Recollections of My Boyhood/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
Down the Columbia to the Willamette.
The train which arrived here at this time was a detachment of the company which came out to Oregon this season and numbered ten families and probably twenty wagons. The entire emigration of 1843 has been computed at about a thousand souls. This detachment included the three Applegate families; families of three brothers, Charles, Lindsay and Jesse. I call to mind also the names of Alexander McClellan, Wm. Wilson, Wm. Doke, Robert Smith, Benjamin Williams, Mr. Clyman, John G. Baker, Elijah Millican, Thomas Naylor, Almoran Hill, Miles Cary, and Daniel Holman.
Besides the oxen of the teams, there was a small herd of stock cattle. Jesse Applegate had probably thirty head and others had a few cows and calves. There were also a few horses. This train of wagons corraled for the last time about one hundred yards, so it appears to me, up the river from the fort and very near where the Walla Walla River flows into the Columbia.
A train of wagons with their once white, now torn, grease and dust stained covers, parked on the bank of the Columbia River, was a novel spectacle. Such had never been seen there before. The faithful oxen, now sore-necked, sore-footed, and jaded, which had marched week after week, and month after month, drawing those wagons with their loads from the Missouri River to the Columbia, had done their task, and were unhitched for the last time, and I hope, all recovered from their fatigue and lived to enjoy a long rest on the banks, "Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound save his own dashing."
Mr. McKinley was in charge of the post of Walla Walla, and was very kind and accommodating to the emigrants. There were many Indians here: bucks, squaws, and papooses, and these were often visitors at our camp. Some of the bucks talked English fairly well, and all were clever at sign language. There had been at this place mission establishments, both Catholic and Protestant, and this trading post had been for several years in this part of the country, and so the Indians were to some extent accustomed to modify their manners and dress. They were not naked like Indians we had been among before.
A young Indian whose English name I think was Ellis, and whose dress was like that of a white man, had his hair shingled or cut short, and was very civilized in his manners. It was said he had been sent East to school when a boy and was well educated. I think he was a son of the high chief of the Nes Perce tribe, and would succeed his father. He appeared to realize the fact that he was an important man, and conversed fluently in English with our best talkers.
The Indian tribal names were Cayuse, Nes Perce, and Walla Walla, and we had many visitors from all these tribes. I think there was no hostile feeling among these people against us, but some of the emigrants were prejudiced against Indians of whatever kind, and were annoyed by the familiarity assumed by them in their intercourse with the whites. This probably came near leading to very serious consequences. We boys, I think, were more or less tinctured with this prejudice, and besides, did not realize the fact that to arouse a spirit of vengeance among this horde of barbarians, who could muster a thousand painted warriors in a single night, meant certain destruction to every man, woman, and child of our little party.
The first unpleasantness was between us white boys and the Indian boys. One day we were trading nails and scraps of iron of all kinds to the Indian boys for a root they called yampa—a small root half an inch thick, or less, and two or three times as long as thick—which, when dried, was almost as white as chalk, and easily ground between the teeth. Of the parsnip family, it is sweet and rich and very pleasant to the taste. This barter was going on on the sand drifts some three feet above the common level; it looked like an abruptsided sand drift. The barter was going on very sociably. We were munching yampa with great humor, and filling our pockets with the surplus roots. But some of the boys did not have pockets (some mothers will not make pockets in their boys' trousers because if boys have pockets they fill them so full of rocks, strings, dead beetles, dried fish worms, chewing wax, nails, tops, toy pistols, crulls, doughnuts, fishing tackle, bullets, buttons, jews-harps, etc., that the strain on the suspenders often becomes too great), and were holding the surplus roots in one hand help up against the stomach. When the hand was full of yampas, they would spill and fall to the ground, and this much I know to be true. I saw some fall and picked them up and put them into my pockets, for I did not want such valuable property to "waste its sweetness on the desert air." I saw other boys, both white and Indian, picking up somethnigsomething, and then I saw an Indian picking himself up.
It appeared from the official report of this battle afterwards that the Indian who was picking himself up, had stooped down to pick up a yampa, when one of our boys attacked him in the rear with his foot, and the young warrior toppled over on his head. A race war now broke out instantly and the battle became general. Cries of vengeance arose from the whites and yells of defiance from the reds. It was now a hand to hand fight, for we were all mixed up together when the battle began. How we became separated I never knew, but presently we were some distance from the enemy and throwing pebbles about the size of black walnuts and Irish potatoes at them. They returned the fire with arrows and pebbles. The arrows at first alarmed us a little, and to admit the truth, I believe that if the Indians had charged us just then, we would have been routed, but we very soon discovered that we could see the arrows approaching and dodge them, as the range was not very close. As we pressed forward towards the enemy, throwing finger stones with great fury and dangerous precision, they fell back to the shelter of the potato house. As we had no field artillery heavy enough to hatter down a sand hill, we charged over and around the ends of the potato house, taking the enemy in front and on both flanks. This assault was made at a speed of about four double quicks, and was so impetuous as to be irresistable. The enemy now became demoralized and fled into the fort through an open gate. But we were not far behind and entering the court yard of the fort, gathered up more dangerous weapons and proceeded to slay and spare not. We found a pile of pack saddles, and one of the boys armed himself with a cinch, with which he attacked an Indian, striking him on the head with the iron ring on one end of the cinch. and another Indian boy was cut on the head by some kind of a projectile, put in motion by the sinewy arm of one of our boys. But this ridiculous affair was not allowed to proceed further, for McKinley, the commander of the fort, in some way, very suddenly pacified us and sent us to our corral. Our boys began the fight, as before stated, but it was claimed that the Indians were picking up the yampas that fell to the ground and selling them to us again. However this may have been, relations between us and the Indian boys became so strained by this affair that we got no more roots.
