seems quite incomprehensible to me, how, after receiving and perusing
this letter, Judge Bryant could corroborate (if he did so) Mr.
Thurston's statement, that I had declined to file my intention to become
an American citizen. I filed my intention on the 30th May. Mr. Thurston
left this (Territory) in August, and Judge Bryant in October. Is it
probable! nay, is it possible! in so small a place as Oregon City, where
every little occurrence is so soon known--where the right of voting is
so scrutinized--that I should have voted, and against Mr. Thurston, and
that his partisans and supporters did not inform him of it, or that
Judge Bryant did not know that I had filed my intention to become an
American citizen? But Mr. Thurston makes another statement in which
there is not more truth. He says, 'Last summer he,' meaning myself,
'informed the writer of this that whatever was made out of the claim was
to go to the common fund of the Hudson's Bay Company, of which he and
other stockholders would share in proportion to their stock; in other
words, that he was holding this claim in trust for the Hudson's Bay
Company.'
"Mr. Thurston had just before said that I had made for myself $200,000
from the sale of lots; but now after having made my conservative purse
vastly capacious finds it convenient to shrivel it up by transferring
this cheering amount of coin to the coffers of the Hudson's Bay Company.
I assert I never made such a statement to Mr. Thurston, and I assert
that I hold my claim for myself alone, and that the Hudson's Bay
Company, nor no other person or persons, hold or have any interest in it
with me.
"Mr. Thurston says that on the 4th March, 1849, Governor Lane apprised
Dr. McLoughlin and all others that no one had a right to sell or meddle
with government lands. This is given as a reason why every man that has
bought a lot since that time shall lose it. If by this statement
anything more is meant than at that date the Territorial government was
put in operation, then it is wholly untrue; but were it otherwise, what
is the motive for the commission of such an act of injustice that
necessarily involves in pecuniary loss half the inhabitants of this
place, in addition to many who do not reside here? Mr. Thurston says,
Abernethy's Island is in the middle of the river. Such a statement could
only be made to persons unacquainted with this place, and conveys a
wrong impression, as every one who knows the place will admit the island
is not in the middle of the river, but separated from the main land only
by a chasm over which there is a bridge about 100 feet long. In the dry
season, the stream is not more than forty feet broad at the Falls, which
separates it from the main land, and can the people of Oregon City and
its vicinity believe Mr. Thurston did not know, some months before he
left this, that Mr. Abernethy had sold his rights, whatever they were,
to Judge Bryant, and therefore proposing to Congress to donate this
Island to Mr. Abernethy, his heirs and assigns, was, in fact, proposing
to donate it to Judge Bryant, his heirs and assigns.
"JNO. McLOUGHLIN."
"[At the request of Dr. McLoughlin, we stepped into the Clerk's office
and read upon a paper filed in the office that on the 30th day of May,
1849, John McLoughlin filed his intention to become an American citizen,
and that the said paper was duly certified to, by the then acting Clerk,
Geo. L. Curry.--ED.]"
DOCUMENT M
_Letter by William J. Berry, published in the "Oregon Spectator,"
December 26, 1850._
"FOREST CREEK, Polk Co., December 15, 1850."
"_Mr. Editor_:
"Truth crush'd to earth, shall rise again:
The eternal years of God are hers;
But error, wounded, withers with pain,
And dies among his worshippers."
"Believing that the characters of public men are public property, I
desire, with your permission, to speak through the columns of the
'Spectator' about some of the doings of our Delegate in Congress.
"I am dissatisfied with his course in regard to the 'Oregon City Claim.'
And now permit me to say, that I am not influenced in this matter by
mercenary motives of any kind. I never owned any property in or about
Oregon City, nor do I ever expect to; but I am influenced by motives of
a certain kind, which are: the veneration I feel for the sacred
principles of truth and justice,--and the mortification I feel at seeing
these principles not only overlooked, but indignantly trampled under
foot.
