organizing a government. These were the strongly American for it, led by
Gray and others, and the Canadian settlers who opposed, or at least did
not favor it; and Dr. McLoughlin and his near friends, who really
favored an independent government and expected to become citizens of it,
but who thought the movement at that time premature. Mr. Matthieu does
not recall that Bishop Blanchet was present at the meeting. A memorial
had been prepared by the Bishop, on the part of the Canadians, to show
that organization was unnecessary and inadvisable. At the critical
juncture, however, after there had been some discussion and the meeting
was becoming confused, and, indeed, was in danger of breaking up without
action, he remembers well how old Joe Meek strode forth, and by the
simple power of voice and example gained control after parliamentary
tactics had failed. He cried out, as he would to a company of
militiamen: “All in favor of organization, come to the right.” One
hundred and two men were present. Fifty of these quickly went over to
the right, in favor of independence. The other fifty-two, all Canadians,
remained as they were, or withdrew in the other direction.
Now came out Matthieu’s republican training, which he had received in
his schoolboy days, under Velade, at Terrebonne. His “mind was made up,”
he says, “ever since I left Canada. I knew what it was to live and die a
slave under British rule.” And he was still carrying the picture of
Papineau, the liberator.
Now that a time for action had come, he was not wanting. He said,
therefore, to the Canadians that he was going with the Americans. He
knew what he was doing, and was fully decided which was the right side.
Old Lucier, the trapper of 1811, followed him, and now the vote stood
fifty-two for, and fifty against organization. Then went up the shout,
led by Joe Meek and his mountain men.
The Canadians, though defeated, were entirely satisfied with the result,
and had not favored the movement principally because they did not
understand it, and, like Lucier, had obtained incorrect ideas. But when
the vote prevailed, they acquiesced cheerfully, and became among the
best citizens of the little republic—the smallest, probably, since the
days of the Pilgrim fathers, who organized their government in the cabin
of the Mayflower.
After organization was effected, and a body of laws was framed, Matthieu
was called upon to take part in affairs, and was elected justice of the
peace for Champoeg County, an office which he says he filled to “the
satisfaction of every body.” He settled disputes by inviting the
complaining parties to sit down with him to a good dinner, and after an
hour’s cheer and pleasant chat, he sent them away well contented with
his findings.
He had some trouble with distillers, who sometimes set up little stills
in out of the way places, and made liquor to intoxicate the Indians. He
recalls one case in which he and Doctor Wilson, the judge, traced a
distiller out into the woods, back of French Prairie, at DePot’s, and
found him over a teakettle, which he used as his still, manufacturing
what was called “blue ruin”—a liquor made out of Sandwich Island
molasses, and was an article so destructive as to almost relieve the
authorities of the necessity of estopping the manufacture—the juice
being the executioner of its producer.
Of all the characters of the early day, McLoughlin stands out foremost,
and overtops all others, in Mr. Matthieu’s recollection. The old chief
factor had some of the elements of greatness: “He was the finest man I
ever knew,” says Mr. Matthieu, “and there will never be another like
him. He did what no other man would do.” With Doctor McLoughlin, Doctor
Whitman, whom he greatly respected, he says, “bore no comparison.”
McLoughlin had the immense physique, the great voice, and the commanding
manner, and also the positive and decisive mind that carried all before
him.
Many are the incidents that Mr. Matthieu relates illustrating his
qualities. Once, he says, an Indian was brought to him charged with
committing a gross offense. “Is he guilty?” asked the doctor. “Yes,”
they replied, and presented the proof. “Tie him to that cannon,” he
replied, pointing to one of the two pieces of artillery that commanded
the entrance to the fort. When this was done, he said, “Give him fifteen
lashes.” Soon after a white man was brought, charged with the same
offense. Doctor McLoughlin made the same inquiries, and finding him
guilty administered the same punishment. This illustrates why his
authority was so absolute among the Indians. His administration exactly
filled their conception of justice.
The services of McLoughlin to the immigrants of the year ’42, and later,
until he resigned his position as chief factor, are fully vouched for by
Mr. Matthieu. The doctor advanced everything needed, and furnished the
use of bateaux to any in distress. The concluding portion of the
immigrants’ journey, that from The Dalles to Oregon City, was often
virtually provided for by McLoughlin. For all these advances, he was
held to the last penny by his company, and as Mr. Matthieu learned, he
was obliged to render every cent not paid by the immigrants—a sum so
large as to very nearly bankrupt the man.
