company expired in 1842, was renewed and even extended by the British Government, without awaiting the result of the negotiations pending with the cabinet at Washington for the demarcation of the western boundary. In the meantime, the agents residing in America, and who as has been said, are not stockholders, noting the progressive diminution of fur animals, and fearing that the English Government might abandon the left bank of the Columbia, formed among themselves, three years ago, a corporation called the Puget Sound Agricultural Company. They chose in advance the most fertile part of the territory around Puget Sound and its excellent harbors, and there assembled and intrusted to the free settlers five thousand horned cattle and horses and eight thousand sheep. This association is entirely independent of the Hudson's Bay Company; its capital has been increased to one hundred thousand pounds sterling (two million five hundred thousand francs). The chief factors subscribed one thousand pounds each, the principal clerks five hundred, and the apprentices from one hundred to two hundred pounds. Doctor MacLoughlin contributed fifty thousand francs. He is the director of the association and receives as such, five hundred louis a year.[12]
The chief factors, in forming this association, acted with great shrewdness, since whatever may be the outcome of events, they will be masters of the richest part of the territory and of its best port; they have at their disposal, from now on, excellent lands, which they can transfer, or cattle, which they can sell to new settlers, and as a writer, an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, has well said: "The English establishment on the shores of Puget Sound is the nucleus of a future empire in the far west."[13]
In the hope of realizing large profits from the raising of sheep, the company bought six thousand in California and imported rams of a superior breed from Scotland. No country, indeed, is better suited to the breeding and raising of wool-bearing animals; the mildness of the Puget Sound climate allows the flocks to remain outside all winter, where they find abundant feed in fields covered in all seasons with thick grass. Dr. MacLoughlin, who is a distinguished agriculturist, hopes before many years to obtain wools of equal quality with those of Saxony and Scotland. English manufacturers, alarmed at the formidable competition which has sprung up in France, Switzerland, and the United States, even, in spinning and weaving cotton materials, have applied themselves for several years with special care to the making of woolen goods. The consumption of this material has so increased that the quantities furnished by the European markets have been insufficient; the colonists of New Holland and the Cape of Good Hope, who are devoted to this branch of commerce, have profited by this scarcity to send their products to Europe and realize immense profits. Now California and Puget Sound are in a condition no less favorable for placing advantageously in Europe the wools that their flocks, once improved, will be able to produce.
The most interesting of the white population in this territory are the French-Canadian settlers, retired servants of the Company, who, as we have said, have taken up lands which they work on their own account. The three principal points they occupy are the region of Puget Sound, near Fort Nesqually, the shores of the Kaoulis River, not far from the fort of that name, and the plains along the banks of the Willamette above the falls. At Puget Sound, as at Fort Van Couver, you can count a population of from six to seven hundred souls, of whom more than three-fourths are free settlers; at Kaoulis, six hundred individuals, five hundred of whom are free settlers, and forty families of engages; in the Willamette Valley about two thousand persons, all free settlers. Each year a certain number who are not employes come from Canada. At the close of 1841, thirty arrived from the Red River colony; nearly half of them have settled on the Willamette. The Company does not have its land cultivated by its servants in this part of the country. The French have been established on the Willamette since 1831;[14] if they have not the advantages of a harbor, as those at Nesqually have, they possess as compensation a land more fertile, they enjoy a milder climate, and above all they have more than the others the valuable convenience of easy access to California to procure cattle of all kinds. In a favorable season this journey can easily be made in three months as it is not more than four hundred leagues going and coming.
Having examined this valley with the utmost care, we remarked not without pleasure the eagerness with which the Frenchmen of Canada come, sometimes several leagues, to see a Frenchman from France, as they call us. One of them told us that his family had come from Normandy to Canada with the Marquis of Beauharnais, another that his grandfather had served in the Queen's regiment; they asked us a thousand questions about France, and expressed their keen desire to be reunited with her, and they wished while waiting to know that she was strong and prosperous. Whenever we stopped at their farms we were sure of finding the freest hospitality; they lent us their best horses and served us as guides on our explorations. Two European Frenchmen live at the Willamette; these are Mr. Haiguet of Saint Malo, and Mr. Jacquet, of Havre, men about thirty years old, former sailors, who furnished us useful information.
We will give the names of the principal free Canadians residing on the banks of the Willamette, in the neighborhood of a landing place called Campment du Sable.[15] Most of the settlements are situated between the Yamhill, Luckiamute and Mice Rivers,[16] which empty at the left into the Willamette; however, there are some settlers on the right bank between the Santiam and Pudding River. All these streams are suitable for grist mills and sawmills. PRINCIPAL FRENCH-CANADIAN SETTLERS ON THE WILLAMETTE
† For the Mission of St. Paul. * This sign indicates the settlers who signed a petition addressed to the Congress of the United States, and of which we will speak later. — de Mofras. At the beginning of 1843[17] the French settlers on the Willamette possessed 3000 beef cattle, 1800 horses, 3000 swine and 500 sheep; they harvested during the year 10,000 hectoliters of wheat, and 3000 of leguminous and other grains; such as oats, peas and beans. The yield of these grains gives an average return of twelve for one, and the soil produces at least eight hectoliters a hectare. The colonists sell their harvest to the Hudson's Bay Company, which gives them European merchandise, iron and farm implements in exchange. Some of them have set up grist mills and sawmills on the numerous streams which water the valley. Others, and particularly Stanislas Jacquet, go to California nearly every year to buy cattle and horses. In the proper season they trap the small number of beavers which still remain, and prepare the furs and skins, but their principal occupation is agriculture.