The boys also had a skirmish with a young buck who was mounted on a pony. This was on a sand flat some distance from the camp, and I only remember that the Indian came galloping his pony towards us with his spear poised in his hand and pointed towards us; that we gave him and his pony a volley of finger stones; that he threw the spear in our direction and it stuck fast in the sand. I also remember that he got away from there as fast as his pony could carry him and left his spear behind.
After the battles of the "tater-house" and of the sand flat had been fought and won by the kids, we noticed that the Indians visiting our camp were sulky and not talkative. One evening after the camp fires had been burning some time, and it was fairly dark, Indians began to drop in singly or by twos, with that noiseless tread peculair to that people. So snakelike was their approach, that a big Indian with a blanket drawn around him would be seen standing or squatting by the fire before his approach had been noticed by us. After a while there were a half dozen or more of them about the camp fires and each one had his blanket over his shoulders and it completely enveloped his body. I don't know that this alarmed the whites or caused them to suspect danger, but the big bucks were sometimes standing and squatting in the way of people about the fires, and were indifferent to the fact.
One of our young men, who did not like Indians, gave a buck a push to get him out of his way, and when the Indian resisted, seized a brand from the fire and struck him a severe blow with it on the shoulders. I heard the blow and saw the sparks fly. The blow was probably aimed at the Indian's head, but he ducked and saved his cranium. This somewhat rough affair, coming up so unexpectedly, created some excitement in camp for a moment, but it was soon over, for some of our party caught the young man who was now fairly on the warpath with his "brand snatched from the burning," and pacified him. The chances are that had not this been done promptly, there would have been a sanguinary battle fought then and there, for thre were probably many Indians skulking near our corral, prepared for mischief and only waiting for a signal from the Indians in camp, who were spies and had weapons under their blankets. By the time the trouble arose in camp, I think the spies had discovered that our men were on the alert and prepared for anything the redskins wanted, and having become satisfied of this, they did not wish to precipitate a fight, so were willing to drop the matter as it was.
Probably this scrimmage at the camp fire, between the white man and Indian did not much alarm me, for soon after quiet was restored, I became drowsy, went to bed, and went to sleep, listening to a monotonous song and grunt accompanied by a tapping noise on the spoke of a wagon wheel. Years afterwards I heard the same song and noise made by Indians gambling.
Probably the next day, the commander of the fort, McKinley, visited our camp and remained quite a while. I understood afterwards that he invited, or rather advised, us to sleep in the fort, as the Indians were not well disposed toward us. I remember sleeping in the fort after this, and think it probable that the women and children retired to the fort of nights while the men remained in and guarded the corral.
During the time we remained at Walla Walla, probably two weeks, the men were busy sawing lumber and building small boats. They called them skiffs, and one of average size would carry a family of eight or ten persons. The lumber was sawed by hand with a pit-saw or whip-saw, from timber that had drifted to that place when the river was very high. To carry out the plan of descending the Columbia River to the Willamette country in those small boats, it was of course, necessary to leave the wagons and cattle behind. The cattle and horses were branded with the Hudson Bay Company's brand, "H. B." and the property was understood to be under the protection of that company.
I well remember our start down the river, and how I enjoyed riding in the boat, the movement of which was like a grape vine swing. Shoving out from the Walla Walla canoe landing about the first of November, our little fleet of boats began the voyage down the great "River of the West." Whirlpools looking like deep basins in the river, the lapping, splashing, and rolling of waves, crested with foam sometimes when the wind was strong, alarmed me for a day or two on the start. But I soon recvoered from this childish fear, and as I learned that the motion of the boat became more lively and gyratory, rocking from side to side, leaping from wave to wave, or sliding down into a trough and then mounting with perfect ease to the crest of a wave, dashing the spray into our faces when we were in rough water, the sound of rapids and the sight of foam and white caps ahead occasioned only pleasant anticipation. Often when the current was strong, the men would rest on their oars and allow the boats to be swept along by the current.
