The Applegate company being in less manageable canoes constructed by themselves, and less skilfully handled, were not so fortunate, one of their boats overturning in the rapids, by which accident a son of Jesse Applegate was drowned, a son of Charles Applegate crippled for life, while Elisha, a son of Lindsey Applegate, and William Doke narrowly escaped. C. M. Stringer and McClelland were also drowned.[1]
The main part of the immigration, which took the land route to the Dalles, met with no other obstacles than some difficulty in crossing the two principal rivers in their course, the John Day and Des Chutes, and had no accidents. To be the first to reach the Dalles, the terminus of the emigrant road to Oregon for 1843, was an honor that was contended for by the foremost drivers, and I find is claimed by both Nineveh Ford and Kaiser.[2]
At the Dalles the immigrants had still the most difficult and dangerous portion of their journey before them, there being neither a road over the rugged mountains that separated them from the Willamette Valley, nor boats in which to embark on the river. It was too late to attempt opening a wagon-road into the Willamette Valley, a distance of sixty miles of extremely rough country, and there were few facilities for constructing a sufficient number of boats to convey the families and goods to their destination.
The immigration of 1843 was differently situated from any company that had preceded, or any that fol-
- ↑ A member of Frémont's expedition, which was in the rear of the immigration all the way to the Dalles, returning to St Louis the same season, carried a very unfavorable report of the condition of the immigrants, 8 of whom he said had perished of hardship. Niles' Reg., lxv. 243. The truth was, that 9 deaths occurred on the road, if we count that of William Day, who died at Vancouver; 4 from sickness, and 4 by drowning, one out of every 100—and none of these of what might properly be called hardships.
- ↑ Ford says, 'My wagon was in front of the caravan when it got to the Dalles.' Kaiser says, 'My father's teams broke the sage-brush from Green River to the Dalles.' James Athey is content to claim the second or third place in the van, and says, 'Mine was the second or third team to drive up to the Dalles.' Workshops, MS., 1.
the bow, and with it gave a sudden wrench, and the boat instantly turned upon its centre to the right, and we passed the rock in safety.' Burnett's Recollections of a Pioneer, 129.