Although the great majority of settlers have married Indian wives, the French language is the only one in use in the colony. Rapids, cascades, all the dangerous places bear French names: la Porte de l'enfer, la Course de Satan, le Passage du Diable, les Comes du Demon, and other witticisms drawn from the vocabulary of the Canadian hunters. During our visit to the Willamette with Governor Simpson, we could not help noticing the painful impression the Canadians experienced in seeing themselves governed by a person of a race and religion different from their own, and who did not even speak the same language. Several farmers, indeed, when Sir George said to them in English, "How do you do"—replied, "We do not speak English; we are all French here."
The Canadians, furthermore, are in the habit of considering as really superior only that which comes from France; they allow this prejudice to show in the least things; thus it is that they call the finest breed of domestic ducks, French ducks; shoes of English leather, French shoes; the pound sterling, the louis; Europe, France, and all the whites, French. The Indians themselves carry this belief to such an extreme, that an old guide, an Iroquois halfbreed, on being asked where a beautiful gun that he carried on his shoulder had been made, answered that it came from the old France of London. The name of Napoleon is not unknown to them; several of them have given it to their children. All the houses of the settlement are made of wood, and the tillable lands surrounded with light fences and hedges. At each of the places occupied by the white population there is a Mission, which serves as a sort of center for the French Canadians.
Until 1838 the Protestant agents of the Hudson's Bay Company prevented our priests from crossing the Rocky Mountains, but at that time,, and at the request of the Bishop of Juliopolis, Monseigneur Provencher, residing at the Red River Colony, the Hudson's Bay Company consented to grant a passage to Mr. Blanchet, vicar-general of the Bishopric of Quebec, and also to the Abbe Demers, in their canoes, with the brigade of the annual express from Montreal to the Columbia river.[18]
The funds necessary for the establishment of these two missionaries were furnished by the Association for the Propagation of the Faith, of France, which sends annually to Monseigneur Provencher twenty thousand francs for the missions of Hudson's Bay. This prelate gives eight thousand francs of this sum to the missionaries of the Columbia river. It will be learned, not without interest, that considerable sums are sent from France each year for the missions of British America, and particularly for our former provinces of Acadia and New France. The funds collected during these last years for the British Possessions in America alone have reached nearly two hundred thousand francs a year.[19]
Messrs. Blanchet and Demers, leaving Montreal in May, 1838, arrived at Fort Van Couver at the end of November of the same year.[20] They were actively engaged in founding missions among the natives, and in re-establishing order among the French Canadians who had been left to themselves. These two ecclesiastics now had five missions: one at Puget Sound, near Fort Nesqually, the mission of Saint Francis Xavier on the Kaoulis River; Saint Mary for the Chinook Indians of Fort Van Couver; Saint Louis, King of France, at Willamette falls; and Saint Paul, on the left bank of this river, in the midst of the farms of the French Canadians. On the excursions that I made with the worthy Abbe Blanchet to the falls of the Willamette, he asked me to whom he should dedicate this mission. I did not think I could suggest a name more glorious for France than that of our sainted King Louis.
At the three missions of Nesqually, Saint Francis Xavier, and Saint Paul, lands have been reserved especially for extension of the missions. At the first two they have kept three hundred hectares, and at Saint Paul have chosen a magnificent valley, fifteen hectares long by seventy deep, divided between woods and prairies, and having several water courses where they can set up mills. Hired farmers cultivate these fields, the produce of which is used for the relief of widows and orphans, and for the founding of schools and apprentice shops for adults. The aid that Messrs. Blanchet and Demers receive from France not sufficing for the creation of these establishments, the diocese of Quebec made up the deficiency by sending during these last three years an annual contribution of one hundred louis. Dr. MacLoughlin generously furnished an equal sum from his private purse. A year ago two French priests, MM. Langlois and Bolduc, came by sea to the Columbia river to aid the missionaries. These clergymen are in harmonious relations with the Spanish Franciscans of California, the French Jesuits stationed on the upper waters of the Missouri, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and our mission at the Sandwich Islands. The influence of the missionaries over the Indians is considerable. It is not unusual to see the natives travel a distance of one hundred and fifty to two hundred leagues to become acquainted with the Black Gowns, the Great Chiefs of France, as they call our missionaries. As to the free Canadians situated in the vicinity of the missions, it must be said to their credit that in the absence of civil authority they voluntarily accept that of the French priests, which is wholly paternal. These instruct their children, adjust their differences and make the division of their lands.
We witnessed during our sojourn at Saint Paul on the Willamette a touching example of this patriarchial justice. A French Canadian was accused of having stolen a horse from an American and confessed his fault. A council of the heads of families, presided over by Abbe Blanchet, condemned him to restore the horse to its owner, and besides to remain three months at the door of the church during the services, without being permitted to enter. This man having submitted docilely to the ordeal for two Sundays, Abbe Blanchet, after a short address, went to seek him, led him into the church, embraced him with tears in his eyes and had him sit among the other settlers. It is at least doubtful whether the punishment inflicted in a like circumstance by a civil judge would have produced as efficacious a result; besides, this paternal correction had the great advantage of not leaving any scar on the person who had received it.
