THE LIFTED CLOUD--THE INDIANS COME TO THE SCHOOLMASTER.
The next day witnessed a strange scene at the log school-house on the
Columbia. It was a red October morning. Mrs. Woods accompanied Gretchen to
the school, as she wished to have a talk with Mr. Mann.
As the two came in sight of the house, Mrs. Woods caught Gretchen by the
arm and said:
"What's _them_?"
"Where?"
"Sittin' in the school-yard."
"They are Indians."
"Injuns? What are they there for?"
"I don't know, mother."
"Come for advice, like me, may be."
"Perhaps they are come to school. The old chief told them that I would
teach them."
"You?"
"They have no father now."
"No father?"
"No chief."
Mrs. Woods had been so overwhelmed with her own grief that she had given
little thought to the death of Benjamin and the chief of the Cascades. The
unhappy condition of the little tribe now came to her as in a picture;
and, as she saw before her some fifty Indians seated on the ground, her
good heart came back to her, and she said, touched by a sense of her own
widowhood, "Gretchen, I pity 'em."
Mrs. Woods was right. These Indians had come to seek the advice of Mr.
Mann in regard to their tribal affairs. Gretchen also was right. They had
come to ask Mr. Mann to teach their nation.
It was an unexpected assembly that Marlowe Mann faced as he came down the
clearing, but it revealed to him, at a glance, his future work in life.
The first of the distressed people to meet him was Mrs. Woods.
"O Mr. Mann, I am all alone in the world, and what am I goin' to do?
There's nothin' but hard days' work left to me now, and--hymns. Even
Father Lee has gone, and I have no one to advise me. You will be a friend
to me, won't you?"
"Yes," said Mr. Mann. "I need you, and the way is clear."
"What do you mean?"
"I have a letter from Boston."
"What is it, Marlowe Mann?"
"The Indian Educational Society have promised me a thousand dollars for my
work another year. I must have a house. I would want you to take charge of
it. _But_--your tongue?"
"O Master Mann, I'll give up my tongue! I'll just work, and be still. If
an Injun will give up his revenge, an' it's his natur', ought not I to
give up my tongue? When I can't help scoldin' I'll just sing hymns."
Mr. Mann gazed into the faces of the Indians. The warm sunlight fell upon
them. There was a long silence, broken only by the scream of the eagles in
the sky and the passing of flocks of wild geese. Then one of the Indians
rose and said:
"Umatilla has gone to his fathers.
"Benjamin has gone to his fathers. We shall never see Young Eagle's plume
again!
"Boston tilicum, be our chief. We have come to school."
Mr. Mann turned to Gretchen. Her young face was lovely that morning with
sympathy. He said in a low voice:
"You see _our_ work in life. Do you understand? Will you accept it?"
She understood his heart.
"I will do whatever you say."
* * * * *
In 1859 a great Indian Reservation was established in what is known in
Oregon as the Inland Empire of the Northwest. It contained about two
hundred and seventy thousand acres, agricultural land and timber-land. The
beautiful Umatilla River flows through it. The agency now is near
Pendleton, Oregon. Thither the Umatillas were removed.
Marlowe Mann went there, and Gretchen as his young wife, and in their home
Mrs. Woods for many years could have been heard singing hymns.
Their home stood for the Indian race, and the schoolmaster and his wife
devoted themselves to the cause of Indian education. Through the silent
influence of Mr. Mann's correspondence with the East, Indian civilization
was promoted, and the way prepared for the peaceful settlement of the
great Northwest.
Gretchen taught the Indians as long as she lived. Often at evening, when
the day's work had been hard, she would take her violin, and a dream of
music would float upon the air. She played but one tune at last as she
grew serenely old. That tune recalled her early German home, the Rhine,
her good father and mother, and the scenes of the great Indian Potlatch on
the Columbia. It was the _Traumerei_.
Her poetic imagination, which had been suppressed by her foster-mother in
her girlhood, came back to her in her new home, and it was her delight to
express in verse the inspirations of her life amid these new scenes, and
to publish these poems in the papers of the East that most sympathized
with the cause of Indian education.
The memory of Benjamin and the old chief of the Cascades never left her.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten lesson of the nobility of all men whose
souls have the birthright of heaven. Often, when the wild geese were
flying overhead in the evening, she would recall Benjamin, and say, "He
who guides led me here from the Rhine, and schooled me for my work in the
log school-house on the Columbia."
Such is not an overdrawn picture of the early pioneers of the Columbia and
the great Northwest.
Jason Lee was censured for leaving his mission for the sake of Oregon--for
turning his face from the stars to the sun. Whitman, when he appeared
ragged at Washington, was blamed for having left his post. The early
pioneers of the great Northwest civilization lie in neglected graves. We
are now beginning to see the hand of Providence, and to realize how great
was the work that these people did for their own country and for the
world.