"Up to the time of writing his celebrated 'letter to the members of the
House of Representatives,' I, in common with a large portion of the
people here, was led to admire the ability, the zeal, and industry, with
which Mr. Thurston conducted the business of this Territory. But in that
portion of said letter, where he speaks of the Oregon City claim, I
think he has placed himself in the position of the old cow, who, after
giving a fine pail of milk, kicked it all over. With the disposal of
said claim as contemplated in the bill, I have no fault to find; but
with the means employed by Mr. Thurston to effect that end, I do find
most serious fault.
"Some of these I will notice. Speaking of Dr. McLoughlin, he says: 'He
still refuses to file his intentions to become an American citizen.'
Now, I assert that Mr. Thurston _knew_, previous to the election, that
Dr. McLoughlin had filed his intentions. I heard him say in a stump
speech, at the City Hotel, that he expected his (the Doctor's) vote. At
the election I happened to be one of the Judges; Dr. McLoughlin came up
to vote; the question was asked by myself, if he had filed his
intentions? The Clerk of the Court, George L. Curry, Esq., who was
standing near the window, said that he had. He voted. Some time after
the election, when I was holding the office of Justice of the Peace, in
Oregon City, Mr. Thurston came to me, in company with a man whose name I
have forgotten, having an affidavit already prepared which he wished
sworn to, and subscribed by this man; which was done. Said affidavit
went to state that Dr. McLoughlin had written a letter, or letters, to
some French settlers north of the Columbia, directing them to oppose
Thurston and vote for Lancaster, &c., &c. I merely mention this
circumstance to show that Mr. Thurston knew exactly how Dr. McLoughlin
stood. The assertion of Mr. Thurston that Dr. McLoughlin has 'worked
diligently to break down the settlements,' is also without foundation.
There are scores of persons in this valley of the early emigrants, who
testify to the kindness received at the hands of Dr. McLoughlin. And
many there are who would doubtless have perished had it not been for his
humane attention. He helped them to descend the Columbia--fed them,
clothed them; and now he is accused of 'working diligently to break down
the settlements!'
"I shall notice but one more of Mr. Thurston's assertions in regard to
this claim. Mr. Thurston says: 'The Methodist Mission first took this
claim.' Now this is an assertion which any one who knows anything about
the history of Oregon City, knows to be utterly without foundation.--On
the contrary the said Methodist Mission never had a right to any part of
said claim, unless jumping constitutes right.
"In what I have said about Dr. McLoughlin, I have not spoken from
interested motives. I never received any favor at his hands, nor do I
expect to. But I am ashamed of the course of our Delegate; I think it is
unbecoming the Representative of a magnanimous people.
"What must be the feelings of Dr. McLoughlin? A man whose head is
whitened by the frosts of perhaps eighty winters! Who, during that long
period has been living subject to the nation under whose flag he was
born. And who, at that advanced age declares his intention of becoming a
citizen of our great Republic.--I say what must be his feelings? and
what must be the feelings of all candid men--of all men of honor and
magnanimity, who have read Mr. Thurston's letter. And yet this same
Honorable (?) Delegate in his address to his constituents lectures us
upon Religion and Morality.
"Very respectfully, yours,
"WM. J. BERRY."
DOCUMENT N
_Excerpts from speech of Samuel R. Thurston in Congress, December 26,
1850._
December 26, 1850, Thurston attempted to answer, by a speech in
Congress, Dr. McLoughlin's letter, published in the _Oregon Spectator_,
September 12, 1850. It is a scurrilous speech. Most of its asserted
statements of fact are untrue. It is too long to be set forth here in
full. It will be found at pages 36 to 45 of the Appendix to volume 23
of the _Congressional Globe_. The italics in this Document N are those
appearing in the _Congressional Globe_.
He first discussed the petition of the fifty-six persons who signed the
petition at Oregon City, September 19, 1850, against the passage of the
eleventh section of the Donation Land Bill, and attempted to show that
the petition was against Dr. McLoughlin instead of being in his favor.
This was pettifogging. Thurston set forth that he had not been in favor
of recognizing in the bill transfers of land by Dr. McLoughlin after
March 3, 1849, for the reason that "If such transfers were confirmed in
general terms, up to the passage of the bill, the whole of what the
Doctor claimed would be covered by fictitious transfers for his
benefit." Thurston attacked J. Quinn Thornton and Aaron E. Wait, the
attorneys of Dr. McLoughlin, and called them names too vile to be
inserted in this address.
Referring to Dr. McLoughlin's statement in his letter that the Hudson's
Bay Company's business was so managed "in all respects subservient to
the best interests of the country, and the duties of religion and
humanity," Thurston said: "If to make the settler pay _with his life_
the penalty of settling where they did not want him to, or to oppress
him until he was compelled to yield; if tearing down houses over
families' heads, and burning them up, and leaving a poor woman in the
rain, houseless and homeless; if attempting to break down all American
enterprises, and to prevent the settlement of the country--if, sir, to
do all these things, and many more, which are hereafter proved, then is
the quotation true. If this is their religion, then have they adorned,
for the last ten years, the religion they profess." These charges are
maliciously false.
Thurston charged that Dr. McLoughlin was "for all practical purposes, as
much in, of, and connected with the [Hudson's Bay] Company as he ever
was ... yet he comes up here with a hypocritical face and pleads
poverty! and says that he has picked up my people out of ditches,
mud-puddles, from under the ice, and warmed them into life; which Wait
and Thornton virtually testify to.... Who ever heard a Jew or a Gypsy
making up a more pitiful face than this." Thurston further said that Dr.
McLoughlin persuaded some of the immigrants of 1842 to go to California;
that he provided outfits for them "and took notes, payable in
California. And this was done for the purpose of ridding the country of
these unwelcome visitors.... That the Doctor was determined to do all he
could to prevent the country from finally settling up, and with this
object in view, undertook to persuade our early settlers to leave." This
is absolutely untrue, except the part that Dr. McLoughlin furnished said
immigrants with outfits and took their notes payable in California. Most
of these notes were never paid.
Thurston then proceeds to pettifog about his injunction to keep his
letter to Congress about the Donation Land Bill "dark till next mail."
He had to pettifog or say it was a forgery. He said he wrote this as he
feared the bill "never would pass, and I dreaded the effect the news of
its failure, on the first day, would have on business of the
territory.... It was to avoid the general panic that I adopted this
course and this is why I requested to have nothing said till the time of
trial might come."[67] Thurston was compelled to admit that he knew that
Dr. McLoughlin had taken the oath of allegiance to the United States
prior to the election in June, 1849, but Thurston said he did not know
that Dr. McLoughlin had filed his intentions to become a citizen.
Thurston endeavored to justify himself by technicalities. He knew that
the Circuit Courts of the Provisional Government had ceased to exist May
13, 1849, or prior thereto. It was on that day that Governor Lane
assigned the Territorial judges, appointed by the President, to their
respective districts. Yet Thurston asserted that "The court, or the
tribunal, in which Dr. McLoughlin took his oaths was not such a court as
the law requires, but was a creature of the Provisional Government." He
asserted that George L. Curry, the Clerk of the court, before whom Dr.
McLoughlin took the oath of allegiance and filed his intentions to
become an American citizen, did it in his capacity as a clerk of a court
of the Provisional Government (which was no longer in existence),
instead of in the capacity of a clerk of the new Territorial court, and
said that Judge Bryant informed him that this was the case.
May 30, 1849, George L. Curry, if not the _de jure_ clerk, was the _de
facto_ and acting clerk of the Territorial District Court, before whom
it was lawful and proper to take the oath of allegiance under the United
States naturalization law. If, for any reason, Dr. McLoughlin did not
comply technically with the law, it was nevertheless his intention to do
so. He subscribed and filed two oaths on May 30, 1849. In these he swore
it was his intention to become an American citizen and that "I renounce
all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign Prince, Potentate, State and
Sovereignty, whatsoever and particularly to Victoria, Queen of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and that I will support the
Constitution of the United States, and the provisions of 'An Act to
establish the Territorial Government of Oregon.'" Under these oaths, or
one of them, Dr. McLoughlin became a citizen of the United States
September 5, 1851. In admitting him to citizenship the Judge must have
found that Dr. McLoughlin's original declaration was sufficient and was
filed in a court of competent jurisdiction. And yet Thurston had said in
his letter to the House of Representatives and in his speech of May 28,
1850, that Dr. McLoughlin "refuses to become an American citizen."
In this speech of December 26, 1850, Thurston said that if any persons
in Oregon owed money to Dr. McLoughlin, he could proceed in the Courts.
This is true. The difficulty was to enforce judgments. Judgments could
not then or prior to that time and until long afterwards be enforced
against land. An execution could only reach personal property. If a
debtor did not wish to pay a debt, he could sell his crops privately in
advance, or he could cover them and other personal property by chattel
mortgages. Thurston as a lawyer knew the law. The law establishing the
Territorial Government of Oregon provided that "all laws heretofore
passed in said Territory [_i.e._, by the Provisional Government] making
grants of land, or otherwise affecting or incumbering the title to
lands, shall be, and are hereby declared to be, null and void."
Under the Donation Land Law a settler on public land had merely a
possessory right which did not ripen into a title to the land until he
had "resided upon and cultivated the same for four consecutive years."
It was an estate upon condition. It was not subject to execution sale.
If such a sale could have been made, under a law of the Territory of
Oregon, a purchaser would take nothing--not even the possessory right of
a settler.[68] The settler was the only one who could complete the four
years' residence and cultivation. In fact, it was a long time after the
passage of the law before a land claim could be lawfully taken up. The
settlers really held a kind of squatter's title until the
Surveyor-General was ready to proceed or to receive applications for
surveys. The first notifications were not filed until 1852. Besides, the
statute of limitations, for bringing suit on these debts, did not exceed
six years.
The case of McLoughlin v. Hoover, 1 _Oregon Reports_, 32, was decided at
the December term, 1853, of the Supreme Court of the Territory of
Oregon. This case shows that Dr. McLoughlin did bring a suit shortly
after September 29, 1852, the exact date not being given in the
decision, against John Hoover to recover from Hoover a promissory note
for $560 dated October 2, 1845, and payable one year after date. Hoover
pleaded the Statute of Limitations. It was held by the Supreme Court of
Oregon Territory that at no time under the Provisional or Territorial
governments of Oregon was the statute of limitations to recover on notes
and accounts for a longer period than six years. But by reason of
amendments of the law, that the statute of limitations did not run a
longer period than three years succeeding the act of September 29, 1849.
The full six years from the time said note became due would end October
5, 1853, counting three days of grace, but under this decision the
statute of limitations had run September 29, 1852, being less than five
years from the time said note became due. The statute of limitations
does not extinguish a debt. It merely stops the collection of it by law.
In this speech Thurston was compelled to admit that he had no proper
foundation for the statement in his letter to Congress that Dr.
McLoughlin had sent word to Fort Hall to turn the immigration to
California. He said in this speech that the immigrants to Oregon "at a
very early period, perhaps as early as 1842 or 1843, were met with the
tale that the Indians were hostile to the immigrants; that they would be
cut off if they proceeded further on the Oregon trail; and that this
story was told by the officer in charge of Fort Hall, as having been
received from Vancouver, [the headquarters of Dr. McLoughlin] and that
this same officer advised the emigrants to go to California." This
statement is not borne out by the facts. That there was danger to the
immigrants in coming to Oregon is shown by the intended massacre of the
immigrants of 1843, as set forth in this address and in the McLoughlin
Document.
Thurston, in this speech, took up the Shortess petition and read
numerous parts of it. He said in reference to the phrase that the
petitioners hoped that Dr. McLoughlin never would own his land claim,
that that is "just what the land bill provides for." Referring to the
assertion in the Shortess petition that Dr. McLoughlin "says the land is
his, and every person building without his permission is held as a
trespasser," Thurston said: "What do you think of this, Mr. Speaker? An
Englishman holding an _American citizen_ a trespasser for settling on
American soil, where the American Government had invited him! This, sir,
was before the treaty [of 1846] and before the Provisional Government
was formed, and when one American citizen had as good a right to settle
there as another, and all a better right than Dr. McLoughlin. Yet this
barefaced Jesuit has the effrontery to pretend he did not hold that
claim by dint of threats." Thurston does not explain how the American
Government invited the immigrants prior to 1847 to settle in Oregon. The
truth is that the American settlers who left the East prior to 1849 went
on their own initiative. They were neither invited nor helped nor
protected by the Government, until after the establishment of the
Territorial Government in 1849. Under the Conventions of joint-occupancy
Dr. McLoughlin had the same rights, up to the Treaty of 1846, as a
British subject, that any citizen of the United States had--no more, no
less. This, Thurston as a lawyer, knew.