MISSION OF SAINT PAUL
If at Fort Van Couver we were received as a foreigner, at the mission of Saint Paul Abbe Blanchet welcomed us as a compatriot and a brother; and we felt again a keen joy in finding on these distant shores, in a country where France has allowed herself to be deprived of all her rights, a parish and villages which reminded us of those of our own provinces. But we must confess to a painful impression that we felt when on Sunday, in the church where six hundred Canadians were assembled, we heard a French priest say in French to a congregation entirely French: "Let us pray for our Holy Father the Pope, and for our well beloved Queen Victoria." After mass we asked Mr. Blanchet the reason of this strange prayer; he answered that it was enjoined on the priests to make it publicly once a month under pain of removal.
The Hudson's Bay Company sees, not without apprehension, the establishment of new families of free Frenchmen. It would like for the colonization to develop on the right bank of the Columbia. The Company fears that the free population of the Willamette will escape it some day, especially since in March, 1838, at the instigation of Mr. Lee, head of the American Methodists, a petition signed by twenty-seven Americans and nine of the principal French Canadian settlers was addressed to Congress to claim the protection of the United States Government and invite it to take possession of the territory.[21] The nine French settlers, signers of this petition, are the oldest and richest, and it does not seem unlikely that their example may lead others to free themselves from English authority and the monopoly of the Company. It must be said also that most of the settlers at the Willamette have trapped beaver a long time in California, in the Sacramento valley and San Francisco Bay; they all know that that country is preferable to this on account of its fertility, and its freedom from malarial fevers, which sometimes decimate the population of the Willamette, and the greater part of them would ask nothing better than to go there and stay if they were sure of finding there efficient protection.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Americans, as well as the English, early appreciated the expediency of founding establishments on the Northwest coast; and before going into the diplomatic question we will describe rapidly their possessions in these parts, and give a history of them.
For a long time the problem of communication between the two coasts of America had occupied our governors of New France and the Mississippi. In 1674, Count Frontenac, thinking that the Mississippi emptied into the Gulf of California, had ordered Joliet to explore it. It was the realization of this same idea that dictated the voyages of Father Hennepin and of Lassalle [La Salle]. In one of his journeys to Hudson's Bay, about 1699, d'Iberville finding himself at Fort Bourbon and thinking that by traveling westward he would be able to gain the Western ocean, for this purpose sent one of his officers named Renaudon; but he was stopped by ice and returned to Fort Bourbon.[22]
Even before the negotiations undertaken with France for the sale of Louisiana, President Jefferson dreamed of making an examination of the upper waters of the Missouri in order to assure himself whether it was possible to reach the Pacific Ocean, either by the Columbia or Colorado rivers, and to establish direct and practical communication for commerce across the American continent. In his message of January 18, 1803, the President submitted for the approval of Congress the names of Captains Lewis and Clark as being the most likely to fulfil this mission, and here it may be remarked that the treaty of the Louisiana Purchase was signed on the 30th of April of the same year.[23]
This sale, forever to be deplored, took place by virtue of a decree of the First Consul, on April 3, requiring the sum of seventy-five million francs, payable by the United States. Of this sum, nearly 30 millions were used to indemnify the citizens of the Union who had claims against us for the capture of neutral ships in previous wars. The remainder was delivered in specie into the hands of the French commission and on December 23, 1803, the prefect of New Orleans, M. de Laussat, made the official transfer of the whole of Louisiana to the American governor, Mr. Claiborne. If the cabinet of France committed an irreparable error, thaj; of Washington gave proof of the wisest foresight; it hastened to terminate so advantageous an affair, and contracted without delay a loan, at six per cent, to acquit itself toward us. Thus for the miserable sum of nine million dollars France lost her last possession on the New Continent, this province which gave her command, to the south and west, of the Gulf of Mexico and the Spanish vice-royalty, while on the north, by the upper waters of the Mississippi, she reached Canada, and could in case of war, if not reunite it to the mother country, at least aid it in delivering itself from the abhorred domination of the English.
The American officers penetrated to the Missouri, May 14, 1804, crossed the Rocky Mountains, and November 15, 1805, arrived at Cape Disappointment, at the mouth of the Columbia river, after having come down the south branch of that stream. They erected near Youngs Bay a wooden house which they called Fort Klatsop. The whole American expedition departed for the United States March 4, 1806.[24] This same year, fur traders of the United States, thinking to profit by the advantages which seemed to be promised by the expedition of Lewis and Clark, established at Saint Louis, under the direction of Don Manuel Lisa, a Spanish merchant, a company under the name of the Missouri Fur Company. The agents of this company explored the upper Missouri and even succeeded in reaching, beyond the Rocky Mountains, one of the small rivers forming the source of the Snake river, south branch of the Columbia. Mr. Henry, the head of the expedition, had founded a post on one of these rivers; but repeated attacks of the Indians and want of food forced him to abandon it in 1810.
In the course of this same year, Jacob Astor, German merchant at New York, formed the association known as the Pacific Fur Company. The object of this company was to trade direct with China and to take from the London companies the monopoly in furs. The admirable plan of Mr. Astor was worthy of greater success. Washington Irving, in his delightful work has given us an account of the two expeditions, by land and by sea, too popular for it to be necessary to repeat it here. The ship Tonquin, sent by Mr. Astor, arrived in the Columbia at the close of March, 1811, and on the left bank of the river, a little distance from the hut where Lewis and Clark had wintered, the expedition put up a fort, or factory, called Astoria, in honor of the head of the enterprise.[25]
In 1813 war broke out between England and the United States, and October 16, of the same year the establishment of Astoria, together with the furs and merchandise that it contained, was sold by the agent of Mr. Astor to the emissaries of the North-West Company, which had also erected forts along the Columbia. On December 1, the sloop-of-war, Racoon entered the river, and on the 12th, Captain Black, of the British navy, took solemn possession of Astoria, which thereafter was called Fort George. The Americans were in complete ignorance of this when they signed with Great Britain the treaty of Ghent, December 24, 1814.
