84

weather continued warm throughout the winter; but on the 12th of December 1842 the Columbia was frozen over, and the ice remained in the river at the Dalles till the middle of March, and the mercury was 6° below zero in that month, while in the Willamette Valley the cold was severe. On the other hand, in the winter of 1843 there was a heavy rainfall, and a disastrous freshet in the Willamette in February. The two succeeding winters were mild and rainy, fruit forming on the trees in April; and again in the latter part of the winter of 1846-7 the Columbia was frozen over at Vancouver so that the officers of the Modeste played a curling match on the ice. The winter of 1848-9 was also cold, with ice in the Columbia. The prevailing temperature was mild, however, when taken year by year, and the soil being generally warm, the vegetables and fruits raised by the first settlers surprised them by their size and quality. If any fault was to be found with the climate it was on the score of too many rainy or cloudy days; but when by comparison with the drier climate of California it was found to insure greater regularity of crops the farming community at least were satisfied. The cattleraisers had most reason to dread the peculiarities of the Oregon climate, which by its general mildness flattered them into neglecting to provide winter food for their stock, and when an occasional season of snow and ice came upon them they died by hundreds; but this was partly the fault of the improvident owner.

85

86

The face of nature here was beautiful; pure air from the ocean and the mountains; loveliness in the

84 Clyman's Note Book, MS., 82-98; Palmer's Journal, 119.

85 A potato is spoken of which weighed 34 lbs., and another 34 lbs.; while turnips sometimes weighed from 10 to 30 lbs. Blanchet raised one of 17 lbs. 86 The term 'web-foot' had not yet been applied to the Oregonians. It became current in mining times, and is said to have originated in a sarcastic remark of a commercial traveller, who had spent the night in a farm-house on the marshy banks of the Long Tom, in what is now Lane County, that children should be provided with webbed feet in that country. 'We have thought of that,' returned the mistress of the house, at the same time displaying to the astonished visitor her baby's feet with webs between the toes. The story lost nothing in the telling, and Web-foot became the pseudonyme for Oregonian.

THE COMMONWEALTH ESTABLISHED.

87

41

valleys dignified by grandeur in the purple ranges which bordered them, overtopped here and there by snowy peaks whose nearly extinct craters occasionally threw out a puff of smoke or ashy flame, to remind the beholder of the igneous building of the dark cliffs overhanging the great river. The whole country was remarkably free from poisonous reptiles and insects. Of all the serpent class the rattlesnake alone was armed with deadly fangs, and these were seldom seen except in certain localities in the western portion of Oregon. Even the house-fly was imported, coming like many plants, and like the bee, in the beaten trail of white men.

88

Such was the country rescued from savagism by this virtuous and intelligent people; and such their general condition with regard to improvement, trade, education, morals, contentment, and health, at the period when, after having achieved so much without aid from congress, that body took the colony under its wing and assumed direction of its affairs.

87 Mount St Helen and Mount Baker were in a state of eruption in March 1850, according to the Spectator of the 21st of that month. The same paper of Oct. 18, 1849, records a startling explosion in the region of Mount Hood, when the waters of Silver Creek stopped running for 24 hours, and also the destruction of all the fish in the stream by poisonous gases.

McClane says that when he came to Oregon there was not a fly of any kind, but fleas were plenty. First Wagon Train, MS., 14. W. H. Rector has said the same. Lewis and Clarke, and Parker, expiate upon the fleas about the Indian camps.

CHAPTER II.

EFFECT OF THE CALIFORNIA GOLD DISCOVERY.

1848-1849.

THE MAGIC POWER OF GOLD-A NEW OREGON-ARRIVAL OF NEWELLSHARP TRAFFIC-THE DISCOVERY ANNOUNCED-THE STAMPEDE SOUTHWARD-OVERLAND COMPANIES LASSEN'S IMMIGRANTS HANCOCK'S MANUSCRIPT-CHARACTER OF THE OREGONIANS IN CALIFORNIA-THEIR GENERAL SUCCESS-REVOLUTIONS IN TRADE AND SOCIETY-ARRIVAL OF VESSELS INCREASE IN THE PRICES OF PRODUCTS-CHANGE OF CURRENCY-THE QUESTION OF A MINT-PRIVATE COINAGE-INFLUX OF FOREIGN SILVER-EFFECT ON SOCIETY-LEGISLATION-IMMIGRATION.