Children left to themselves and not alarmed by those they look to for protection, do not anticipate danger; as a rule they do not borrow trouble. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," is their motto, and so when not goaded with hunger, yanked up with colic, or tortured by a stone bruise or sore toe, a boy on pleasant autumn days, who had been traveling all summer bare foot through the desert sands, through sage brush, grease wood, and cactus, and had been often broken of his rest, mayhap being tortured by prickly pears between his toes, now haply being rocked as in a cradle at his mother's knee, might peradventure he overcome with drowsiness, and while dreaming of unromantic things, butter and bread for instance, pass in total ignorance of the presence of all that grand panorama-like scenery along the river, which so many clever tourists have admitted they were not able to describe. But I did see some ugly cliffs of rock, black and forbidding in appearance, along the banks of the river, some high and some not so high, some rough, barren and precipitous, while others were thickly set with timber and brush. Neither did the grown up people seem to be delighted with the scenery along the river. At least I never heard any expressions of admiration. A jaded immigrant, however, might gaze upon the face of a precipice a thousand feet high, with a crack in it extending from top to bottom, without being struck dumb with awe and admiration, or pass by a lousy Indian and never realize that he had met one of Fennimore Cooper's noble red men.
Now of nights we encamped on the bank of the river, sometimes on the north, and sometimes on the south side. I remember especially a camp we made on the south shore. There was a very narrow strip of sand and rock almost level, between the river and a high bluff, with a high mountain rising above it. Here we were, I well remember, with this precipitous bluff and lofty mountain at our back, and the broad river before us. We must have landed here quite early in the afternoon, for the unusual occurrence which underscored this camping place on memory's tablet took place before the sun was low; for it may have been a nooning place. Now at a venture I will say that our people, for frontiersmen and women of those days, were unusually free from superstitious whims. I had never seen a horse shoe over the door; they never spoke of looking at a hog's melt for a forecast of the weather, did not believe in lucky or unlucky days, nor that dropping the dishrag was a sign that the family would have company at the house. But mother, meaning to make sport of superstitious notions, no doubt, sometimes spoke of a belief among the people that seeing the new moon over the right shoulder was an omen of good luck, and to be candid I must admit that when I know the new moon is out, I sometimes put myself to a little trouble to get first sight of it over my right shoulder. That indicates a trace of superstition. Ghost stories, stories of haunted houses, of goblins, of witches and fairies, were current among the people in those days, but were not told as truths by our folks.
The unusual occurrence referred to was this. Although we had now been several days on our voyage down the river, I had not heard any one complain of hardships or express fear of hardships or dangers to be encountered, and for my part I had come to feel as safe on the water as on land. But at this camp I heard remarks that renewed my apprehensions of danger. There was a drift wood camp fire burning and the women folks were about it doing the kitchen work (quite a roomy kitchen it was), and talking. I don't remember what they said except that my aunt Cynthia, uncle Jesse Applegate's wife, said, "There is going to be a death in the family," or words to that effect. She was standing, and pointing upward, added, "See that raven flying over the camp?" I was lying upon the sand, and hearing the remark, looked up and saw a black bird, a raven or crow, flying about one hundred feet above us and going in the direction of the river. Now this thing of reading the future from the flight of birds was then new to me, and as my aunt's countenance, gesture, and tone of voice, bespoke alarm and distress, the event made a lasting impression upon my mind. And yet the prediction must have been passed over lightly, for when the calamity overtook us a few days after, I never thought of the omen and did not hear any one speak of it.
Occasionally we saw Indians on the river in canoes. Each canoe was wrought of a single log cut from a pine, cedar or fir tree, and excavated mostly by burning, but the finishing work was done with edge tools, originally of stone and bone perhaps, but now of iron and steel. The canoes I saw here on the upper river were shapely, and neatly finished, but quite plain in appearance and generally large enough for only two or three persons. One day, however, a large canoe carrying six or seven natives shot out of a little cove on the north shore, and passing across our bows slowed up, while the man in the bow of the craft, lifting his hand towards his mouth, spoke and said, "Smoke six!" which literally translated is "Tobacco, friend!"
The spokesman was a large stout man with more black in his skin than a red man. His eyes were not really black, but looked at our distance like burnt holes in a blanket. He was bare headed, I do not mean bald headed, but that he wore no unnatural covering on his head. He surely did not need any, for this son of an African sire, and a native daughter of the Walla Walla, Cayuse, Klickitat, Chemomichat, Spokane or Wascopum tribe, had an immense shock of grizzly, almost curly hair, which grew down to his ears and to within an inch of his nose, making his head seem unnaturally large. Some of our party gave them a little tobacco and they passed on. Now, who was this shock-headed heathen? They said he was the son of a negro man who came to the coast with Lewis and Clark's expedition as cook, about forty years before the time of which I am speaking, and who, peradventure, because of his black skin, woolly head, large proportions, thick lips,
Such as none
Might safely dare
To look upon,"
was so petted by the squaws that he left the expedition in the Walla Walla country, and remained with the native daughters.
I was now wide awake, for I had expected to see something grand when we got in sight of Mount Hood. When we had reached a point on the river where they said we would get a first sight of it, I was on the lookout, but although I was scanning the sky in the direction where it was supposed to he, I did not see it. No doubt others in the boat had been looking at it for some time, for some one said to me, "What are you looking for away up there?"