Fort George was in the form of a parallelogram forty-five by seventy-five meters, surrounded by a wooden palisade. The factory comprised divers buildings and sixty-five persons of all nations and colors, of whom twenty-six Were Sandwich Islanders. The fort was defended by two pieces of 18, two short cannon of 6, and seven swivel guns. Neither the agents of the American government nor those of Mr. Astor occupied Fort George, which was returned to them two years later, and the Pacific Fur Company ceased to exist.[26]
In 1822, Astor founded a new company under the title of the North-American Company. This company limited its operations at first to the vicinity of the Great Lakes and the headwaters of the Mississippi; it extended them to the Yellow Stone river, and ended by uniting with another concern called the Columbia Fur Company. Mr. Ashley, of Saint Louis, Missouri, who had established a station on the Yellow Stone in 1823, sent a party of about a hundred trappers beyond the Rocky Mountains near the headwaters of the Colorado, toward the forty-second degree of latitude. Though these employes had disputes with those of the Hudson's Bay Company, Mr. Ashley collected in the space of three years one hundred and eighty thousand dollars worth of furs. In 1827 he dispatched sixty armed men, with one cannon, and some wagons drawn by mules, in the direction of the Rocky Mountains. These gay adventurers at this time discovered the South Pass, situated between the headwaters of the Platte on the East, and the Colorado on the West, and set up a post on the shore of Lake Timpanogos of the Spaniards, (Salt Lake of the Utah Indians), entirely Mexican territory.
At the same time, Sublette, Smith, and Jackson, of Saint Louis, Missouri, acquired Ashley's stations and interests and organized the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, for the purpose of establishing a regular traffic with the country watered by the Columbia and Colorado rivers. The activities of the fur traders of Saint Louis gave new impetus to the enterprises of the North American Company, which also extended its operations beyond the Rocky Mountains, as well as some independent parties of adventurers. In Febraury, 1829, Mr. Green,[27] sent by the Protestant committee of Boston, had the special mission of examining the Northwest coast from Sitka to California, and he proposed the sending of Methodist ministers to the Columbia river.[28]
Between 1832 and 1834 Captain Bonneville, of the United States Army, got together a company of more than a hundred men, and with twenty wagons and a great number of mules and horses loaded with goods, he traded during two years on the Upper Missouri and the south branch of the Columbia.[29] In 1834, several persons from New York and Boston formed the Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company. Captain Wyeth took command of the expedition by land, while a ship was sent by sea to the Columbia. He was accompanied by five Methodist ministers, with their wives,[30] under orders of Mr. Lee; a learned naturalist, Mr. Townsend, and a distinguished botanist, Mr. Nuttall.[31] Captain Wyeth passed by Fort Hall, erected a short time before by the North American Company[32] on the Port Neuf river, one of the upper tributraies of the south branch of the Columbia. Arrived at the Columbia, he chose some land between the two branches of the Willamette on Multnomah island,[33] where in November, 1834, he set up a factory built of wood and called it Fort William, but was forced to abandon these points immediately, as he was not able to endure the competition of the Hudson's Bay Company. Fort William no longer exists, and Fort Hall is occupied by the Hudson's Bay Company, which bought it from the Americans.[34] Mr. Lee and the Methodists were located at various points on the Willamette and Columbia. In 1835, Messrs. Parker and Whitman, Baptist ministers,[35] were despatched by the committee at Boston to found establishments on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. Mr. Parker arrived at the Columbia in October, 1835, explored the country and returned to the United States to make a report on his mission.[36]
On November 11, 1835, Mr. Forsyth, Secretary of Foreign Affairs at Washington, commissioned Mr. Slacum of the United States Navy, to proceed to Oregon Territory and examine the state of the existing settlements, their population, the sentiment of the inhabitants toward the United States, Russia and England, and to collect finally, all the information, political, statistical and geographic, which might seem to be of interest to the government. Mr. Slacum left San Bias October 10, 1836, and arrived in the Columbia river December 22. On March 26, following, he addressed his report to the Cabinet at Washington. Slacum's voyage was made at the expense of the government, and cost thirty thousand francs.[37]
In 1838, a company from Saint Louis, Missouri, sent Messrs. Johnson and Giger[38] to the Columbia to explore the territory of Oregon, and make a survey of the commercial enterprises that might be undertaken there. In August of the same year, a society was formed at Boston, under the name of the Oregon Provisional Emigration Society; it is still publishing a periodical called The Oregonian. Its object is not only to instruct the Indians and to teach them husbandry and the mechanical arts, but also to aid emigration and the settlement of families from the United States in the disputed territory, to induce them to take up agriculture, salmon fishing, silk culture, the cultivation of hemp and flax, and commerce in lumber and furs. All the expenses of the society are divided equally among its members, but the annual assessment might not exceed three dollars.[39] In 1839, Mr. Kelley[40] undertook a journey for the same purpose by order of the Methodist committee of Boston. Finally, January 5, 1839, Mr. Poinsett, Secretary of War, made the following answer to Mr. Cushing, to the questions which had been put to him by the Committee of Foreign Affairs of Congress:
War Department, January 5, 1839.Sir: In reply to the inquiries of the Committee on Foreign Relations contained in your letter of the 26th ultimo, I have the honor to state that, in my opinion, not less than a battalion, consisting of four or five companies, ought to be sent on the service contemplated by the bill under your consideration. The troops, on arriving at their destination, will be without cover or shelter of any description, and may be exposed to the attacks of the surrounding Indians before then can erect even field works to protect themselves. They ought, therefore, to be in sufficient numbers to furnish guards, and to take the necessary measures of defense while the work of erecting a fort and buildings for the troops is going on. The expense of an additional battalion, for raising and maintaining it for one year will amount to $98,952. I say additional, because to abstract so large a number of men from the army in the present state of the country, when there are so many calls for regular troops, and the frontiers exposed to attack are so insufficiently guarded, would be imminently to increase the danger of a border war. Without more knowledge of the country than we possess, it is difficult, if not impracticable, to form a just estimate of the cost of erecting a fort sufficient for the protection of the troops in time of peace, and to answer the purposes of defence at the breaking out of a war. An experienced officer of engineers ought to be sent out with the expedition, and $50,000 appropriated to erect a fort. The troops ought to be furnished with subsistence for one year; and I would recommend that about thirty laborers, and an overseer, conversant with husbandry, be employed to accompany the detachment, who would be able, in that fertile region, to raise, with the aid of the soldiers themselves, an abundance of stock and grain for the future maintenance of the troops. These men might probably be hired for twenty dollars a month, and the overseer for eighty-five dollars; which would be $8,220 a year for labor. Add to this $1,800 for implements of agriculture, and $2,000 for stock, making altogether $12,020 for the first year, and thereafter $8,220, or allowing for contingencies $9,000 a year, to produce the necessary annual subsistence of the men.