And Marlowe Mann--whose name stands for the Christian schoolmaster--no one
knows where he sleeps now; perhaps no one, surely but a few. He saw his
college-mates rise to honor and fame. They offered him positions, but he
knew his place in the world.
When his hair was turning gray, there came to him an offer of an
opportunity for wealth, from his remaining relatives. At the same time the
agency offered him the use of a farm. He accepted the latter for his
work's sake, and returned to his old friends a loving letter and an old
poem, and with the latter we will leave this picture of old times on the
Oregon:
"Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound;
Content to breathe his native air
On his own ground.
"Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter, fire.
"Sound sleep by night, study and ease,
Together mixed sweet recreation;
And innocence, which most doth please,
With meditation.
"Blessed who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years glide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind;
Quiet by day.
"Thus let me live unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie."
HISTORICAL NOTES.
I.
VANCOUVER.
The remarkable progress of the Pacific port cities of Seattle and Tacoma
make Washington an especially bright, new star on the national flag.
Surrounded as these cities are with some of the grandest and most poetic
scenery in the United States, with gigantic forests and rich farm-lands,
with mountains of ores, with coal-mines, iron-mines, copper-mines, and
mines of the more precious treasures; washed as they are by the water of
noble harbors, and smiled upon by skies of almost continuous April
weather--there must be a great future before the cities of Puget Sound.
The State of Washington is one of the youngest in the Union, and yet she
is not too young to celebrate soon the one-hundredth anniversary of
several interesting events.
It was on the 15th of December, 1790, that Captain George Vancouver
received his commission as commander of his Majesty's sloop of war the
Discovery. Three of his officers were Peter Puget, Joseph Baker, and
Joseph Whidby, whose names now live in Puget Sound--Mount Baker, and
Whidby Island.
The great island of British Columbia, and its energetic port city,
received the name of Vancouver himself, and Vancouver named most of the
places on Puget Sound in honor of his personal friends. He must have had a
heart formed for friendship, thus to have immortalized those whom he
esteemed and loved. It is the discovery and the naming of mountains,
islands, and ports of the Puget Sound that suggest poetic and patriotic
celebrations.
The old journals of Vancouver lie before us. In these we read:
"From this direction, round by the north and northwest, the high, distant
land formed, like detached islands, among which the lofty mountains
discovered in the afternoon by the third lieutenant, and in compliment to
him called by me Mount Baker, rose to a very conspicuous object."
It was on Monday, April 30, 1792, that Mount Baker was thus discovered
and named. In May, 1792, Vancouver states that he came to a "very safe"
and "capatious" harbor, and that "to this port I gave the name of Port
Townshend, in honor of the noble marquis of that name."
Again, on Thursday, May 29, 1792, Vancouver discovered another excellent
port, and says:
"This harbor, after the gentleman who discovered it, obtained the name of
Port Orchard."
In May, 1792, he makes the following very important historical note:
"Thus by our joint efforts we had completely explored every turning of
this extensive inlet; and, to commemorate Mr. Puget's exertions, the
fourth extremity of it I named Puget Sound."
A very interesting officer seems to have been this lieutenant, Peter
Puget, whose soundings gave the name to the American Mediterranean. Once,
after the firing of muskets to overawe hostile Indians, who merely pouted
out their lips, and uttered, "Poo hoo! poo hoo!" he ordered the discharge
of a heavy gun, and was amused to note the silence that followed. It was
in April and May, 1792, that Puget explored the violet waters of the great
inland sea, a work which he seems to have done with the enthusiasm of a
romancer as well as of a naval officer.
Mount Hood was named for Lord Hood, and Mount Saint Helens was named in
1792, in the month of October, "in honor of his Britannic Majesty's
ambassador at the court of Madrid." But one of the most interesting of all
of Vancouver's notes is the following:
"The weather was serene and pleasant, and the country continued to exhibit
the same luxuriant appearance. At its northern extremity Mount Baker bore
compass; the round, snowy mountain, now forming its southern extremity,
after my friend Rear-Admiral Ranier, I distinguished by the name of Mount
Ranier, May, 1792." This mountain is now Mount Tacoma.
The spring of 1892 ought to be historically very interesting to the State
of Washington, and it is likely to be so.
II.
THE OREGON TRAIL.
"There is the East. There lies the road to India."
Such was Senator Thomas H. Benton's view of the coast and harbors of
Oregon. He saw the advantage of securing to the United States the
Columbia River and its great basin, and the Puget Sea; and he made himself
the champion of Oregon and Washington.