"Mount Hood," said I.
"Well, it ain't up in the sky," some one said.
Now I had never seen a snow peak but had seen pictures of them and had been told they were very high, so I was looking for a kind of obelisk-shaped thing, towering up into the heavens almost as high as the moon, but upon this remark I began to look more towards the earth. I saw the tops of ordinary forest-clad mountains, and looking again yet lower and not high above the tops of fir trees skirting the river on the south side, I discovered what appeared to he a mere hill, it looked so low, with a dome or rather hood-shaped top as white as a lump of chalk. And this appeared to stand on an immense mass of snow as wide across as the biggest corn field I had ever seen. The mountain appeared to be only a few miles away and yet the wide expanse of snow could frequently he seen as we passed down the river, shining through gaps between the hills. What I saw seemed to be the best evidence, Mount Hood was, after all, only a snow covered hill. How did I account for that hill's being always snow clad, while the high mountains near by were not? Well, I didn't account for it at all. It might be I never thought of that, or it may he I thought it was God's white throne or foot stool, or that it was a miracle God had provided to show men His contempt for the laws of Nature. Remember now, I was looking at this scenery through the inexperienced eye of a seven year old. The realization of what we see depends very much on what we already know. Of course I was yet a novice in perspective. I saw as a child and my understanding was at fault.
We had an Indian pilot, probably selected by McKinley at Fort Walla Walla, although I do not positively remember noticing the pilot before we entered the rapids we were now approaching. At the head of those rapids the river bears from a west course a little northerly, making a very gradual curve. As we approached this bend I could hear the sound of rapids, and presently the boat began to rise and fall and rock from side to side. When we began to make the turn I could see breakers ahead extending in broken lines across the river, and the boat began to sweep along at a rapid rate. The pilot squatted low in the bow. An old red handkerchief was tied around his head and his long black hair hung down his back. There were now breakers on the right and on the left, and occasinally foam-crested waves swept across our bows. The motion of the boat had never been so excitingly delightful before—it was an exaggeration of the cradle and grape vine swing combined. I began to think this was no ordinary rapid, but felt reassured when I noticed that the older people sat quietly in their places and betrayed no sign of fear. Rocked on the heaving bosom of the great river and lulled by the medley of sounds, the two babies had fallen asleep in their mother's arms. Our boat now was about twenty yards from the right hand shore, when looking across the river I saw a smaller boat about opposite to us near the south bank. The persons in this boat were Alexander McClellan, a man about seventy years old, William Parker, probably twenty-one, and William Doke, about the same age, and three boys: Elisha Applegate, aged about eleven, and Warren and Edward Applegate, each about nine years old. This boat now near the south shore, it would seem, should have followed our boat as the pilot was with us, and this was a dangerous part of the river. But there was little time to consider mistakes or to be troubled about what might be the consequences, for presently there was a wail of anguish, a shriek, and a scene of confusion in our boat that no language can describe. The boat we were watching disappeared and we saw the men and boys struggling in the water. Father and Uncle Jesse, seeing their children drowning, were seized with frenzy, and dropping their oars sprang up from their seats and were about to leap from the boat to make a desperate attempt to swim to them, when mother and Aunt Cynthia, in voices that were distinctly heard above the roar of the rushing waters, by commands and entreaties brought them to a realization of our own perilious situation, and the madness of an attempt to reach the other side of the river by swimming. This was sixty-seven years ago, and yet the words of that frantic appeal by the women, which saved our boat and two families from speedy and certain destruction, are fresh in my memory. They were, "Men, don't quit the oars. If you do we will all be lost." The men returned to the oars just in time to avoid, by great exertion, a rock against which the current dashed with such fury that the foam and froth upon its apex was as white as milk. I sat on the right hand side of the boat and the rock was so near that I thought if we had not passed so quickly I might have put my hand upon it.
Having escaped the present danger, the next thought no doubt, was to effect a landing at the earliest possible moment, but the shore was rock-bound, rising several feet perpendicularly and presenting a serried line of ragged points against which the rapid current fretted and frothed, and the waves, rearing their foam-flecked heads aloft, rushed to destruction like martial squadrons upon an invincible foe. Ah! That half hour's experience, this scene so wild, so commotional, so fearful and exciting, had not death been there, were worth a month of ordinary life.
Lower down the river, however, there was a break in the line of the shore and here the boat was landed, the women and children going ashore. It has often been said that "Truth is stranger than fiction," and it is true, for an author manufacturing a story will avoid what would appear to be absurd, but in telling a true story, facts must be stated regardless of appearances. This is a case in point, for it is a fact that just as our boat touched the shore, father grabbed his gun from its place in the boat to shoot our Indian pilot, but he had disappeared, a fact which under the excitement of landing the boat I presume, he had not noticed. In fact it seemed that no one noted his disappearance, or knew what had become of him; we never knew. A suspicion seems to have been aroused only a few minutes before our boat landed that our pilot meant treachery, intending to lead us into these rapids with the expectation that the whole party would be destroyed. If there was evidence to justify this suspicion I never heard what it was, and can only attribute it to the delirium of excessive grief and the natural inclination to blame some one for the great calamity. I presume the first impulse was to hold the pilot responsible and execute vengeance upon him, and, carried forward by the intense excitement which amounted to frenzy, there was no time for reflection.