Whether the forces to be sent out are to consist of additional troops, or to be taken from the line of the army, they ought to be recent recruits, raised for the purpose, both to prevent the renewing them oftener than once in four years, to avoid the expense of transportation; and that care may be taken to enlist as many mechanics as practicable. It might be expedient to offer, both to the laborers and recruits, a tract of land in Oregon, as a reward for four years' faithful services there.
A moderate increase in our Pacific squadron, of two vessels of light draught of water, would, in my opinion, be sufficient in aid of land forces; and both together would afford all the protection required by any settlement likely to be made for some time to come, on or near the Columbia river.
I transmit, herewith, an estimate of the expenses of the expedition, and of the annual cost of maintaining it.
Very respectfully, your most obedient servant,
Poinsett.
Estimate of the expense of establishing a military post on the Columbia river, and the annual cost of maintaining it with a force consisting of five companies, 375 strong.
$3,905
32,760
25,915
11,006
19,987
1,020
7,200
1,800
2,000
50,000
17,690
1,184
25,000
25,000
$224,467
If the troops and supplies are carried in Government vessels from Panama to the Columbia river, the expenses of transportation would be about $20,000 less. And if they are sent in transports from the United States, round Cape Horn, to the Columbia river, the whole expense of transportation would amount to about $43,000.
After the first year, the annual cost of maintaining the post would be as follows:
$32,760
11,006
19,987
1,607
9,000
$74,360
To the Honorable Mr. Cushing, member of the Committee of Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives.[41]
Independently of the letter of the Secretary of War, Mr. Cushing received another January 7th, from Mr. Paulding, Secretary of the Navy, to whom he had addressed the same questions. Mr. Paulding also expressed the opinion that the best protection to give to the citizens of the United States in Oregon Territory would consist in the permanent establishment of a military post, occupied by a force of five or six hundred men; he added that he had given orders to Lieutenant Wilkes, commanding the Exploring Expedition, to make a careful survey of the Northwest coast, the Straits of Juan de Fuca, the Columbia river, the coast included between this river and California, and very especially the port of San Francisco, represented as one of the finest in the world. He says also that he has ordered the commander of the Pacific squadron to employ a sloop-of-war to make observations in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which includes a port (Puget Sound), the occupation of which he thinks very important, in order to convert it into a station for ships of war, in view of the dangers which these shores present for ships of all classes. Mr. Paulding thinks also that the addition of two sloops, having for their object the re-enforcement of the Pacific squadron, woud aid efficiently in the defense of the Oregon Territory, and enable the Commander of the squadron fully to carry out the instructions already given him relative to the Gulf of California and the Northwest coast of America. The Secretary concludes by saying that the sum of $150,000 would seem to him sufficient for the purpose.
In 1840, an American lawyer, Mr. Farnham, went overland to the Columbia on a semi-official mission for his Government. He induced the American and French Canadian settlers on the Willamette to ask of Congress the protection of the United States, and he also gathered some interesting information concerning the country.[42]
In June, 1841, the American squadron[43] visited almost all the territory and in September left at Fort Van Couver Mr. Hale, of whom we have spoken. Last year Lieutenant Fromont,[44] who by order of the Senate had already completed an exploratory mission east of the Rocky Mountains, set off again with a company of emigrants, who were traveling to the Columbia. Since the 12th of May, 1792,[45] the day that Captain Gray of Boston first entered the Columbia, very few American merchant ships have visited this river. After the fruitless expeditions of Astor, there remains to be cited only that of Captain Dominis, who, in 1829, in spite of the opposition of the Hudson's Bay Company, was able to take on board the brigs Owyhee and Convoy, more than eighty thousand dollars worth of furs. Terrible fevers were decimating the Indian population and the Americans claimed that the Company caused the rumor to be spread among the natives that it was their ships that had brought the malady. In 1834, the American brig May Dacre, Captain Lambert, belonging to Mr. Wyeth, who had come overland, tried to procure a cargo of salmon, but he could assemble only a few barrels on account of the opposition of the English company, even though he had promised its agents that he would not buy furs of the Indians. The brig Loriot which, In 1834, the American brig May Dacre, Captain Lambert, Government, did not carry on any trade. It only transported to California some Americans who were going there to buy cattle, and among others, Messrs. Young and Carmichael,[46] who had set up a distillery in the Willamette Valley; but the Hudson's Bay Company and the principal French and American settlers having felt how injurious the manufacture of spirits would be, not only to the Indians, but to the whites themselves, succeeded by means of an indemnity in persuading the two manf acturers to abandon their baleful trade.
