Jesse Applegate

“ 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 ”

“ When the frightened people came near they saw the broken and shattered tree and all around were the scorched and blackened bodies of the half score of assassins who had sought shelter under the branches and had been punished for their sin by a bolt of fire from the heavens. We children were frequently at this place where a broken and shattered stump still stood. I finally found the grave of the murdered man, doctor or missionary, he must have been. ”

“ The opinion also seems to have been general that the surest way to cure a man of disease was to reduce him almost to the point of death; that the less life there was left in a man, the less disease there would be. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each man had a saddle horse and a pack horse. After making arrangements for the subsistence of their families this little party started out into an unexplored wilderness among tribes of hostile Indians. ”

“ In the year 1846 my father, with a number of other pioneers, resolved to go on an exploring expedition, the object being to find a more direct route for immigrants coming to Oregon. They hoped to find a route by which others might reach the new country without having to suffer the hardships they had endured but could never forget. ”

“ Many Indians visited our camp, bringing fish, both fresh and dried, which they exchanged for old clothes, and a number of them strutted around dressed in their newly acquired garments, seeming to enjoy their often absurd appearance as much as we did, for when we would laugh, they would laugh and jabber among themselves. They were almost naked, some of them quite so. When one would get a garment he would put it on at once. A naked Indian would put on a shirt and step around as though he thought himself in full dress ”

“ They were dressed and painted and armed like the men. Some of them were very fine of figure, had pretty faces, and eyes as soft and bright as the antelopes on those wild plains. They were all young women, and as I thought made love to our young men with their eyes like city damsels, but in the excitement of battle I suppose they became very furies and those lovely eyes flashed fire. Their small, shapely hands and small feet clad in beaded moccasins were admired even by our women, and I fear our men, bold as they were, were almost captured already by those lovely warriors. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The reader must not infer from the foregoing that we were always idle and bent on amusing ourselves. We were each required to do our share of work of whatever kind we were capable of doing. Every boy had to put his hands to the plow as soon as he was old enough to guide a yoke of oxen or plow a straight furrow. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The problem of clothing had become a very serious one. Tents and wagon covers that had seen service from the Mississippi to the Columbia would shed rain when made into coats. Lined with the remnants of some old woolen garment, and with a broad collar and cuffs faced with the fur of beaver or otter, these garments would pass without criticism even though their ancestry might be known to every one by indelible marks that had been on the tent or wagon cover. ”

“ One evening after dark we heard loud screaming or yelling a mile and a half away across the prairie, and presently a fire was seen to start up like a flash. Some one said it must be a band of Indians on the war path, whooping, and firing the grass, for it was autumn and the grass was dry. The facts were, as we learned next day, that Uncle Charlie's truck heavily loaded and drawn by three yoke of oxen was enroute across the valley and one of the spindles took fire and burned off before the teamster, who was busy with the cattle, noticed that anything unusual had happened. ”

“ Garments were sometimes made of the wool-like hair of the wolf. At the time we lived in Missouri there were in almost every family a spinning wheel and loom and the women folks spun yarn of wool and cotton out of which they knit socks, stockings and other garments, and wove cloth for family use. ”

“ The Indians continued to burn the grass every season, until the country was somewhat settled up and the whites prevented them; hut every fall, for a number of years, we were treated to the same grand display of fireworks. On dark nights the sheets of flame and tongues of fire and lurid clouds of smoke made a picture both awful and sublime.
In the summer of 1844, the cattle, horses and wagons left at old Fort Walla Walla were sent for and the remnants arrived at the settlement late in the fall. A part of the cattle were not found. A few it was supposed, had been appropriated by the Indians. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Wild turkeys were plentiful in the woods and we often heard them calling and gobbling near the house; they were highly prized as a game bird and a hunter could generally bag all he wanted in a few hours. ”

“ Another reason which had much influence in determining the pioneers to undertake the expedition was the fact that the question as to which power, Great Britain or the United States, would eventually secure a title to the country, had not been settled. In case war should occur, and Great Britain be successful, it was Important that we should have a way by which to leave the country without running the gauntlet of the Hudson Bay Company's forts, or falling a prey to the Indian tribes which were under British influence. ”

“ We dug the many toothsome roots found on the hillsides and in the valleys, and contrived in many ways to find amusement and pastime in inventions of our own. My brother Elisha was an inventive and mechanical genius, and from the instructions he got from reading some old book on mechanics made a gyroscope, having cast the heavy wheel in a soapstone mould. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I first heard this tradition from the lips of a venerable Chemomochot priest or doctor, sixty or more years ago, and I have never found an Indian who was able to add a word to it. All the priests or "medicine men," and I believe, all the people knew this much of their origin. This is the tradition: "In the beginning was a mountain, and on the mountain top was a table of stone. On this table was a deposit of some kind of matter jelly-like in consistence—we would call it protoplasm—and out of this protoplastic mass grew a living being in the form of, and was, a woman. ”

“ Although slow in making the discovery, I eventually learned that there was among the natives a professional class possessed of all the learning not considered necessary in the ordinary affairs of life. ”

“ In the morning we could see the river from our camp, so far down that it looked like a small stream. The slope down to the river was very steep, but there was bunch grass in abundance and some of our cattle were grazing on the slope and along the river. Some boys were rolling rocks down this slope into the river. They did not seem to consider the danger to cattle below them, and were enjoying the sport of seeing the large stones rush and bound down the long and steep declivity and plunge with a tremendous splash into the water, sometimes throwing water twenty-five and thirty feet high. ”

“ When our families started west again, we crossed the river in the ferry boat which father built during the winter. Taking a southerly course between the hills and the river to Salt Creek Valley, then west through a low gap in the range of hills six miles north of The Mill, now the city of Salem, we traveled west about nine miles and kindled our last camp fire on the bank of a branch of Salt Creek under the brow of the Coast Mountain range. In order to make this move, a team had been hired or borrowed. There may have been more than one team, although I can recall but one. ”

“ Notwithstanding our privations and many hardships we children found much pleasure in life. We lived close to nature in the early days. We hunted and fished and gathered wild berries and nuts in the woods and along the streams. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Supposing the natives were in the habit of roaming through these mountains, father wished to have one go with us as a guide. But no Indian wanted to go. Numerous as they were, no consideration would induce one to go with us into this vast wilderness. We went without a guide. Traveling west four or five miles, through open woods of white oak timber, we began the ascent of a spur of the Coast range. Following a winding foot path made by wild beasts, the ascent was not difficult. Traveling through an unbroken forest all day, we made camp near the summit of the range just as the sun went down. ”

“ The river we found to be about a hundred yards wide, quite rapid, and too deep to ford, though the banks were low and not precipitous. How the crossing of the river here was effected I do not remember, hut it was difficult and very dangerous, and one man was drowned. When we had crossed the river, we were at Fort Boise, for the fort was near the river. It was also a Hudson Bay post. It was probably while camping in the neighborhood of this fort that we children were much surprised and delighted to find beads, generally small and white in color, in ant hills. ”

“ The sport consisted in running and butting the head against the paunch and being bounced back, the recoil being in proportion to the force of contact. The sport was found to be very exciting and there grew up a rivalry between the boys as to who could butt the hardest. ”