Frances Fuller Victor|editor

“ Such a season as this coming upon miners and travellers in the sparsely settled upper country was sure to occasion disaster. It strewed the plains with dead men, whose remains were washed down by the next summer's flood, and destroyed as many as twenty-five thousand cattle. A herder on the Tucannon froze to death with all the animals in his charge. Travellers lay down by the wayside and slept the sleep that is dreamless. ”

“ They were not ignorant that between twenty and thirty thousand Americans, chiefly men, and several government expeditions had traversed the road to the Pacific the year previous; nor that their attempt to expel the few white people from the Walla Walla valley had been an ignominious failure. There was scarcely a chance that white men's laws would acquit them; but on the other hand there was the apparent certainty that unless the few gave up their lives, all must perish. Could a chief face his people whom he had ruined without an effort to save them? ”

“ Obviously the tendency of office by appointment instead of by popular election is to make men indifferent to the opinions of those they serve, so long as they are in favor with or can excuse their acts to the appointing power. The distance of Oregon from the seat of general government and the lack of adequate mail service made the Gaines faction more than usually independent of censure, as it also rendered its critics more impatient of what they looked upon as an exhibition of petty tyranny on the part of those who were present, and of culpable neglect on the part of those who remained absent. ”

“ The dead were left upon the field, where if life were not extinct the Modoc women soon despatched them. The high spirits of the morning were sunken in a lethargy of mingled sorrow and exhaustion at night. Every officer who had taken part in the operations of the 17th was surprised at the result of six weeks preparation for this event, and it became evident that a much larger force would be required to capture the Modocs in their stronghold—the strongest natural position ever encountered by the army, if not, indeed, the strongest possible to find on earth. ”

“ Oregon was now on a plane with other territories, which could not have the national legislature at their beck and call, as she had done formerly, and the change could not occur without an affront to her feelings or her pride. Gaines was wholly unlike the energetic and debonair Lane, being phlegmatic in temperament, fastidious as to his personal surroundings, pretentious, pompous, and jealous of his dignity. [6] The spirit in which the democracy, who were more than satisfied with Lane and Thurston, received the whig governor, was ominous of what soon followed, a bitter partisan warfare. ”

“ Miller married a woman who as a lyrical poet was fully his equal; but while he went forth free from their brief wedded life to challenge the plaudits of the world, she sank beneath the blight of poverty, and the weight of woman's inability to grapple with the human throng which surges over and treads down those that faint by the way ”

“ MINES AND MINING.
I have not yet particularized the mineral resources of Oregon, except as to iron mentioned incidentally along with manufactures. Gold, as a precious metal, has exercised a great influence in the progress of the country. It gave the people a currency which emancipated them from the thraldom of wheat-raising and fur-hunting, by which alone any trade could be car ried on previously. It improved their farms, built mills and steamboats, chartered ships, and loaded them with goods necessary for their comfort. ”

“ It soon became evident, notwithstanding the first impulse of the people to stand by their delegate, that a reaction was taking place, and the more generous-minded were ashamed of the position in which the eleventh section of the land bill placed them in the eyes of the world; that with the whole vast territory of Oregon wherein to pick and choose they must needs force an old man of venerable character from his just possessions for the un-American reason that he was a foreigner born, or had formerly been the honored head of a foreign company. ”

“ From Winchester the route was extended to the mines in the Umpqua and Rogue River valleys. Long trains of mules laden with goods for the mining region filed daily along the precipitous path which was dignified with the name of road, their tinkling bells striking cheerily the ear of the lonely traveller plodding his weary way to the gold-fields. Scottsburg, which was the point of departure for the pack-trains, became a commercial entrepôt of importance. ”

“ An acquaintance with the precious metal in its native state having been acquired by the Oregon miners in California in 1848–9, reminded some of them that persons who had taken the Meek cut-off in 1845, while passing through the Malheur country had picked up an unfamiliar metal, which they had hammered out on a wagon-tire, and tossed into a tool-chest, but which was afterward lost. That metal they were now confident was gold, and men racked their brains to remember the identical spot where it was found; even going on an expedition to the Malheur in 1849 to look for it, but without success. ”

“ Under the excitement of gold-seeking and the spirit of adventure awakened by it, all the great north-western seaboard was opened to settlement with marvellous rapidity. A rage for discovery and prospecting possessed the people, and produced in a short time marked results. From the Klamath River to Puget Sound, and from the upper Columbia to the sea, men were spying out mineral wealth or laying plans to profit by the operations of those who preferred the risks of the gold-fields to other and more settled pursuits. ”

“ Before it was given back to the heirs of McLoughlin, that political party to which Thurston belonged, and which felt bound to justify his acts, had gone out of power in Oregon. Since that time many persons have, like an army in a wilderness building a monument over a dead comrade by casting each a stone upon his grave, placed their tribute of praise in my hands to be built into the monument of history testifying one after another to the virtues, magnanimity, and wrongs of John McLoughlin. ”

“ They denied that the Puget Sound Company, which derived its existence from the Hudson's Bay Company, could have any title to land, which was evident. They were quick to perceive the intentions of the parent company in laying claim to large bodies of land on the north side of the Columbia, and covering them with settlers and herds. They had no thought that when the boundary was settled these claims would be respected, and felt that not only they but the government had been cheated—the latter through its ignorance of the actual facts in the case. ”

“ Whenever one wished to appear well before his or her friends, they resurrected from old chests and trunks clothes made years ago. Now, as one costumer in one part of the world at one time, had made one dress, and another had made at another time another dress, an assembly in Oregon at this time presented to a new-comer, accustomed to only one fashion at once, a peculiar sight. ”

“ A reconnoissance by General Lamerick in person had discovered their camp on a bar of Rogue River, where the mountains rise on either side high and craggy, and densely timbered with manzanita, live-oak, chinquapin, and chaparral, with occasional bald, grassy hill-sides relieving the sombre aspect of the scene. A narrow strip of bottom-land at the foot of the heights, covered with rank grass and brambly shrubs, constituted The Meadows, where all winter the Indians had kept an ample supply of cattle in good condition for beef. ”

“ Now, sir, I hope this house, this congress, this country, will not allow that company to stealthily get possession of all the good land in Oregon, and thus keep it out of the hands of those who would become good and worthy citizens. ”

“ Both men and women had their faces daubed with pitch, in sign of mourning, giving them a hideous appearance. Among them were the lame, halt, and blind, the scum of the tribe. Slowly and silently they filed into camp, not a word being uttered by any one. Davis went forward a little way to meet them, when twelve warriors laid down their Springfield rifles at his feet, these being but about a third of the fighting strength of this band. ”

“ He predicted that the great migration to California would benefit Oregon, as many of the gold-seekers would remain on the Pacific coast, and look for homes in the fertile and lovely valleys of the new territory. And last, but by no means least in importance, was the reference to the expected donation of land for which the people were waiting, and all the more anxiously that there was much doubt entertained of the tenure by which their claims were now held, since the only part of the old organic law repealed was that which granted a title to lands. ”

“ The population of Oregon City is, according to the tenth census, 1,263, although it is given ten years earlier at 1,382. It is on the line of the Oregon and California railroad, and has river communication with Salem and Portland. A few miles north of the county seat is Milwaukee, founded by Lot Whitcomb as a rival to Oregon City, in March 1850. It is the seat of one of the finest flouring mills in the state, and is celebrated for its nurseries, which have furnished trees to fruit-growers all over the Pacific coast. Its population is insignificant. ”

“ The object of the opening of the proposed route was to make a road from the Willamette Valley to the Umpqua, over which the products of the valley might be brought to Scottsburg, at the same time avoiding the most difficult portion of the mountains. But nature had interposed so many obstacles; the streams were so rapid and rocky; the mountains so rough and heavily timbered; the valleys, though rich, so narrow, and filled with tangled growths of tough vine-maple and other shrubby trees, that any road from the coast to the interior could not but be costly to build and keep in repair. ”

“ There were always enough low and vicious white men in the neighborhood of reservations to purchase the property thus obtained by the Indians and furnish them with the means of carrying on their nefarious practices. By this means a never-failing supply of men, arms, and ammunition was pouring into Oregon, furnished by the reservation Indians of California. Such, at all events, was the conviction of Crook, and he determined to act upon it by organizing a sufficient force of cavalry in his district to check the illicit trade being carried on over the border. ”

“ The pleasure of spending, and of buying such articles of luxury as now began to find their way to Oregon from an overstocked California market, was too great to be resisted. If they could not keep their money, however, they put it into circulation, and so contributed to supply a want in the community, and enable those who could not go to the mines, through fear of losing their land claims, or other cause, to share in the golden harvest. ”

“ The residents of the country were at a loss to account for these outrages, so bold on the part of the savages, and so injurious to the white people. It was said that the decline of the fur-trade compelled the Indians to robbery, and that they willingly availed themselves of an opportunity not only to make good their losses, but to be avenged for any wrongs, real or imaginary, which they had ever suffered at the hands of white men. ”

“ Other tribes, imitating their example, were restless and dissatisfied, even threatening, and affairs assumed so serious an aspect that Crook requested the commander of the division to withdraw no more troops from Oregon, as he felt assured any attempt to forcibly remove the Indians—a measure daily becoming more necessary to the security of the settlements—would precipitate another Indian war, and that the presence of the military was at that time necessary to restrain many roving bands from committing depredations. ”

“ Such was the flattering prospect under which the Indian agency business opened in Oregon. Truly, a government must have faith in its servants to place such temptations in their way. Frauds innumerable were the result; from five hundred to five thousand dollars would be paid to the politicians to secure an agency, the returns from which investment, with hundreds per cent profit, must be made by systematic peculations and pilferings, so that not one quarter of the moneys appropriated on behalf of the Indians would be expended for their benefit. ”

“ The water power at Oregon City, which ever since 1841 had been a source of discord, and had constituted at times an injurious monopoly, had finally come into the hands of a syndicate of Portland and Oregon City men, who designed to make the latter place what nature intended it to be--the great manufacturing centre of the state. ”

“ It was not then known in Oregon that a treaty had been signed by the United States and Mexico, but it was believed that such would be the result of the war; hence the gold-fields of California were already regarded as the property of Americans. Men of family expected to return; single men thought little about it. To go, and at once, was the chief idea. [4] Many who had not the means were fitted out by others who took a share in the venture; and quite different from those who took like risks at the east, the trusts imposed in the men of Oregon were as a rule faithfully carried out. ”