From the south shore of the river there was a level tract of ground running back to the hill probably fifty yards wide, and extending along the river a considerable distance. Many Indians were seen there, a few mounted on ponies, and some in canoes along the shore, and were seen to put out after the floating bedding, clothes, and various articles of furniture from the foundered boat. It was said the Indians did not make any attempt or show any desire to assist our people in the water. William Doke could not swim and had taken hold of a feather bed-tick which carried him safely to the foot of the rapids, between which and what was called the main Dalles there was a short interval of quiet water. Here Mr. Doke floated clinging to the bedtick. The Indians passed by him in their canoes, and though he called for help, they did not offer any assistance. He was picked up by one of our boats as he was about to enter the second rapids. Now the appearance of so many Indians at the time may have encouraged the suspicion of treachery against the pilot, but I learned afterwards that there was a large Indian town in that vicinity, so the appearance of many Indians was not significant. A fact favorable to the good faith of our pilot is that but one boat was lost and that if it had followed the pilot it would have been safe. It is my opinion, probably founded on the explanations of those who were saved, that those who had the management of the boat intended to follow in the track of the pilot boat, but at the time they entered the rapids, their boat was caught in a strong current bearing towards the south shore, and when they saw they were being swept away from the safe channel indicated by the pilot boat, were unable, on account of the intervening shoaly bed of the river, to pass across to that channel.
After going ashore, as I said before, the little party of women and children, the men remaining with the boat, climbed up the river bank, which at this place was not steep and only a few yards high, to a narrow plateau running parallel to the river. From this place we had a good view of the river, but could not see anything of the foundered boat or of those who had been in it. An Indian footpath ran along this plateau and we followed it down the river, very slowly, all the time searching the river with eager eyes. Now and then one would stop and point to the river and say, "I see some one's head there," and then we would all bunch up and look for the object pointed at. But it was only the top of a rock occasionally exposed by the ebbing of the waters. Several times we were deluded in this way. Mother and Aunt Cynthia were weeping. While we were yet walking along the river bank, some one came and told us that Parker, Doke, and brother Elisha were safe, but that McClellan and the two boys, Warren and Edward, could not be found. Then we understood that Elisha had saved himself by swimming. No doubt the fact that mother had always objected to the boys going swimming now flashed across her mind, and as the fact appeared that he had learned to swim by disobeying her orders, and had thereby saved his life, she felt a momentary pang of remorse, poor stricken soul! for she said, "I will never object to the boys going swimming any more."
Looking from where we were a person could get but a very imperfect knowledge of the tragic scene on the other side of the river, but those who escaped said that as their boat was being swept along down the rapids it was caught by one of those currents which, whirling in its course like a cyclone in the air, increased in velocity as the radius of the circle diminishes, until, with a roaring noise, it seems to sink, forming an open funnel-schaped vacuum in the water to the bottom of the river, often called a whirlpool. After being spun around for a few seconds, the boat was swallowed up in the roaring vortex. The boat came up presently and all the crew except Warren Applegate, succeeded in getting into it, but very soon after it was caught by another whirlpool and swallowed up again, to be seen no more. The last time the boat went down, end foremost, the boy Elisha, as it descended, climbed to the upper end and leaped as far as he could, to avoid being taken down with the boat. Towards the south shore, some distance below where the boat went down, there was what some spoke of as a rock island, a lava rock, which stood table-like from five to ten feet above the water, very rough and broken in appearance, and in area probably a quarter of an acre. This island rock was connected with the south shore by a very narrow causeway of rock, and the north side of the island seems to have been hollow so that a part of the river flowed into it.
When Elisha rose to the surface, he discovered that he had one foot thrust into a pocket of his coat and while extricating it, sank and rolled in the water until he was almost exhausted; hut as soon as his feet were free he struck out boldly for the upper point or head of the rock island, avoiding the force of the waves which came meeting him by diving under them.
William Parker, soon after escaping from the whirlpool, took hold of a feather bedtick floating near him, and being a strong swimmer, guided it towards the head of the island. It chanced that Elisha overtook Parker when near the shore, and taking hold of the tick they both together succeeded in reaching the island, from which they with great difficulty, being very weak, followed the narrow causeway of rock to the main land.
The boy Warren was never seen nor heard of after the boat went down the first time. The old man McClellan was seen the last time trying to reach the head of the island where Parker and young Applegate were. He had placed the boy Edward on a couple of oars, and carrying him this way, was trying to reach the shore, but being hampered with a heavy coat and boots, falling a little short of the point he attempted to reach, the old man and boy disappeared under projecting cliffs and were seen no more. The brave old soldier could have saved himself by abandoning the boy, but this he would not do. Of the three persons drowned no body could be found, and the search had to be given up. The boat was never seen after it went down into the roaring throat of the second whirlpool.
