called, cheered the hearts of thousands of immigrants by his deeds
of gracious humanity. With a generous hand he furnished provisions,
clothing, cattle, grain, and farming implements, taking in return the
immigrant's word that he would ever be repaid; the word was sometimes
kept and oftentimes broken. Doctor McLoughlin conducted life at Fort
Vancouver as feudal lords of old, and that, too, with strict military
discipline; the coming and going regulated by the ringing of the great
bell. The members of this large household breakfasted and supped by
their own firesides, but dinner was served in the hall for gentlemen
and visitors. All stood while the doctor said grace, and men of humble
birth "sat below the salt." Distinguished men gathered at this board.
Foremost among them we reckon Douglas, the botanist, to whom the doctor
furnished escort and transportation. As he took his way through the
Willamette Valley, and on to the Rogue River, it became a journey of
months. His investigations covered a wide stretch—the lowly flower
by the trail, the myriads of brilliant blooms on the breeze-swept
prairies, the shrubs and vines of hillside and canyon, and towering
evergreens on lofty mountain heights. In order to study plant life
he watched it from the bursting bud in April showers, through sunny
summer weather, to the autumn maturing of the seed. Be it remembered
that Douglas first made the world acquainted with the three kingliest
products of our forests—the giant spruce of the Oregon wilderness,
the solemn fir of the cloud-drift region, and the sugar pine of the
Sierras. This clever man met with a tragic death in the Sandwich
Islands, for he fell into a pit dug for wild cattle and was gored to
death by a bull.
Geologists searching the distant field, and titled gentlemen traveling
for pleasure, shared the doctor's hospitality, and were given escort
through the beautiful pastoral country. With the ingress of the
Americans Oregon City became the place of importance next to Fort
Vancouver, and when Doctor McLoughlin was called there on business, he
set out in a bateau, manned by French-Canadian voyageurs, who, clad in
their gay national dress, sang gay Canadian boating songs to the rhythm
of the paddles. The doctor sat aloft in the stern, erect and dignified,
dressed in a long blue-cloth coat, with brass buttons, buff waistcoat
and dark trousers, and a gray beaver hat. The garments were fashioned
in London, and the making of beaver hats has been a lost art these many
years. When the doctor reached Oregon City he clambered up the rocky
path and paced the single street, carrying a gold-headed cane, and with
his brilliant blue eyes and flowing white locks, his was a face and
figure never to be forgotten. This great-hearted man and friend of the
pioneers lies by the side of his wife in consecrated ground, within
sound of the Falls of the Willamette.
We can understand what a sore deprivation the absence of books and
papers was to the pioneers of the "forties." One man in the Yoncalla
Valley, who had accumulated several hundred dollars, called his
children about him and asked if he should build a house to replace
the log cabin, or buy "Harper's Complete Library," consisting of many
volumes bound in "12mo." Be it to their lasting credit, the books were
purchased, carefully read and remembered, and preserved for succeeding
generations.
Another man, troubled lest his children be cut off from civilizing
influences in their frontier life, built and furnished a house at
great expense and in a style that was not equaled for many years nor
within many miles. He lived to see his lands and house swept from
him, through the dishonesty of another, but not before the attractive
home surroundings had served their purpose. This brave man spent the
declining years of trouble and sorrow on the mountain-side overlooking
the fair valley, where once lay his own broad acres, and no man
had ever been turned from his door. The letters written through
all the years of this man's life in Oregon are marvels of style
and composition, and greatly treasured by their fortunate owners.
Especially so are those of his later years, when riper experience and
a keener insight into men and events lent greater force to his pen, so
that a man of great culture and polish once said: "They sound as if
written from a baronial castle, whereas they come from a log cabin."
On the western slope of the Willamette there was another where all
books and papers were most carefully preserved, so that the third
generation of descendants is now able to read a file of the _Oregon
Spectator_, published in 1846 and 1847. The paper was placed over
a string stretched across the cabin, until they were all carefully
laid by. An English gentleman, accompanied by a guide and traveling
in pursuit of game and pleasure, once craved food and shelter at the
cabin door. He was cheerfully bidden to enter and partake of the
unvarying fare of boiled wheat and possibly beef, and the earthen
floor and a buffalo robe served as a bed. The gentleman met his host
and hostess in Washington afterward, and when the latter spoke of
the meager entertainment in Oregon, he said: "Ha, but you gave me
the best you had; the Prince of Wales could do no better." A roomy,
comfortable house replaced the log cabin, and its door, too, stood
ajar, and all were welcomed to the kind and simple hospitality. Young
officers from West Point, on first frontier duty, passing to remote
mountain garrisons and out again for brief glimpses of civilization,
had cordial greeting. Some of these died like brave soldiers on the
battle-fields of the civil war. Others attained rank and distinction in
the service, and two at least won the highest honors ever conferred by
an appreciative country.
Every governor and senator of Oregon has claimed the welcome extended,
unless it be the present incumbents, and though the master and his
gentle wife have passed out for the last time, those, too, would be
kindly greeted beneath the old roof. Preacher and circuit-rider,
humbly following in the footsteps of their divine Lord, students and
distinguished statesmen gathered about this fireside. Best of all were
the times when the earliest pioneers honored it with their presence,
and the quaint telling of tales of adventure, privation and Indian
warfare lasted far into the night, and the logs burned low on the hearth.
The lack of schools was deeply deplored by many of these hardy
pioneers, men and women, though some were more fortunate. Many remember
with affection and respect one who came from her New England home and
most conscientiously taught the fortunate children entrusted to her
care. School days under her wise and kind guidance, and ofttimes in
most picturesque spots, are bright and happy memories of many men and
women today. One family spent years of happiness and contentment on a
lonely sea shore, and were taught by a governess, while the play-time
was spent among the beautiful groves and watching the waves so full of
interest and mystery. A peaceful happy life, but in their longing for
companionship they fed sugar to two house flies on the window-sill in
stormy weather,—for house flies were not then a pest.
Sometimes the housewife was of another nationality, and claimed a
prior right to this beautiful valley. A judge once traveling across
Tualatin Plains in the winter was belated by a storm and asked shelter
at a trapper's door. He was given a place by the blazing hearth, and
the dusky housewife, busy about the evening meal, placed before them
potatoes, deliciously roasted in the ashes, venison, bread, butter,
milk and tea, while the host interestingly told of having known Captain
Bonneville and his party on the plains, as well as members of the Rocky
Mountain Fur Company. In his journeys he knew the watershed of the
Columbia and Missouri by heart, and in one night had set traps in both
rivers.
One of Oregon's most polished and charming of her earlier pioneers, was
entertained at a frugal board, and in graceful acknowledgment sent the
hostess some soup plates from the Hudson's Bay store, and a daughter
of the house exhibited them to him forty years afterward. Although
he returned to New England to spend many of the last years of his
life, his interest in Oregon never waned, and during his visits here
his reminiscences of early days were a delight to those who were so
fortunate as to hear them.
The first school opened in the original Oregon country for American
children was by Doctor Whitman at the Waiilatpu Mission, on the Walla
Walla River. The school was attended by the children of missionaries,
those who were left orphans, and the children of immigrants who were
belated by winter storms and kept from entering the Willamette Valley.
Eliza Spalding was born at Lapwai Mission in 1837, and at ten years
of age was sent to Whitman's station in charge of a trusty Nez Perce
woman. These two journeyed alone on horseback three days, and camped as
many nights by the trail. The air was cold on the table land adjacent
to the Snake River, but the child was tenderly cared for by this
faithful woman. Eliza was interpreter, owing to her thorough knowledge
of Nez Perce, but her school-time at the mission was brief. Fifty years
afterward she told of the awful tragedy that ended the life-work of
a great and good man and his wife, and those others who shared their
fate. Half a century had not obliterated the traces and impression of
the horrible crime from the sensitive mind of her who was a child at
the time of the massacre.
A little school established in Polk County, early in the forties laid
claim to the ambitious title of institute. Whether in the spirit of
true democracy, or as a deserving tribute to the great mind that
conceived the possibilities of this western land, and with marvelous
foresight planned the Lewis and Clark expedition, this little log
school house bore the name of the Jefferson Institute. The man who
presided there remembered the lore of earlier years, and equally well
had he treasured the books of that more fortunate time.
Men and women are living who owe a debt of gratitude to John E. Lyle,
and remember with deep affection and respect that he first pointed out
the narrow path that led far afield in the great world of study and
literature of today.
The theme is endless, when we begin to recall the men and events of
other days; much has been written and preserved, and much lost to the
world because the demands of later times were great, and those who
might have recorded faithfully and well went out into the great beyond
without having benefited Oregon's story by handing down such a record.
MRS. WILLIAM MARKLAND MOLSON.
NOT MARJORAM.
THE SPANISH WORD "OREGANO" NOT THE ORIGINAL OF OREGON.
The textbooks in the hands of our children in the public schools
continue to furnish them with the erroneous information that the name
of the State of Oregon was derived from the word "oregano," the Spanish
name for the plant that we call marjoram. This is mere conjecture,
absolutely without support. More than this, it is completely disproved
by all that is known of the history of the name. There is nothing
in the records of the Spanish navigators, nothing in the history of
Spanish exploration or discovery, that indicates even in the faintest
way that this was the origin of the name, or that the Spaniards called
this country or any portion of it by that name. There is marjoram here,
indeed; and at a time long after the Spaniards had discontinued their
northern coast voyages it was suggested that the presence of marjoram
(oregano) here had led the Spaniards to call the country "Oregon."
From the year 1535 the Spaniards, from Mexico, made frequent voyages
of exploration along the Pacific Coast towards the north. The main
object was the discovery of a passage connecting the Pacific and
Atlantic oceans. Consequently the explorers paid little attention to
the country itself. After a time, finding the effort to discover a
passage fruitless, they desisted for a long period. But after the lapse
of two centuries they began to establish settlements on the coast of
California; and then voyages towards the north were resumed by some
of their navigators. In 1775 the mouth of the Columbia River was seen
by Heceta, but, owing to the force of the current, he was unable to
enter. The fact here to be noted is that the Spaniards of that day did
not call the country Oregon, or, if they did, they have left no record
of it.
But even before the discovery of the Columbia River by Heceta the name
of Oregon appeared in another quarter. Jonathan Carver, of Connecticut,
who had served as a captain in the colonial war against the French, set
out from Boston in 1766 and proceeded by way of the Great Lakes to the
region of the Upper Mississippi, now forming the States of Wisconsin,
Minnesota and Iowa. He returned to Boston in October, 1768, and then
went over to England, where his "Travels" were published. From that
journey to the Upper Mississippi region he brought back the name of
Oregon, which he says he obtained from the Indians there. "From these
nations," he says, "together with my own observations, I have learned
that the four most capital rivers of the Continent of North America,
viz., the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the Bourbon (flowing into
Hudson's Bay), and the Oregon, or River of the West, have their sources
in the same neighborhood. The waters of the three former are within
thirty miles of each other; the latter, however, is rather farther west."
Carver, of course, had a geographical theory, and was seeking to verify
it. This is the first mention of the name of Oregon that has yet been
discovered. Carver either invented the word, or produced it from
imitation of some word spoken by the Indians. There certainly was no
"oregano," or marjoram, about it.
The word "oregano," it may be noted, has curious usage in Spanish
authors. One of Sancho's proverbs, literally translated, runs thus:
"Pray God, it may prove marjoram, and not turn out caraway for us." It
is said to be unexplainable why marjoram and caraway in Spain should
have been taken as types of the desirable and undesirable. In another
place Sancho says: "I would not have him marjoram (oregano), for
covetousness bursts the bag, and the covetous governor does ungoverned
justice." Here the word is used in the sense of "eager for gain."
Others have professed or proposed to derive the name of Oregon from
the Spanish word "oreja," the ear—supposing that the Spaniards noted
the big ears of the native Indians and named the country from the
circumstance. But the Spaniards themselves have left no record of the
kind; nor has it been noted, so far as we are aware, that the ears of
our Indians were remarkably large. The word "orejon" is nearer our
form; it signifies "slice of dried apple," we may suppose from its
resemblance to the form of the ear. Many years ago Archbishop Blanchet,
of Oregon, while in Peru, noted a peculiar use of this word "orejon" in
that country, which he ingeniously conjectured might throw some light
on the origin of the name of Oregon.