Upon the return of Mr. Matthieu, in 1858, for a visit to his home in
Canada, he took the pains to visit some of Doctor McLoughlin’s relatives
at their place of business in Quebec, whom he found to be men of much
the same magnificent physical mould as the chief factor. He inquired of
them as particularly as he dared as to Doctor McLoughlin’s fortune,
venturing to remark that he supposed he was very rich. “He was wealthy
at one time,” was the reply, “but his company required the payment of
large sums that he advanced on credit, and that left him with little.”
Mr. Matthieu understands that besides his salary of £2,500 per year, he
held two shares in the stock of the company, the largest allowed to one
individual outside the chartered corporation. His business also
included, besides the fur trade of Oregon, extensive operations in
British Columbia and Alaska, salmon export to the Sandwich Islands, and
milling at Oregon City. At one time he made a proposition to build the
canal and locks at the Willamette Falls, at his own expense; but was
refused the charter. (F. X. M.)
Returning to Mr. Matthieu’s first years in Oregon: He remained with
Lucier until 1844. For two years afterwards he lived on French Prairie
proper, which is some six miles back from the river. He was engaged in
labor during this time, building houses, and making wagons for the
settlers. Life he found carried on here in simple style, log cabins
being the rule, furnished with big fireplaces, made of sticks, plastered
over with the tough black clay found underneath the prairie sod. Few had
stoves, and the cooking was done mainly over the coals, or in kettles
swung on a crane.
In 1846 he was married, and took a square mile of land a mile from the
river, back of the Butte, upon which he has lived now for fifty-four
years. It is a noble old place, having both prairie and woodland, and
abundant water, and commands beautiful prospects in every direction. His
wife was Rose, a daughter of Louis Osant, a Hudson’s Bay employee and
trapper. The earliest recollections of Mrs. Matthieu are of journeyings
on horseback with the parties of her father or of Michel La Framboise,
one of the most trusted leaders of the Hudson’s Bay trappers. She
recalls how, on one of these jaunts when she was a mere tot of three
years, and she had for a comrade a little daughter of La Framboise, they
were delighted as they passed under the expansive oaks of the Sacramento
Valley to hear the dry leaves rustle under their horses’ hoofs. It was a
Gypsy life that the trappers led, and those that made the trip to
California, like La Framboise and Osant, had the pleasantest road to
travel of all the parties.
The mother of Rose having died, the girl was brought up in the family of
Pierre Belaque, who occupied a house near Lucier’s. A patriarchal
family, fourteen in number, were born to these pioneers, ten of whom are
now living:
PHILEMON GEER
CLARA OUIMETTE
*PRISCILLA
*EDWARD
ALFRED
LESTER
MAMIE
RANDALL
CHARLES
ROSE
ARSINOE BURTON
*HENRY
ERNEST
*WILLIAM
*VIOLET
Mr. Matthieu has lived as a farmer of Oregon, having been able to
provide his family with life’s advantages, and himself performing the
duties of the good citizen. Besides filling the office of Justice of the
Peace in the Provisional Government, he was in 1874 and again in 1878,
elected to the Oregon Legislature from Marion County. In 1849 he made
the trip to the California gold mines, but was so virulently attacked by
fever there as to be compelled to return without making a fortune. In
1858 he took a trip to Canada, by way of Panama, and in 1883, went with
the pioneer excursion on the Northern Pacific Railroad. He is now at the
age of eighty-two, in good health, of unimpaired memory, good hearing,
and unchanged voice; though, having suffered in early life from
snow-blindness in the Rocky Mountains, has somewhat lost the use of his
sight. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, of high degree. He was
in the mercantile business for many years, after 1850, at Butteville,
with George Le Roque, and in all business relations and in public
affairs has maintained a reputation for unquestioned honesty.
NOTES.
IN REGARD TO INDIAN TRIBES, THEIR ANTIPATHIES, ETC.