That afternoon a wind storm, with cold rain burst upon the wretched and broken-hearted women and children while they yet lingered upon the bank of the river. We camped that night at the Perkins' Mission. Late in the evening a man from Peter Burnette's camp came to ours and said that a little negro girl was lest. She had been sent to the river where the boats were, to get a bucket of water. The storm had continued and the boats on the beach were wildly rocked and tossed by the waves. Some thought the girl had entered one of the boats to dip up the water, and had been thrown into the river and drowned. Others said the girl had been taken by the Indians. She was never found.
The next dangerous part of the river we had to pass was The Dalles. At that place the hanks of the river approach to within a few yards of each other, and are faced with overhanging cliffs of volcanic stone as black as pot mettle, between which the river pours with fearful swiftness, and the channel is not only narrow, but crooked also, making this part of the river dangerous to navigation by boats or canoes. I cannot describe the picture I have in mind of that part of the river except to say it must have looked like the place the old Hebrew Elohim fixed his eye upon when "His wrath waxed hot and he said Anathema Maranatha!"
Passing The Dalles was spoken of as "shooting the rapids." I think only men enough to man each boat were detailed to take them through that crooked and narrow way. Two boats, I know, were manned by two men each, the one known as the "big boat" was taken through by Charles Applegate and L. Clyman. Uncle Charles was an athlete and stood six feet in his stockings, and was a hold and strong swimmer. The other boat, not so large, was manned by Tom Naylor and Hiram Strait, and they started down the narrow channel some time before the big boat. This was done to avoid danger of a collision. On account of the winding course of the river, the boats were often not in sight of each other. And so it happened that while the small boat had slowed up and tacked to follow a curve in the shore line, the big boat rounded a point only a few yards above it, and was bearing down upon it with the speed of a toboggan on ice. Now at this critical moment, when a collision seemed certain, and the lives of four men were in jeopardy unless the course of the big boat could be changed, the pin which held Clyman's oar in place, gave way. Clyman, with that high courage and steady nerve that goes to make the hero, threw the beam of his oar in front of Uncle Charles' big immovable knee, and with a single stroke changed the course of the big boat enough to avoid the other. I have heard Uncle Charles say, "When Naylor and Strait saw our boat coming right at them, their faces were as white as if they were dead." I did not see those boats passing through the Devil's Gullet (Dalles). We had passed over the "Devil's Backbone" on Snake River, and now the boats were passing through his gullet.
We were following a footpath which ran along the north bank, but could not often see the river. We saw only one boat passing down the channel. Following the path, we children came out of the woods into a small glade, perhaps a hundred feet above the river, and about fifty yards from it. At this place we found a stick fire almost burned out. Throwing the brands together we soon had a cheerful blaze. From this point we saw probably a hundred yards of the river. A boat was gliding down the river with only one man in it and he seemed to be standing. While following the path down the river, we came to a thicket of wild rose bushes. They bore a large crop of seed pods or berries, which were ripe and red, and we ate of them freely. Poor as they were, they were fruit, and the girls carried a quart or two to camp. Aunt Melinda (Mrs. Charles Applegate) made a pudding of them for the children, using in the making what was left of some homemade starch.
Farther on, the path led across the island known as "Mimaluse," which connected with the main land on the north shore when the river is low. We passed a pond or small lake on which were floating many rafts made of logs on which were dozens of dead bodies rolled in blankets or Klisques mats. While I stood looking at the ghastly spectacle, my companions passed into the woods. Seeing I was alone with the dead, I hurried after them. I came to a pen built of logs and in this were bodies rolled up like those on the rafts. This did not frighten me, but near the pen was an object that did. A little old black man stood there. I took a long breath and stood for a moment to see if the thing were alive. It seemed to move, and I ran for my life. Others who passed that way across the island said they saw dead bodies everywhere, on rocks, on rafts, in old broken canoes, and these little wooden devils were legion. Some one said they were put there to protect the dead, a sort of scarecrow. No beast or bird would face that diabolical array for the sake of a feast. [1]Mimaluse Island was the Golgotha of the Waskopum tribe.
Still following the path along the river, we seemed to be getting through the mountains, for there was quite a stretch of beach sloping to uplands and foothills overgrown with shrubs and oak timber. We passed a few native huts and a store house containing, among other provisions, acorns of the white oak, which were sweet and quite palatable. We helped ourselves, and being very hungry, ate many of the nuts. It was a fair day, and after our acorn feast we felt quite cheerful. We soon came to a place where the Waskopum Indians were drying fish eggs. The eggs were hanging in festoons on poles that were supported by forks stuck in the ground. Of course this sort of dry house had no attractions for us and we held our noses and fled.
