OREGON EMIGRATING COMPANIES 223
keep it loosely joined for mutual defence and for the enjoy- ment of common property. 78
There are a number of illustrations of this point. The great Oregon company of 1843 set out in a single body with Peter H. Burnett as captain. A regulation limiting the number of cattle per member produced discontent and led, only eight days after their supposedly final organization, to a division of the company 79 (apparently on the advice of the experienced Dr. Whitman, who was with it) 80 into four parts. The com- manding officer was now given the title, colonel, in place of captain, and four captains were elected to head the four divisions. 81 In this fashion they proceeded. The largest Ore- gon party of 1844, comprising three divisions, started as one company under the command of Cornelius (Neil) Gilliam as general but later, because of discontent, resumed its original three divisions, each proceeding on its own account but two of them keeping within supporting distance of each other. 82 Joel Palmer, of the Oregon Company of 1845, has described the arrangements following their divisions, which likewise came as a result of discontent and disaffection, as follows : "It was agreed upon to form from the whole body, three companies ; that while each company should select its own officers and manage its own affairs, the pilot and Capt. Welsh, who had been elected by the whole company, should retain their posts and travel with the company in advance. It was also arranged that each company should take its turn in traveling in advance for a week at a time. A proposition was then made and acceded to, which provided that a collection of funds, with which to pay the pilot, should be made previous to the separation and
78 Not infrequently such a division was made perfectly amicably and for purely administrative reasons, particularly in the case of the larger companies, which suffered from lack of grazing for their stock. Cf. Bryant, What I Saw in California, p. 32 f, 43 ff.
79 See above, p. 23 and note 75.
80 Oreg. Hist. Quart., IV, 177.
81 Letter in Missouri Republican, August 7, 1843, reprinted in Oreg. Hist. Quart., IV. 403.
82 Minto, Reminiscences, Oreg. Hist. Quart., II, 151. Cf. Communication in St. Louis Reveille, November 4, 1844, reprinted in Oreg. Hist. Quart., IV, 407, and Minto, Address, O. P. A. Transactions, 1876, p. 39 and Diary of E. E Parrish, O. P. A. Transactions, 1888, p. 102 f.