Mr. Matthieu says: “I have forgot a great deal. Of the Sioux, where I
was, there were the Blackfeet—a large nation; then there were the
Ogalallahs. Their chief, when I was there, was called Yellow Hair. His
hair was not yellow, but lighter than some others. He was a big fellow,
and you could hear him grunt like a grizzly. Then there was a little
tribe, the Broken Arrows. They were the meanest set—they would get
liquor, and kill each other. I do not suppose there were twenty of them
when I left. The Crow nation lived west of Fort Pierre, about one
hundred or two hundred miles, and one division of them was the Gros
Ventres. The Pawnees were the terror of the Sioux; there were many
half-breeds among them. The Sioux did not all have horses. The poorer
ones went on foot. But all had buffalo meat. Those that had horses would
surprise a herd, and drive them to the Bad Lands, and force many of them
over a precipice or into a crevice. Buffalo, when they are stampeded, do
not stop at anything, but go over a bluff or into a river. When a
crevice is filled full of their bodies the main herd passes on as over a
bridge; then the poorer Indians came and helped themselves to the meat.
“West of the Rocky Mountains the Indians were entirely different. It was
a new creation. The Snakes, Piutes and Bannocks seemed very much alike—a
poor set. The Cayuses were the most powerful, and the meanest. They were
strapping big fellows, and rich. I was told by Hudson’s Bay men that
they frequently had three or four packs of beaver skins to a tent. That
was money. Each pack weighed ninety or one hundred pounds, and the skins
were worth $4 or $5 a pound. Some of them had five hundred horses
apiece—part work horses; part riding or running horses. When I was among
the Snakes I bought a white horse for a buffalo skin and a shirt. But in
Grande Ronde I was stopped by a Cayuse chief, who said that the horse
was his. I told him I bought it. He said it had been stolen. There was a
man traveling with me; his name was Russell. Russell said I had better
pay the Cayuse something. So I put down a buffalo robe, a shirt and a
handkerchief, and said: ‘You can take whichever you please—these or the
horse.’ He took the things, and I took the horse.
“The Cayuses often came into the Willamette Valley to trade horses for
cattle. They had some race horses that they would not sell for $500.
They were not a large tribe, not able to muster over two hundred or
three hundred fighting men at the farthest. They were well armed with
guns, but even with bows and arrows could shoot a man through the heart
at fifty yards. They were proud and cruel, and showed it in their faces.
The Nez Perces had much better faces than the Cayuses. The Sioux did
business on honor. If any of their tribe was mean or dissipated he was
regarded as a clown; he was not respected.”
AS TO SLAVERY AMONG THE INDIANS.
Among the Sioux, where I was, all captives were regarded as slaves; so I
was told by a chief. I saw but one slave—a woman. Men were not often
taken alive.
NEGRO SLAVERY IN OREGON.
This question did not make much stir on French Prairie. The idea was
this: Indians were much cheaper and better labor than negroes. For a
blanket that cost $3 you could hire an Indian a month—or perhaps two
months; and many of the Indians were good workers. They could handle an
axe like a white man; and on the river they were the best boatmen. They
would paddle all day in a canoe, or on a bateau, and want only a little
meat and a salmon skin.
Some Southern people who brought their negroes with them wanted to keep
them as slaves; but the people of Oregon opposed this and made the law
that no negro should come to Oregon. It was never enforced.
AS TO PROHIBITION.
“All were in favor of this. It was no trouble. The Catholic missionaries
as well as the Methodists favored it. The Hudson’s Bay Company had
liquors stored, but never kept them for public sale. The distiller on
French Prairie did not hold out long. Some of the Canadians went to his
place to drink, or trade for it; but there was no money in the country,
and they could only trade with little articles and there was no profit.
A man at Milwaukee Bluff held out about two years, but gave it up—there
was no money, and trade did not amount to anything in an illegal
business.”
AS TO MONEY, ETC.
“There was no coin. If it was brought to the country it was not received
at Vancouver. Furs, at a fixed valuation, were the first currency. Wheat
was next.
“Wheat had to be delivered at the Hudson’s Bay warehouse at Champoeg.
For this a receipt was given by the H. B. clerk. The receipt passed
current as money, and was worth its face in goods at Vancouver.”
To illustrate the _modus_ of doing business, Mr. Matthieu tells the
following incident: “I was barefoot and nearly naked, and wanted some
clothes. I took an order of Lucier’s, and went down to Fort Vancouver;
but, as I had just come across the country, and was not long from
Canada, I was met by so many Frenchmen at the fort, who wanted to hear
all about my journey, and Canada, which some of them had not seen for
twenty years, that I did not get my order in at once. When at last I
presented it, the clerk said that I would have to see Douglas, as
Lucier’s account was all drawn; so many others had been bringing his
paper.”