In 1840, the American ships Lausanne and Maryland entered the Columbia for a cargo of salmon and some peltries; but their operations were no more fortunate than those of the brig Perkins which in the summer of the following year came into the river with the intention of trading with the natives and was bought by Wilkes, commander of the American expedition, armed as a warship and named the Oregon, and used for carrying the equipment of the sloop Peacock, lost on the bar. However, at the end of September, 1842, an American trading ship was able to get a fairly large cargo of salted salmon; it sailed for the Sandwich Islands, carrying away seven Methodists and their families.[47]
Here ends the series of land and sea expeditions sent to this Territory, whether by order of the Government of the United States, by companies, or by private individuals. The official documents cited by us are enough to show the importance attached by the Cabinet at Washington to the possession of these vast regions.
Jason Lee, head of the Methodist Americans, and his brother,[48] Daniel Lee, were the first to settle, during the autumn of 1834, on the plains of the Willamette, where before long they were joined by eight of their confreres—Abernethy, Whitman, Leslie, Perkins, Frost, Khun, Gray and White,[49] who settled, some at Clatsop, near Point Adams, at the mouth of the Columbia, and at Willamette Falls, others at Nesqually, at the fort of the Nez Perces, and at Fort Colville.
This last station is very important for the English Company; it is situated on the left bank of the Columbia river, three days' journey above the river of the Flat Heads. Fort Colville was erected in the midst of a plain of fifteen hundred hectares square, which constitutes the only land fit for cultivation on the Columbia above Van Couver. The Company has there two farms, a blacksmith shop, a mill, one hundred beeves, and some horses; it harvests about twelve hundred hectoliters of wheat, barley, peas and oats, and a great many potatoes. It is this place that furnishes the forts of the North and West the greatest part of their provisions.
Most of the Methodist and Baptist[50] ministers are married; they live in little wooden houses; but they gather about them so small a number of Indians that at the end of 1842[51] nearly all of them left for the Sandwich Islands on board English and American ships, regarding their presence as useless in Oregon. Let us say in passing that the Hudson's Bay Company and its agents at the Sandwich Islands always grant passage on their boats readily and gratuitously to the Methodists, their attendants, and generally to all Americans who go either from the Columbia to the Islands or from the Islands to the Northwest coast. English ships do not refuse even to transport without expense cases of merchandise belonging to the Methodists. It is plain that this apparent generosity has no other object than to avoid at any price the presence of United States ships in the Columbia, of which the Company claims to hold the monopoly.
The principal establishment of the Americans is that of the Willamette, where Abernethy and Whitman[52] reside with Lee. These gentlemen have founded a hospital and a school; they engage in agriculture, and have two flour mills and a saw mill, managed by Mr. Beers[53], a carpenter. The unrestricted liberty that reigns in the United States is too well known for any one to suppose that the character of the Methodists is purely religious. Several of them have been induced to come to Oregon only for commercial or agricultural business. Almost all of them collect an allowance made by the committee at Boston.
Mr. Lee has established a farm of considerable size, where he has about eighty hectares of enclosed land, and where he harvests two hundred hectoliters of wheat, and as much of leguminous grains and potatoes. We saw in his school about twenty children of every kind, who are taught English, and who are put to work in the fields and at the duties of the farm. Mr. Lee is the most important personage of all the Americans in Oregon; it was he who in 1839 addressed to Congress the petition of which we have spoken, asking for a civil magistrate or governor to protect the citizens of the United States, who, he said, form the germ of a great State.[54]
Mr. Lee is in close touch with his compatriot, Mr. Bingham, head of the Methodists of the Sandwich Islands, known in France for the odious persecution which 'he caused to be exercised against our missionaries, Abbes Bachelot, Short and Maigret. He maintains some relations also with the American merchants of the Islands; but all other American citizens have commercial relations only with the Hudson's Bay Company. However, in January, 1842, four American carpenters occupying a wooden hut left by the United States squadron near the mouth of the river, succeeded in constructing a little schooner of twenty tons, which they named the Young Oregon,[55] and with which they hoped to do some trading with California. It is doubtful if such a feeble ship can withstand the sea, and as to isolated commercial expeditions of Americans, we hesitate to believe that with their limited means they can seriously compete with the English company, whose power is strengthened by considerable capital and an excellent organization.
The American settlers are concentrated on the left bank of the Willamette near Lee's station. They constituted in the last months of 1842 a population of one hundred and fifty individuals, which, joined to those attached to the Methodists, makes a total of two hundred souls for the entire American population in the territory in dispute, while the Franco-English population subject partly to the Hudson's Bay Company increased at the same time to at least three thousand persons. Nearly all the Americans belong to the hardy class of backwoodsmen from the western United States. They arrived on the Columbia overland, having for the most part for all their goods only their rifle, and have married Indian wives. These are men courageous and patient, more skilful at hunting, wood cutting and carpentering than at agriculture. Some families, however, have come with wagons by the South Pass, and both in the territory and in the United States one may expect to see before many years a wave of immigrant population carried beyond the Rocky Mountains; but up to the present, as has been seen in the course of this work, it is rather towards the old Spanish provinces of Texas, New Mexico and Upper California that this movement has operated.