In Thomas Jefferson's administration far-seeing people began to talk of a
road across the continent, and a port on the Pacific. The St. Louis
fur-traders had been making a way to the Rockies for years, and in 1810
John Jacob Astor sent a ship around Cape Horn, to establish a post for the
fur-trade on the Pacific Coast, and also sent an expedition of some sixty
persons from St. Louis, overland, by the way of the Missouri and
Yellowstone, to the Columbia River. The pioneer ship was called the
Tonquin. She arrived at the mouth of the Columbia before the overland
expedition. These traders came together at last, and founded Astoria, on
the Columbia.
Ships now began to sail for Astoria, and the trading-post flourished in
the beautiful climate and amid the majestic scenery. But the English
claimed the country. In June, 1812, war broke out with England, and
Astoria became threatened with capture by the English. It was decided by
Astor's agent to abandon the post; but Astoria had taught the United
States the value of Oregon.
The Oregon trail from St. Louis, by the way of the great rivers, the
Missouri, the Yellowstone, and the Columbia, followed the fall of Astoria,
and began the highway of emigration to the Pacific coast and to Asia. Over
it the trapper and the missionary began to go. The Methodist missionaries,
under the leadership of Revs. Jason and Daniel Lee, were among the first
in the field, and laid the foundations of the early cities of Oregon. One
of their stations was at the Dalles of the Columbia. In 1835 the great
missionary, Marcus Whitman, of the Congregationalist Board, established
the mission at Walla Walla. Yet up to the year 1841, just fifty years ago,
only about one hundred and fifty Americans, in all, had permanently
settled in Oregon and Washington.
Senator Benton desired the survey of a route to Oregon, to aid emigration
to the Columbia basin. He engaged for this service a young, handsome,
gallant, and chivalrous officer, Lieutenant John C. Fremont, who, with
Nicollet, a French naturalist, had been surveying the upper Mississippi,
and opening emigration to Minnesota.
Fremont espoused not only the cause of Oregon, but also Senator Benton's
young daughter Jessie, who later rendered great personal services to her
husband's expedition in the Northwest.
Kit Carson was the guide of this famous expedition. The South Pass was
explored, and the flag planted on what is now known as Fremont's Peak, and
the country was found to be not the Great American Desert of the maps, but
a land of wonderful beauty and fertility. In 1843 Fremont made a second
expedition; this time from the South Pass to the Columbia country. After
he was well on his way, the War Department recalled him; but Mrs. Fremont
suppressed the order, in the interest of the expedition, until it was too
late to reach him.
Fremont went by the way of Salt Lake, struck the Oregon trail, and finally
came to the mission that Dr. Whitman had founded among the Nez-Percés
(pierced noses) at Walla Walla. This mission then consisted of a single
adobe house.
The British claimants of the territory, finding that American immigration
was increasing, began to bring settlers from the Red River of the North. A
struggle now began to determine which country should possess this vast and
most important territory. When Dr. Whitman learned of the new efforts of
the English to settle the country, and the danger of losing Oregon by
treaties pending at Washington, he started for St. Louis, by the way of
Santa Fé. This ride, often called "Whitman's Ride for Oregon," is one of
the poetical events of American history. He went to Washington, was
treated cavalierly by the State Department, but secured a delay of the
treaties, which proved the means of saving Oregon and Washington to the
United States.
So his missionary efforts gave to our country an empire that seems
destined to become ultimate America, and a power in the Asian world.
III.
GOVERNOR STEVENS.
In the long line of brave American soldiers, General Isaac Ingalls Stevens
deserves a noble rank in the march of history. He was born at Andover,
Mass., and was educated at West Point, where he was graduated from the
Military Academy in 1839 with the highest honors. He was on the military
staff of General Scott in Mexico, and held other honorable positions in
the Government service in his early life.
But the great period of his life was his survey of the Northern route to
the Pacific, since largely followed by the Northern Pacific Railroad, and
his development of Washington Territory as a pioneer Governor. He saw the
road to China by the way of the Puget Sea, and realized that Washington
stood for the East of the Eastern Continent and the Western. He seems to
have felt that here the flag would achieve her greatest destiny, and he
entered upon his work like a knight who faced the future and not the past.
His survey of the Northern Pacific route led the march of steam to the
Puget Sea, and the great steamers have carried it forward to Japan, China,
and India.
His first message to the Legislature at Olympia (1854) was a map of the
future and a prophecy. It was a call for roads, schools, a university, and
immigration. The seal of Washington was made to bear the Indian word
_Alké_--"by and by"--or "in the future." It also was a prophecy.
He created the counties of Sawanish, Whatcom, Clallam, Chehalis, Cowlitz,
Wahkiakum, Skamania, and Walla Walla. Olympia was fixed upon as the seat
of government, and measures were taken by the Government for the
regulation of the Indian tribes.