“Douglas told me to go to McLoughlin. Each had an office in the
building. When McLoughlin looked at my order he said he was sorry, but
the account was drawn. I said, ‘It will come rather hard on me. I am
barefoot, and almost naked, and I supposed Lucier’s credit was good
anyhow.’ Then the doctor began to ask me where I was from. I told him
‘Terrebonne, in Canada.’
“‘I am from near that part,’ he said. Then he asked me about the place
and people, and of old Doctor Frasier; and kept me about an hour
talking. At last he said, ‘You look honest; go to the office and get
this filled.’ And gave me an order for about $18 worth of goods.
“At the office there was a little entrance, about eight feet square, and
a little window into the store, where the goods were passed out. The
clerk there was Doctor McLoughlin’s son, whom I had seen in Montreal. He
knew me, and at once opened the door inside and asked me in. ‘Take all
you need,’ he said, ‘and never mind the old man.’
“But I took only the amount of the order. But all the clothes were made
for big fellows—a great deal too big for me. So I took cloth, and got it
made up the best I could.”
AS TO EFFECT OF MINES ON BUSINESS, ETC.
“Gold dust was like dirt. Many believed it would never have any value. I
have seen the Hudson’s Bay store at Oregon City take in a four-quart pan
of dust in one day. They allowed $16 an ounce; but much of it was the
fine Yuba and American River dust, worth $22 to $22.50 an ounce in
London.
“But it was not the men who went to the mines, so much as those that
stayed on their farms and raised produce, that got the dust.
“I remember when I was in San Francisco in ’49, I went into a French
restaurant. I was sick, and only called for tea and toast and an egg.
For the tea and toast I paid $1.25, and for the egg $2. The egg had come
around the Horn, packed in salt, and was a chunk of salt. I could not
eat it.
“But prices for Oregon stuff did not hold out many years. Great
shipments were made from the East. Habits of living among the farmers
were not much changed. We always had enough to live on, both before and
after the mines broke out.”
Mr. Matthieu was well acquainted with Governor Abernethy, the first
Governor of the Provisional Government, succeeding the executive
committee. He describes Abernethy as “a fine looking man, of medium
size; easy in manner and ways, and very light complexion.” He built the
first brick store in Oregon City, with mud for mortar. In the great
flood of ’62 it collapsed. He kept a large stock of goods, trading by
three vessels with San Francisco. He was in partnership with Clark, and
for a time with Robb, who invested his gold mine profits in the store.
The mason who built the store was——McAdam, who also built the brick
Catholic church at Saint Paul.
Mr. Matthieu was also acquainted with Joseph Lane, the first Territorial
Governor. He describes the old general as “a very nice man;” quick in
his movements, military in manner and bearing; not tall, and “dry and
thin,” and all nerves.
AS TO TOWNS.
The flat at Oregon City was still, when he first saw it, thickly covered
with tall timber. Waller’s house stood near the present site of the
woolen mills. The Hudson’s Bay store was on the edge of the lowest
bluff, over the water, about where the warehouse now stands.
Portland was nowhere—a dense forest and a tangled shore; but there was a
grassy place among the trees near the mouth of the big gulch at the
south part of town, where the boating parties up the river sometimes
stopped to lunch or camp.
Etienne Lucier’s old place was on the bluff, on the east side, and
Johnson’s place on the hill at the south end, west side.
Salem was just starting, the people at the old mission moving up to
start the institute, etc.
-------
I have examined the above manuscript of Mr. Lyman’s, and find it
correct. Nobody can contradict that; it could not be written more
correctly.
F. X. MATTHIEU.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
DOCUMENTS.
[In this department of the _Quarterly_ there will appear material of the
nature of primary sources for the history of the Pacific Northwest. The
more extended documents, however, and collections having a unity will be
reserved for the series, “Sources of the History of Oregon.”]
_Correspondence of John McLoughlin, Nathaniel J. Wyeth, S. R. Thurston,
and R. C. Winthrop, pertaining to claim of Doctor McLoughlin at the
Falls of the Willamette—the site of Oregon City._
The following correspondence was published in the Milwaukee Star, April
10, 1850. The files of this paper are exceedingly scarce. The original
copies of the letters were probably destroyed. A knowledge of their
contents is essential to an understanding of very important, though not
creditable, transactions in Oregon’s history. These letters also are an
addition to the Wyeth material that the society has been making
accessible to students of American history.
CHICOPEE, Mass., Nov. 16, 1850.