Robert Shortis met us at The Dalles with supplies. He came in a canoe with two Indians. He lived at Tamchuk (the falls), now Oregon City. I don't remember what he brought besides flour and sugar. I suppose the reason we children grew tired of sugar was because the quantity was too great in proportion to the supply of other food. Shortis did not come as a speculator, but as "a friend indeed to friends in need." He had made his home with the Applegate families before he came to Oregon. He had written letters from Oregon to his friends, advising them to come to the new country, giving as reasons the healthful climate and mild winters of the northwest coast. His letters were published in the newspapers and widely read with that deep interest we always feel when we hear tidings of a better land. The "Oregon fever" followed.
When we passed the Cascades the river was at the lowest stage and the water covered only a part of the river bed. On the north side the stone floor of the bed was covered with soft green moss. Being barefoot, I enjoyed walking on this soft carpet, where in the early summer the waters roll fifty feet deep. I passed men who were dragging a boat over this moss covered stone floor. Getting past this obstruction was called "The Portage of the Cascades." The boats had to be drawn or carried over the rocks a considerable distance. I remember meeting an Indian at this place. Some one must have spoken to him for he stood still and striking one hand on his breast said emphatically, "Waskopum!"
When the boats had been launched below the Cascades, we had navigated the river from old Fort Walla Walla to the head of navigation, and had an open and safe water way to the sea. Below the Cascades there were seals in the river. None were seen on the shore, yet I never saw one swimming. We would see heads sticking up out of the water, but they would vanish before we could get near. But I felt that I knew something about seals, for had I not worn a seal skin cap three years, until it was almost as slick and hard as a steel helmet. And it would have been almost as good as new, had not the brim parted company with it on the night of the thunder storm on the Big Blue.
Some where in this part of the country an effort was made to get a colt for food. I saw the animal they were bargaining for; it was fat and sleek and almost grown. Some one said, "It will make good eating." For some reason the colt was not secured; why? I did not learn. We had been without flesh of beast or bird for a long time. There were not cattle, sheep or hogs in that part of the wilderness in those days. I cannot say that we had plenty to eat at all times, neither was there a time when we were in danger of starving, but we skirmished for food and ate what we learned the natives had found good to feed upon: berries, acorns, tender plants, the yampa and cammas, tubers, bulbs, and roots. We drew the line, however, at a few of the Waskopum luxuries and dainties, namely, caterpillars, the larvae of yellow jackets and tainted fish eggs. Emigrants were hungry all the time. Children seated in the boats would enjoy themselves for hours gnawing off the fat coating from the dried salmon skins. An emigrant not hungry was thought to he ill.
Now it was noised around that we were approaching Fort Vancouver, a Hudson Bay station or trading post. We had to pass Cape Horn on the way. We were advised to pass in the night, as there would be less danger of a storm at that time. Some time in the night the boats were moving slowly along near the north shore; there was no wind and the rain had moderated into a mist. It seems that I alone of all the children was awake. I was waiting for the show, and had just begun on another salmon skin, when Cape Horn was announced. Our boat passed within a few feet of the Horn. I could see it quite distinctly. It looked quite smooth, but seemed to be standing on end and sticking up out of the water. I could not see the upper end. I was told it was a rock. Then I must have fallen asleep, for I awoke on the beach at Fort Vancouver the next morning. What I had expected to see before closing my eyes, tired, hungry and sleepy though I was, was a genuine horn sticking out of the river bank, with a cape of some kind spread about it. Of all my disappointments on our long journey to Oregon, this last was the greatest.
The first talked of wonder I had been anxious to see was* Red River, a river not on our route. Next came the Missouri line, which I did not see, although I thought we must have crossed it somewhere. Arrived at "Ash Holler" I did not see any ashes, nor did I hear anything "holler." Later on I was looking for the Black Hills. Hills I saw, but they were not black. Blue River bad faded out, Chimney Rock was only a sharp pointed rock on the top of a hill, not a chimney at all. The "Devil's Backbone" was only a narrow ridge on Snake River. Green River was not green, and Sweetwater was a disappointment, too, for I took a drink of it. It was brackish but not sweet. What a string of disappointments for a small boy, who had his mind made up to see all these marvelous sights.
It was broad day when I awoke that morning at Vancouver. Our camp was near the river and the fort was a little farther inland. Breakfast was being served when I opened my eyes, and the roast fish and potatoes were the first things I saw. I think it was the smell of something to eat that first aroused me. When I arose and threw back the covering, a mist seemed to arise from my body, there were puddles of water on the bed where I had lain, the bedding was as wet as if it had been dragged from the river, and yet I had slept soundly all night while a pouring rain had drenched my bed.
Dr. McLaughlin, of the Hudson Bay Company at Vancouver, had not known of our arrival until he visited our camp that morning. I well remember his kind face and pleasant manner. When he came near to where I was standing, smiling, bowing gracefully and talking pleasantly, he won me entirely. This was while he was being introduced to the young ladies and their mothers, who were but young women themselves. Of the young ladies introduced, two were my cousins, Lucy and Rozelle, each about fourteen years of age. In those days girls from twelve to seventeen were young ladies. Over that age they were called old maids. Old maidenhood was frowned upon. Some "Inglorious Milton guiltless of a rhyme" had expressed the prevailing sentiment of the times in this stanza:
Old maids are abominable."