But it is unnecessary to formulate any fanciful theory. The name
of Oregon first appears in Carver's book of "Travels" in the Upper
Mississippi region in 1766-67. Did he invent the name? Probably. Did he
get it from the Indians? Possibly something like it. But it never has
been discovered among the Indians of that country since Carver's time,
nor anything like it. There remains a possible supposition that French
travelers who had passed through that country some years before, and
had proceeded on their westward journey far toward the Rocky Mountains,
and then returned, had been making inquiries among the Indians as
to the great western river that all geographers had postulated, and
had spoken a word that the Indians had tried to imitate—possibly
"Aragon"—knowing that the Spaniards had explored the western coasts,
and intimating that the country by discovery might belong to Spain.
But all these are fruitless conjectures.[20] We know where we find the
name of Oregon first written, when it was written, and by whom; and
the circumstances completely disprove the "oregano" and the "orejon"
theories. A notable fact it is that a slight incident of Carver's
career, so slight that he thought nothing about it—the creation of a
name, or the casual use of a name hitherto unknown—has immortalized
his own name upon the tongues of men dwelling in the region of his
"River of the West." But Minnesota has not neglected him. She does
justice to him in her records and historical transactions, and has not
forgotten to name a county for him. He died in poverty and misery in
London, January 31, 1780.
H. W. SCOTT.
[Footnote 20: Professor John Fiske, in his "History of the United
States," says that Oregon "may perhaps be the Algonquin _Wau-re-gan_,
'beautiful water.'"]
REMINISCENCES OF LOUIS LABONTE.
By H. S. LYMAN.
Louis Labonte (or Le Bonte), son of Louis Labonte of the Astor
expedition, who accompanied Hunt across the continent in 1811-12,
is still living at Saint Paul, Marion County, Oregon. He is now
eighty-two years old, and is in good health. His remembrance of earlier
experiences and life is still fresh and his mind seems very vigorous
for one of his age. He says, however, that his recollection of the
Indian languages that he once knew has now largely slipped away. These
were the Clatsop or Chinook, the Tillamook, Tualatin and Calapooya, of
which he says he knew a few words, and the Spokane which he understood
almost perfectly. Besides these, he talked fluently in the Indian
jargon and in French and English.
He was born at Astoria in 1818, his mother being a daughter of Chief
Kobayway, and an older sister of Celiast, or Mrs. Helen Smith. Three
years of his early life, about 1824 to 1827, were spent at Spokane
Falls, and the three years succeeding at Fort Colville. Then two years,
probably 1830 to 1833, were spent on French Prairie. His father had
removed to that place and was engaged in raising wheat on a piece of
land owned by Joseph Gervais, whose wife was a sister of his mother.
From this place he accompanied the family to the farm of Thomas McKay
on Scappoose Creek near Sauvie's Island, where he spent three years.
In 1836 he removed with the family to a location on the Yamhill River
near Dayton. In 1849, being then a well matured man, he accompanied
a party headed by William McKay to the gold mines of California,
returning the same year. During the Indian war of 1855-56 he was a
member of the Oregon Volunteers in the company of Robert Newell, which
was stationed at Fort Vancouver to hold in check the Cascade Indians
and the Klickitats to the north.
His reminiscences are important on the following: _First_, as to his
father, Louis Labonte; _second_, earliest French Prairie; _third_,
experiences at Scappoose; _fourth_, Spokane Indians and Indian myths;
_fifth_, the names of Indian places and persons; _sixth_, the primitive
Indian articles of food; _seventh_, on some of the Indian tribes and
customs and traditions; and _eighth_, of the original white men.
I.
LOUIS LABONTE SENIOR.