_Capt. Nath. J. Wyeth_:
MY DEAR SIR—You will excuse me, I am sure, when I assure you I am from
Oregon, and her delegate to the Congress of the United States, for
addressing you for a purpose of interest to the country which I belong.
I desire you to give me as correct a description as you can at this late
period, of the manner in which you and your party, and your enterprise
in Oregon, were treated by the Hudson’s Bay Company, and particularly by
Doc. John McLoughlin, then its Chief Factor. This Dr. McLoughlin has,
since you left the country, rendered his name odious among the people of
Oregon, by his endeavors to prevent the settlement of the country, and
to cripple its growth.
Now that he wants a few favors of our Government, he pretends that he
has been the long-tried friend of Americans and American enterprise west
of the mountains. Your early reply will be highly appreciated, both for
its information, and your relation to my country.
I am, sir, yours very truly,
S. R. THURSTON.
CAMBRIDGE, Nov. 21, 1850.
_Hon. Sam’l R. Thurston_:
DEAR SIR—Your favor of the 16th inst., was received on the 19th. The
first time I visited the Columbia, in the autumn of 1832, I reached
Vancouver with a disorganized party of ten persons, the remnant of
twenty-four who left the States. Wholly worn out and disheartened, we
were received cordially, and liberally supplied, and there the party
broke up. I returned to the States in the Spring of 1833 with one man.
One of the party, Mr. John Ball, remained and planted wheat on the
Willamette a little above Camp du Sable, having been supplied with seed
and implements from Vancouver, then under the charge of John McLoughlin,
Esq., and this gentleman I believe to have been the first American who
planted wheat in Oregon. I returned to the country in the autumn of
1834, with a large party and more means, having on the way built Fort
Hall, and there met a brig which I sent round the Horn. In the winter
and spring of 1835, I planted wheat on the Willamette and on Wappatoo
Island.
The suffering and distressed of the early American visitors and settlers
on the Columbia were always treated by Hudson’s Bay Company’s agents,
and particularly so by John McLoughlin, Esq., with consideration and
kindness, more particularly the Methodist Missionaries, whom I brought
out in the autumn of 1834. He supplied them with the means of
transportation, seeds, implements of agriculture and building, cattle
and food for a long time.
I sincerely regret that the gentleman, _as you state_, has become odious
to his neighbors in his old age.
I am your ob’t serv’t,
NATH. J. WYETH.
CAMBRIDGE, Nov. 28, 1850.
_Hon. Robert C. Winthrop_:
DEAR SIR—I have received a letter from Sam’l R. Thurston, Esq., of which
the following is a portion:
“I desire you to give me as correct a description as you can at this
late period, of the manner in which you and your party, and your
enterprise in Oregon, were treated by the Hudson’s Bay Company west of
the Rocky mountains, and particularly by Dr. John McLoughlin, then its
Chief Factor. This Dr. McLoughlin has since you left the country,
rendered his name odious among the people of Oregon, by his endeavors to
prevent the settlement of the country and cripple its growth. Now that
he wants a few favors of our Government, he pretends that he has been
the long-tried friend of Americans and American enterprise west of the
mountains.”
I have written Mr. Thurston, in reply to the above extract, that myself
and parties were kindly received, and were treated well in all respects
by J. McLoughlin, Esq., and the officers of the Hudson’s Bay Co.; but
from the tenor of his letter, I have no confidence that my testimony
will be presented before any committee to whom may be referred any
subjects touching the interests of said John McLoughlin, Esq.
The very honorable treatment received by me from Mr. McLoughlin during
the years inclusive from 1832 to 1836, during which time there were no
other Americans on the Lower Columbia, except myself and parties, calls
on me to state the facts.
The purpose of this letter is to ask the favor of you to inform me what
matter is pending, in which Mr. McLoughlin’s interests are involved, and
before whom, and if you will present a memorial from me on the matters
stated in Mr. Thurston’s letter as above.
Respectfully and truly your ob’t servant,
NATH. J. WYETH.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 1850.
DEAR SIR—I took the earliest opportunity to enquire of Mr. Thurston what
there was pending before Congress or the Executive, in which Mr.
McLoughlin’s character or interest were concerned. He would tell me
nothing, nor am I aware of anything.
Respectfully your ob’t serv’t,
R. C. WINTHROP.
To N. J. WYETH, Esq.
_John McLoughlin, Esq._: