DOWN THE COLUMBIA IN '51.
After eighty days travel over one thousand seven hundred sixty-five
miles of road these weary pilgrims reached the mighty river of the West,
the vast Columbia.
At The Dalles, the road Across the Plains was finished, from thence the
great waterways would lead them to their journey's end.
It was there the immigrants first feasted on the delicious river salmon,
fresh from the foaming waters. The Indians boiled theirs, making a
savory soup, the odor of which would almost have fed a hungry man; the
white people cooked goodly pieces in the trusty camp frying pan.
Not then accustomed to such finny monsters, they found a comparison for
the huge cuts as like unto sides of pork, and a receptacle for the
giant's morsels in a seaworthy washingtub. However, high living will
pall unto the taste; one may really tire of an uninterrupted piscatorial
banquet, and one of the company, A. A. Denny, declared his intention of
introducing some variety in the bill of fare. "Plague take it," he said,
"I'm tired of salmon--I'm going to have some chicken."
But alas! the gallinaceous fowl, roaming freely at large, had also
feasted frequently on fragments no longer fresh of the overplus of
salmon, and its flavor was indescribable, wholly impossible, as the
French say. It was "fishy" fish rather than fowl.
At The Dalles the company divided, one party composed of a majority of
the men started over the mountains with the wagons and teams; the women
and children prepared to descend the river in boats.
In one boat, seated on top of the "plunder" were Mrs. A. A. Denny and
two children, Miss Louisa Boren, Mrs. Low and four children and Mrs.
Boren and one child. The other boat was loaded in like manner with a
great variety of useful and necessary articles, heaped up, on top of
which sat several women and children, among whom were Mrs. Sarah Denny,
grandmother of the writer, and her little daughter, Loretta.
A long summer day was spent in floating down the great canyon where the
majestic Columbia cleaves the Cascade Range in twain. The succeeding
night the first boat landed on an island in the river, and the voyagers
went ashore to camp. During the night one of the little girls, Gertrude
Boren, rolled out of her bed and narrowly escaped falling into the
hurrying stream; had she done so she must have certainly been lost, but
a kind Providence decreed otherwise. Re-embarking the following day,
gliding swiftly on the current, they traversed a considerable distance
and the second night approached the Cascades.
Swifter and more turbulent, the rushing flood began to break in more
furious foam-wreaths on every jagged rock, impotently striving to stay
its onward rush to the limitless ocean.
Sufficient light enabled the observing eye to perceive the writhing
surface of the angry waters, but the boatmen were stupified with drink!
All day long they had passed a bottle about which contained a liquid
facetiously called "Blue Ruin" and near enough their ruin it proved.
I have penned the following description which met with the approval of
one of the principal actors in what so nearly proved a tragedy:
It was midnight on the mighty Columbia. A waning moon cast a glowworm
light on the dark, rushing river; all but one of the weary women and
tired little children were deeply sunken in sleep. The oars creaked and
dipped monotonously; the river sang louder and louder every boat's
length. Drunken, bloated faces leered foolishly and idiotically; they
admonished each other to "Keep 'er goin'."
The solitary watcher stirred uneasily, looked at the long lines of foam
out in midstream and saw how fiercely the white waves contended, and far
swifter flew the waters than at any hour before. What was the meaning of
it? Hark! that humming, buzzing, hissing, nay, bellowing roar! The blood
flew to her brain and made her senses reel; they must be nearing the
last landing above the falls, the great Cascades of the Columbia.
But the crew gave no heed.
Suddenly she cried out sharply to her sleeping sister, "Mary! Mary! wake
up! we are nearing the falls, I hear them roar."
"What is it, Liza?" she said sleepily.
"O, wake up! we shall all be drowned, the men don't know what they are
doing."
The rudely awakened sleepers seemed dazed and did not make much outcry,
but a strong young figure climbed over the mass of baggage and
confronting the drunken boatmen, plead, urged and besought them, if they
considered their own lives, or their helpless freight of humanity, to
make for the shore.
"Oh, men," she pleaded, "don't you hear the falls, they roar louder now.
It will soon be too late, I beseech you turn the boat to shore. Look at
the rapids beyond us!"
"Thar haint no danger, Miss, leastways not yet; wots all this fuss about
anyhow? No danger," answered one who was a little disturbed; the others
were almost too much stupified to understand her words and stood staring
at the bareheaded, black haired young woman as if she were an apparition
and were no more alarmed than if the warning were given as a curious
mechanical performance, having no reference to themselves.
Repeating her request with greater earnestness, if possible, a man's
voice broke in saying, "I believe she is right, put in men quick, none
of us want to be drowned."
Fortunately this penetrated their besotted minds and they put about in
time to save the lives of all on board, although they landed some
distance below the usual place.
A little farther and they would have been past all human help.
One of the boatmen cheerfully acknowledged the next day that if it
"hadn't been fur that purty girl they had a' gone over them falls,
shure."
The other boat had a similar experience; it began to leak profusely
before they had gone very far and would soon have sunk, had not the
crew, who doubtless were sober, made all haste to land.
My grandmother has often related to me how she clasped her little child
to her heart and resigned herself to a fate which seemed inevitable;
also of a Mrs. McCarthy, a passenger likewise, becoming greatly excited
and alternately swearing and praying until the danger was past. An
inconvenient but amusing feature was the soaked condition of the
"plunder" and the way the shore and shrubbery thereon were decorated
with "hiyu ictas," as the Chinook has it, hung out to dry. Finding it
impossible to proceed, this detachment returned and took the mountain
road.
A tramway built by F. A. Chenoweth, around the great falls, afforded
transportation for the baggage of the narrowly saved first described.
There being no accommodations for passengers, the party walked the
tramroad; at the terminus they unloaded and stayed all night. No
"commodious and elegant" steamer awaited them, but an old brig, bound
for Portland, received them and their effects.
Such variety of adventure had but recently crowded upon them that it was
almost fearfully they re-embarked. A. A. Denny observed to Captain Low,
"Look here, Low, they say women are scarce in Oregon and we had better
be careful of ours." Presumably they were, as both survive at the
present day.
From a proud ranger of the dashing main, the old brig had come down to
be a carrier of salt salmon packed in barrels, and plunder of
immigrants; as for the luckless passengers, they accommodated themselves
as best they could.
The small children were tied to the mast to keep them from falling
overboard, as there were no bulwarks.
Beds were made below on the barrels before mentioned and the travel-worn
lay down, but not to rest; the mosquitos were a bloodthirsty throng and
the beds were likened unto a corduroy road.
One of the women grumbled a little and an investigation proved that it
was, as her husband said, "Nothing but the tea-kettle" wedged in between
the barrels.
Another lost a moccasin overboard and having worn out all her shoes on
the way, went with one stockinged foot until they turned up the
Willamette River, then went ashore to a farmhouse where she was so
fortunate as to find the owner of a new pair of shoes which she bought,
and was thus able to enter the "city" of Portland in appropriate
footgear.
After such vicissitudes, dangers and anxiety, the little company were
glad to tarry in the embryo metropolis for a brief season; then, having
heard of fairer shores, the restless pioneers moved on.