The Americans know that these southern provinces are much superior to the Northern regions of Oregon, and that besides a milder climate and a more fertile soil they possess inexhaustible mineral treasures. Nevertheless, it is seen from the foregoing that in these disputed territories the Americans are still very far from possessing the same elements of population, ships, commerce and agriculture which constitute the strength of the Hudson's Bay Company, representing the English interests.
- ↑ A meter is 39.37 inches.
- ↑ A league is 2½ miles.
- ↑ A hectare is 2.471 acres.
- ↑ A kilometer is 0.6214 miles.
- ↑ Rev. Herbert Beaver, sent to Vancouver in 1836. He returned to England in 1838.
- ↑ Mr. de Mofras was mistaken in this. Dr. McLoughlin married Mrs. Margaret Bruce MacKay, widow of Alexander MacKay, who was killed on the Tonquin in 1811. She was three-fourths Scotch and one-fourth Chippewa.
- ↑ "Among other unwelcome visitors here this year is a Frenchman named Eugene du Flot de Mofras, describing himself as an attache of the French Embassy at Mexico; he says he was directed by his government to make a tour through California, and to visit this river if possible; but we have only his word for the accuracy of his statements. This person, it appears, made application to Mr. Rae for passage on the Cowlitz to this place, which *I regret to say he very inconsiderately granted. His desire, I have reason to believe, was to have obtained passage through the interior to Canada; but I imagine the coolness of his reception here has prevented his making application for that passage, and as we cannot get rid of him in any other way, he returns to California in the Cowlitz as our fellow-passenger."—Letter of Sir George Simpson, November 25, 1841.
"The Cowlitz was reported to be off the bar; and soon afterwards her papers came up by boat from Fort George along with a passenger of the name of de Mofras, who represented himself, for he had no credentials, as an attache of the French embassy in Mexico. Though this gentleman professed to be collecting information for the purpose of making a book, yet, with the exception of accompanying us to the Willamette, he scarcely went ten miles from the comfortable quarters of Fort Vancouver, while in conversation he was more ready to dilate on his own equestrian feats than to hear what others might be able to tell him about the country or the people."—Simpson Journey, v. I, p. 245.
- ↑ Horatio Hale, philologist of the Wilkes expedition.
- ↑ "To describe the beauties of this region, will, on some future occasion be a very grateful task to the pen of a skillful panegyrist."— Vancouver's Voyage, 1798, v. 1, p. 259.
- ↑ A hectoliter is 2.75 bushels.
- ↑ See MacCulloch's Dictionary of Commerce; and Silliman's Journal:
On the fur trade.—V. 25, p. 34.
Importations by the Hudson's Bay Company, London, 1843, 1844. —de Mofras.
- ↑ About $2300.00.
- ↑ Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America, by Thomas Simpson, Vol 1, p. 18.—de Mofras.
- ↑ Etienne Lucier and Joseph Gervais were there in 1828.—Ore. Hist. Quar. 1:175. Ore. Pioneer Trans. 1879, p. 21.
- ↑ Champoeg. Wilkes and Slacum call this place Camp Maud du Sable.
- ↑ Mice River is probably Mary's River. Joel Palmer in his Journal, p. 93, mentions a Mouse River. See also Oregon historical quarterly, v. 24, p. 249; and Carey's History of Oregon, p. 418n.
- ↑ De Mofras was here in 1841, but as his book was not published until 1844, he had opportunity to get additional information.
- ↑ See Annals of the Propagation of the Faith, 1842, No. 82, p. 171.—de Mofras.
F. N. Blanchet to John McLoughlin, St. Paul, Ore., Jan. 25, 1854. " This desire to see the country settled I noticed in you in the month of June, 1838, when, en route for London, you learned with deep regret, at Fort Garry on the Red River, that the Rev. Mr. Demers and myself would be allowed to enter Oregon on the boats of the Honorable Company only on the condition that we would not form any settlement except North of the Columbia, which was then considered the English side. This desire, induced you to exert your influence in London, which obtained the withdrawal of the condition put upon our passage. Hence the happy result of our first settlement in the Willamette Valley in the autumn of 1839." Ms. in Oregon Historical Society.
- ↑ See the report of the Association of the Propagation. Montreal, 1841. p. 58.—de Mofras.
- ↑ Blanchet and Demers arrived at Fort Vancouver November 24, 1838, but according to their agreement with the Hudson's Bay Company, established no missions south of the Columbia until the autumn of 1839. See note 18.
- ↑ Documents of the 25th Congress, No. 101, page 4.—de Mofras. This petition was dated March 16, 1838, and signed "J. L. Whitcomb and thirty-five others." It was written by Philip L. Edwards, who had come out in 1834 with Jason Lee.
- ↑ Naval archives. Documents of New France.— de Mofras.
- ↑ See Greenhow, Memoir, historical and political, p. 152.—de Mofras.
- ↑ Journal of the Expedition across the Rocky Mountains, by Lewis and Clark, Phil. 1814. See also the excellent work of Maj. Poussin, The American Power of the United States. Paris, 1843, v. 1, p. 280.—de Mofras.
- ↑ See Astoria, or Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains. New York, 1834.—de Mofras.
- ↑ See Greenhow. Memoir, hist, and polit. op. cit., page 168.—de Mofras.