After quoting further from the Shortess petition, Thurston said: "Now,
Mr. Speaker, all this was before the Provisional Government was in
operation--before the treaty, when no man had any right to meddle with
the soil. Who can contemplate the helpless condition of these few and
feeble American citizens, at that time and place, struggling for life,
and for subsistence, thus kicked and buffeted round at the mercy of one
of the most powerful corporations on earth, headed by a man whose
intrigues must have furnished Eugene Sue with a clue to his 'Wandering
Jew,'--who, I say, sir, can thus contemplate our flesh, and blood, and
kindred, with their land, their houses, their all, thus posted up, and
declared subject to _any_ disposition this unfeeling man might make of
them without shedding tears of pity for their distress.... Now, sir,
just turn to my correspondence in letters one and two, where he tells
you, if a man settled where the company did not allow him to, he paid
the _forfeiture with his life_, or from _necessity_ was compelled to
yield. And here, again, the names of Wait and Thornton rise up before
me, and while reading their laudations of McLoughlin, I can think of
nothing but two Jews lauding Judas Iscariot....
"This petition is signed by many persons, many of whom I know, who are
now living in Oregon. I can bear unqualified testimony to their
character in society, to their honor and to their veracity. I undertake
to say, that not a word is uttered in it but the truth, and it is
susceptible of any reasonable proof. I know the gentleman who wrote the
original, whom to know is to respect, to listen to, to believe. He is a
gentleman of the highest standing in Oregon, of some twelve or fourteen
years' residence, and who would be universally believed on any subject
on which he would presume to speak. That gentleman informs me that every
word of it is true to the letter.... If in the mouth of two or three
witnesses all things are established, then surely sixty-five men are
good evidence of the facts stated in the petition to which their names
were attached, and, then, you and the country can judge whether this man
McLoughlin, by whom all the abuses here complained of were dictated, is
entitled to receive gratuities of the American Government for such
rascalities, or whether the people of Oregon owe him a debt of gratitude
which they refuse to pay."
Thurston set forth the letter of Dr. McLoughlin to Robert Shortess,
dated at Vancouver, April 13, 1843, in which Dr. McLoughlin wrote: "I am
informed that you have circulated a petition for signatures, complaining
of me, and of the Hudson's Bay Company. I hope you will, in common
fairness, give me a copy of the petition, with the names of those who
signed it, that I may know what is said against us, and who those _are_
who think they have cause of complaint against us." Thurston said: "The
_names_ must be given, and for what? I will not say whether as a sure
guide to the tomahawk of the Indian, or as a precursor to death by
combined and grinding oppression--I leave this to the witnesses who have
already spoken. But could you read in the records of heaven the deeds of
this power in Oregon, while you would admire the consummate skill with
which they were conducted, your whole moral nature would be shocked by
the baseness of the design, and the means for their accomplishment."
Thurston in this speech, without giving names, gave excerpts from a
number of letters he had received, sustaining his actions against Dr.
McLoughlin in the Donation Land Bill. Shameful as Thurston's actions
were against Dr. McLoughlin, Thurston had reason to believe that his
actions were sustained and approved by leaders and members of the party
which had elected him. Those who thus abetted Thurston in his
misstatements and actions against Dr. McLoughlin were as culpable as
Thurston was--they became his accessories. Some of these afterwards were
ashamed of their actions against Dr. McLoughlin. Their repentances,
although late, are commendable.
DOCUMENT O
_Correspondence of S. R. Thurston, Nathaniel J. Wyeth, Robert C.
Winthrop and Dr. John McLoughlin, published in the "Oregon Spectator,"
April 3, 1851._
"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 to 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.