AND now begins Oregon's age of gold, quite a different affair from Oregon's golden age, which we must look for at a later epoch. The Oregon to which Lane was introduced as governor was not the same from which his companion Meek had hurried in poverty and alarm one year before. Let us note the change, and the cause, before recording the progress of the new government.

On the 31st of July 1848, the little schooner Honolulu, Captain Newell, from San Francisco, arrived in the Columbia, and began to load not only with provisions, but with shovels, picks, and pans, all that could be bought in the limited market. This created no surprise, as it was known that Americans were emigrating to California who would be in want of these things, and the captain of the schooner was looked upon as a sharp trader who knew how to turn an honest penny. When he had obtained everything to his purpose, he revealed the discovery made by Marshall in California, and told the story how Ore

THE NEWS IN OREGON.

43

gon men had opened to the world what appeared an inexhaustible store of golden treasure.1

The news was confirmed by the arrival August 9th of the brig Henry from San Francisco, and on the 23d of the fur company's brig Mary Dare from the Hawaiian Islands, by the way of Victoria, with Chief Factor Douglas on board, who was not inclined to believe the reports. But in a few days more the tidings had travelled overland by letter, ex-Governor Boggs having written to some of his former Missouri friends in Oregon by certain men coming with horses to the Willamette Valley for provisions, that much gold was found on the American River. No one doubted longer; covetous desire quickly increased to a delirium of hope. The late Indian disturbances were forgotten; and from the ripening harvests the reapers without compunctions turned away. Even their beloved land-claims were deserted; if a man did not

go

to California it was because he could not leave his family or business. Some prudent persons at first, seeing that provisions and lumber must greatly increase in price, concluded to stay at home and reap the advantage without incurring the risk; but these were a small proportion of the able-bodied men of the colony. Far more went to the gold mines than had volunteered to fight the Cayuses; farmers, mechanics, professional men, printers-every class. Tools were dropped and work left unfinished in the shops. The farms were abandoned to women and boys. The two newspapers, the Oregon Spectator and Free Press, held

1J. W. Marshall was an immigrant to Oregon of 1844. He went to California in 1846, and was employed by Sutter. In 1847 he was followed by Charles Bennett and Stephen Staats, all of whom were at Sutter's mill when the discovery of gold was made. Brown's Will. Val., MS., 7; Parsons' Life of Marshall, 8-9.

2 Burnett says that at least two thirds of the population capable of bearing arms left for California in the summer and autumn of 1848. Recollections, MS., i. 325. About two thousand persons,' says the California Star and Californian, Dec. 9, 1848. Only five old men were left at Salem. Brown's Will. Val., MS., 9. Anderson, in his Northwest Coast, MS., 37, speaks of the great exodus. Compare Crawford's Nar., MS., 166, and Victor's River of the West, 483-5. Barnes, Or. and Cal., MS., S, says he found at Oregon City only a few women and children and some Indians.

out, the one till December, the other until the spring of 1849, when they were left without compositors and suspended. No one thought of the outcome. 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.* 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.5

Pack-trains were first employed by the Oregon goldseekers; then in September a wagon company was organized. A hundred and fifty robust, sober, and energetic men were soon ready for the enterprise. The train consisted of fifty wagons loaded with mining implements and provisions for the winter. Even planks for constructing gold-rockers were carried in the bottom of some of the wagons. The teams were strong oxen; the riding horses of the hardy native Cayuse stock, late worth but ten dollars, now bringing thirty, and the men were armed. Burnett was elected captain and Thomas McKay pilot. They went to Klamath Lake by the Applegate route, and then turned south-east intending to get into the California emigrant road before it crossed the Sierra. After travelling several days over an elevated region, not well watered nor furnishing good grass, to their surprise

The Spectator from February to October. I do not think the Free Press was revived after its stoppage, though it ran long enough to print Lane's proclamation. The Oregon American had expired in the autumn of 1848. Atkinson, in the Home Missionary, 22, 64; Bristow's Rencounters, MS., 2-9; Ryan's Judges and Criminals, 79.

4

There was the usual doggerel perpetrated here as elsewhere at the time. See Brown's Or. Miscel., MS., 47.

6 Ross' Nar., MS., 11; Lovejoy's Portland, MS., 26; Johnson's Cal. and Or., 185-6.