Concerning his father, he says that this member of the Astor expedition
was born in Montreal, and was about eighteen years old when he came out
to Saint Louis, and was there engaged as an employee of the American
Fur Company for four years; at the age of twenty-two he was engaged
by Wilson P. Hunt of the Pacific Fur Company to come to Oregon, and
arrived in the following winter. Upon the disruption of that company
in 1814, Labonte took service with the Northwestern Fur Company, which
was in 1818 absorbed into the Hudson's Bay Company. He had in the
meantime become acquainted with and married at Astoria the daughter
of Chief Kobayway of the Clatsop Indians, and it was in the year 1818
that the son was born. Labonte Sr. took six years for the Hudson's
Bay Company, and spent three years at Spokane and three at Colville.
He then returned to Fort Vancouver and his service terminated some
time near 1828, when he asked to be dismissed and allowed to remain
in Oregon. This was directly against the policy of the Hudson's Bay
Company, who wished none of their trappers to become settlers or free
laborers in their territory, and it was the rule that all of their
servants must be dismissed at the place where they were enlisted. But
Labonte was an astute Frenchman and contended that as he had enlisted
in Oregon and was not brought here by the Hudson's Bay Company, it was
no infraction of this rule, but rather in compliance with it that he
should be dismissed here. Notwithstanding, his request was refused and
no dismission was allowed unless he returned to Montreal. Accordingly,
he made the trip to Canada, starting in March, and receiving his
regular papers certifying to the ending of his term of service. But he
immediately began the journey back and arrived here again in November
of the same year—which may have been 1830. This shows him to have been
an independent and determined man, and a good husband and father. It
may also have had much more bearing than has yet been credited as to
the settlement of Oregon.
II.
EARLIEST FRENCH PRAIRIE.
After having terminated his service with the Hudson's Bay Company,
Labonte evidently made up his mind to become a settler in Oregon, the
country of his wife, and with which he was undoubtedly well pleased
as a home. Several of his comrades who belonged to the old Hunt party
were already contemplating this step, and some had actually begun
settlement. Etienne Lucier had first taken a place at the site of East
Portland, but, as Labonte remembers, having been informed by McLoughlin
that he himself wished to occupy this location, was now removing to
French Prairie. Joseph Gervais, however, was already at French Prairie,
having laid a claim at Chemaway, a point on the bank of the Willamette
River about two and a half miles south from Fairfield at present.
Labonte Sr. moved to the place of Gervais and engaged with him in
raising wheat, and, among other improvements, built a barn; but did not
complete a location of his own.
Louis, the son, remembers more particularly the boyish occupations of
the region, of which hunting was the most important. He describes a
method of hunting the deer (jargon, Mowich; Calapooya, Ahawa-ia) which,
perhaps, has never been placed in print. The deer were very abundant
in primitive times, and during the breeding season the bucks were
pugnacious. In order to come near to them the Indians would take the
head of a deer, including also the hide of the neck, properly prepared,
which was placed over the head of the hunter; and he then, stooping
over so as to keep the mouth of the deer head off the ground, as if
grazing, would creep up on the lee side of the herd. He would also, so
as to more closely imitate the action of a deer, occasionally jerk the
head from side to side, as if nabbing flies.
Presently a buck from the herd, observing the suspicious stranger,
would begin to stamp and snuff, and bridle with anger; or, possibly,
shaking with excitement, would edge nearer, challenging the supposed
intruder for a fight, browsing and approaching, or maneuvering for a
position. The hunter, in the meantime, would keep up his own maneuvers
until the victim was near, and then let fly the fatal arrow; though
Labonte says that before the use of guns, the Indian himself, if he
chanced to miss his mark, was sometimes so viciously attacked by the
deer as to be badly gored or trampled, or possibly killed. Young
Labonte always used a gun at this sport.
He recalls also seeing two grizzly bears on French Prairie, one
of which was in connection with a hunting party one foggy morning.
Grizzlies were not unknown in the Willamette Valley, though they were
not abundant. The Chinook jargon name for the grizzly was eshayum,
quite distinct from the name of the common black bear, itch-hoot. Both
these words are evidently primitive Indian terms (S. B. Smith) and
thus show that the grizzlies were a well recognized species in the
Willamette Valley during the period of Indian occupation.