See Greenhow. Meoir hist, and polit. op. dr., page 168.—de Mofras.
- ↑ Rev. Jonathan S. Green. He was not affiliated with the Methodists, but was sent to the coast by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. See Missionary Herald, Nov. 1830, p. 343.
- ↑ History of the American Board of Commissioners, etc., by J. Tracy, 1840, p. 25.—de Mofras.
- ↑ Washington Irving: The Rocky Mountains from the Journal of Cap. Bonneville. 2 v., N. Y., 1836.—de Mofras.
- ↑ Jason Lee and his nephew, Daniel Lee, Cyrus Shepard, Courtney M. Walker and Philip L. Edwards, none of whom was married. For sketch of Edwards see California hist. soc. quar. v. 3, Apr., 1924.
- ↑ See Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, by J. Townsend. Phil., 1839., p. 176.—de Mofras.
- ↑ Fort Hall was built by Wyeth in July 1834. See Sources of Oregon History, v. 1, pts. 3-6, p. 147, 227.
- ↑ Sauvie's Island.
- ↑ See Memoir of Capt. Wyeth in the Documents of Congress, No. 101, p. 6, Feb. 16, 1839. [25 Cong., 3 Sess. H. R. 101].—de Mofras.
- ↑ Rev. Samuel Parker and Doctor Marcus Whitman were Congegationalists, sent by the A. B. C. F. M. Dr.. Whitman was not a minister, but a doctor of medicine. At Green River Dr. Whitman returned East for reinforcements, and Mr. Parker continued his journey to the Columbia.
- ↑ Journal of Exploring tour beyond the Rocky Mountains, by Samuel Parker. 1838.—de Mofras.
- ↑ See Senate Document No. 24, December 18, 1837, and No. 101 of the 25th Congress of the United States.—de Mofras.
- ↑ William Geiger and D. G. Johnson were bound for California in 1839, but not being able to obtain a guide, joined the missionaries Griffin and Munger, and came to Oregon. Geiger taught in the Mission school, January to May, 1840. Johnson sailed for the Hawaiian Islands. Bancroft, Oregon, v. 1, p. 238-9; Lee & Frost, 174.
- ↑ 25th Congress, 3 Sess., H. R. 101, p. 25-28.
- ↑ Hall J. Kelley. His journey was undertaken in behalf of a colonizing scheme, and had no religious connection.
- ↑ Documents of the 25th Congress, No. 101. Appendix K, p. 22, February 16, 1839.—de Mofras.
- ↑ Farnham's Travels in the Great Western Prairies, the Rocky Mountains and in the Oregon Territory. 2 v. Lond. 1843.—de Morfas.
For sketch of T. J. Farnham see Thwaites' "Early Western Travels," v. 28, p. 10-14. He was one of the "Peoria party" of 1840 and had no official connection with the government.
- ↑ U. S. Exploring Expedition under command of Charles Wilkes.
- ↑ J. C. Fremont.
Journal of travels on the Platte and Yellow Stone Rivers by Lt. Fremont; published by order of the U. S. Senate, Document of the American Congress, 1843.—de Mofras.
- ↑ Capt. Robert Gray entered the Columbia river May 11, 1792.
- ↑ Ewing Young and Lawrence Carmichael, members of the Willamette Cattle Company. They abandoned" their distillery, but refused the compensation offered. Slacum's Report. 25th Congress, 2 Sess., Sen. ex. doc 24, p. 23-24.
- ↑ September 1, 1842, Rev. John P. Richmond, of the Nisqually Mission, J. L. Whitcomb, David Leslie and his two daughters, Dr. William J. Bailey took passage on the Chenamus for the Sandwich Islands. (Lee & Frost, 323, 324).
- ↑ Daniel Lee was the nephew of Jason Lee.
- ↑ George Abernethy, Marcus Whitman, David Leslie, H. K. W . Perkins, Joseph H. Frost, William W. Kone, William H. Gray, Elijah White. Of these Whitman and Gray represented the A. B. C . F . M . and came in 1836; the others were Methodists. White came in April, 1837; Leslie and Perkins in September, 1837; Abernethy and Kone on the Lausanne, 1840.
- ↑ de Mofras seems confused about the Protestant denominations; he designates as Baptists all Protestants who are not Methodists. The first Baptist minister did not arrive in the territory until 1844.
- ↑ Of those who left in 1842, Leslie and Bailey returned (see note 47.) In 1843 J. H. Frost, Dariiel Lee and Ira L. Babcock and their families left on the bark Diamond; in February, 1844, Jason Lee and Gustavus Hines on the Columbia. Babcock and Hines returned in April, 1844. Babcock left the territority permanently in November, 1844, Hines returned to the states in 1845, but came back across the plains in 1853.
- ↑ Whitman's station was at Waiilatpu near Fort Walla Walla, about 300 miles from Lee's mission.
- ↑ Alanson Beers.
- ↑ Documents of the 25th Congress, Apx. H, p. 3, No. 101.—de Mofras.
- ↑ This must have been the schooner Star of Oregon, begun on Swan Island at the mouth of the Willamette, in 1840, finished in August, 1842; sailed for California, September 12, 1842, and there sold by the owners. The company who built it consisted of Jospeh Gale, R. L . Kilborune, Charles Marts, Pleasant Armstrong, Jacob Green, John Canan, Henry Woods, and Felix Hathaway. See Ore. Pion. Trans. 1891, p. 181; also Wilkes' Narrative, v. 4, p. 342.