Small families were not in vogue. A family of five or six children was considered small.
The Doctor invited the immigrants to visit him at the fort, and some of them did so. He was a valuable friend to the needy. I never saw him afterwards, hut always heard good reports of him.
The object here that fixed my attention, and that I gazed upon with admiration and astonishment, was a ship lying at anchor in the river a short distance below our camp. The hull was black and rose above the water, and the mast was like a tree. I had never before seen a water craft larger than our big boat or a [2]Chinook Kinnim. So great was its size and beauty, I would have believed it to be one of the wonders of the world, had not some one told me it was only a schooner.
We were at this camp one day, and discovered that the river rose and fell two feet. We had reached tide water and were on the western margin of the continent. Our small fleet of boats had kept within supporting distance of each other on the way down the river, but here there was a parting of the ways.
The Applegate families, with the Straits and Naylors started across the river from the camp at Vancouver intending to go direct to the mouth of the Willamette River. But there came on such a storm of wind and rain it was thought best to land the boats at Sovey's Island, where two or three deserted houses acorded shelter. Our departure from Vancouver had been emphasized by an unpleasant circumstance. When the big family boat was passing under the bow of the schooner, the sailor boys tossed big red apples to the oldest of the young ladies. Cousin Lucy. She tried to catch the apples in her apron but they all bounded into the river and were lost. I heard Cousin Lucy speak of this experience when she was over seventy. She said it was the disappointment to the children, who had depended on her, that made her failure painful to her then, and unpleasant to remember.
The Straits and Naylors parted company with us at Sovey's Island, where we remained three or four days. Passing across from Sovey's Island and near a low point of land on our left, our boats entered the mouth of the Willamette River. Continuing up the stream we passed the place where Strait and Naylor had established a camp on the west bank of the river. They called the place Linton. They told us Mr. Strait's daughter had died there. Not long after passing Linton we landed on the west shore, and went into camp on the high bank where there was very little underbrush among the pine trees. No one lived there and the place had no name; there was nothing to show that the place had ever been visited except a small log hut near the river, and a broken mast of a ship leaning against the high bank. There were chips hewn from timber, showing that probably a new mast had been made there. We were at this place a day or two and were visited by two men from the prairie country up the river, then known as the "plains." These two men, Thompson and Doty, had been trappers but had taken native women for wives and settled down to steady habits. Doty had gone to the mountains with the [3]Ashley party when a hoy. Father and Doty were boys together and had started to the mountains with Ashley at the same time, but father, falling sick, had to return home.
Where we should locate? was the all-absorbing topic of conversation at this camp in the woods. It seemed to be difficult to decide where to settle down in such a vast unappropriated wilderness. We were then actually encamped on the site of the city of Portland, but there was no prophet with us to tell of the beautiful city that was to take the place of that gloomy forest.
From this camp we were two days getting up the river to Tum-Chuk, now Oregon City. We passed the Klackamas rapids on our first day up the river. The men, women and children not needed in the boats went ashore at the foot of the rapids, and followed along the river bank, while men with the boats, some poling and others on shore towing, brought the boats safely through the rapids. The camp that night was near the bank of the Klackamas River. The second day we reached Tum-Chuck, and the boats were hauled around the falls to the river above by a French-Canadian with one yoke of long-horned steers. We made camp on the east shore nearly opposite the main cataract. There were less than a dozen houses at Tum-Chuk including a tinshop, blacksmith shop, saw mill, and probably a grist mill. We spent one night at this place. In the morning two or three Kanakas helped to launch the boats above the falls and to clear the rapids. In the evening of the same day we landed at Champoeg and remained there one night in a long shed in one end of which was a bin of peas. I never saw our boats again, and do not remember how they were disposed of.
From Champoeg we traveled by land. The baggage was hauled on a cart drawn by one yoke of oxen. I think the cart was hired from a French settler. Mrs. Charles Applegate and four small children rode in the cart while the rest of our party followed on foot. All day we traveled and it was quite dark when we saw a light. The light was in a window at [4]Doctor White's house. It seemed to me we were a long time getting to that light. Arrived at the house I forgot I was tired, for the Doctor, having notice of our coming, had a bright fire in the fire-place and supper on the table in the kitchen. The smell of frying pork was sweet to my nostrils. From Doctor White's place we had to travel another mile and our long journey was ended. We called this place the Old Mission. It was at this place that the first Methodist mission in the Willamette Valley was located. The missionaries must have lived here two or three years, for there were peach trees there in blossom the next spring. When another location, called "The Mill," now the city of Salem, had been made higher up the river, this place was abandoned. The town of Gervais now stands on the site of the Old Mission. There were three log cabins under one roof at this place. We went into them on the 29th day of November, 1843, and here we passed our first winter in Oregon. It was our home until after harvest of the following summer.
Previous to this we had been in the rain most of the time for twenty days. Oh! how we could have enjoyed our hospitable shelter if we could have looked around the family circle and behld the bright faces that had accompanied us on our toilsome journey almost to the end. Alas, they were not there!