Stevens was the military leader of the Indian war. He reduced the tribes
to submission, and secured a permanent peace. He was elected to Congress
as a Territorial delegate in 1857, and sought at Washington as earnestly
as on the Puget Sea the interests of the rising State.
He was a man of great intellect, of a forceful and magnetic presence--a
man born to lead in great emergencies. He carried New England ideas and
traditions to the Pacific, and established them there for all time to
come, creating there a greater New England which should gather to its
harbors the commerce of the world.
Governor Stevens was a conservative in politics, but when the news of the
fall of Sumter thrilled the country, he said to the people of Olympia, "I
conceive it my duty to stop disunion." He went to Washington and entered
the Union service.
He fell like a hero at Chantilly, and under the flag which he had taken
from his color-bearer, who had received a mortal wound. His was a splendid
career that the nation should honor. We recently saw his sword and
historic pictures at the home of his widow and son at Dorchester, Mass.,
and were impressed with these relics of a spirit that had done so much for
the progress of the country and mankind.
The State of Washington is his monument, and progressive thought his
eulogy. His great mind and energy brought order out of chaos, and set the
flag in whose folds he died forever under the gleaming dome of the
Colossus of American mountains and over the celestial blue of the Pacific
harbors of the Puget Sea.
IV.
SEATTLE THE CHIEF.
Seattle was a Dwamish chief, and a true friend of the white race, whom he
seemed to follow on account of their superior intelligence. He gave the
name to an early settlement, which is now a great city, and which seems
destined to become one of the important port cities of the world; for when
in 1852, some forty years ago, the pioneers of Alké Point left the town
which they had laid out and called New York, and removed to the other side
of the bay, they named the place Seattle, from the friendly chief, instead
of New York. Alké means _by and by_ and Seattle is likely to become the
New York of the Pacific, and one of the great ports for Asiatic trade.
With the immense agricultural and mineral resources with which it is
surrounded, with its inexhaustible stores of timber, its sublime scenery
and delightful climate, with its direct and natural water-road to Japan
and China, and its opportunity of manufacturing for the Asiatic market the
kind of goods that England has to carry to the same markets over an
adventurous course of three times the distance, with the great demand for
grain among the rice-eating countries of the East--the mind can not map
the possibilities of this port city for the next hundred years or more.
The prophecy of its enterprising citizens, that it will one day be one of
the great cities in the world, is not unlikely to be realized; and it is
interesting to ask what was the history of the chief who gave the name to
this new Troy of the Puget Sea.
He was at this time somewhat advanced in life, a portly man, of benevolent
face, recalling the picture of Senator Benton, of Missouri, whom he was
said to resemble. He was the chief of the Dwamishes, a small tribe
inhabiting the territory around what is now Elliott Bay. He became a
friend of Dr. Maynard, one of the pioneers of the new town, and of General
Stevens, the great Territorial Governor. He was well known to Foster,
Denny, Bell, and Borden, who took claims where the city now stands. His
last years were passed at Port Madison, where he died in 1866, at a great
age.
Governor Stevens confirmed his sachemship, and Seattle became the
protector and the good genius of the town. A curious legend, which seems
to be well founded, is related of a tax which Seattle levied upon the new
town, for the sake of the trouble that the name would give him in the
spiritual world. When a Dwamish Indian lost a near relative of the same
name by death, he changed his own name, because the name might attract the
ghost of the deceased, and so cause him to be haunted. The tribe believed
that departed spirits loved their old habitations, and the associations of
their names and deeds, and so they changed their names and places on the
death of relatives, that they might not be disturbed by ghostly
apparitions.
"Why do you ask for a tax?" asked a pioneer of Seattle.
"The name of the town will call me back after I am dead, and make me
unhappy. I want my pay for what I shall suffer then, now."
I hope that the rapid growth of the great city of the North does not
disquiet the gentle and benevolent soul of Seattle. The city should raise
a monument to him, that he may see that he is kindly remembered when he
comes back to visit the associations of his name and life. Or, better for
his shade, the city should kindly care for his daughter, poor old Angeline
Seattle, who at the time of this writing (1890) is a beggar in the streets
of uplifting commercial palaces and lovely homes!
We visited her in her hut outside of the city some months ago, to ask her
if she saved Seattle in 1855, by giving information to the pioneers that
the woods around it were full of lurking Indians, bent on a plot to
destroy it; for there is a legend that on that shadowy December night,
when Seattle was in peril, and the council of Indian warriors met and
resolved to destroy the town before morning, Jim, a friendly Indian, was
present at the conference as a spy. He found means to warn the pioneers of
their immediate danger.
The ship of war Decatur, under Captain Gansevoort, lay in the harbor. Jim,
who had acted in the Indian council, secretly, in the interest of the
town, had advised the chiefs to defer the attack until early in the
morning, when the officers of the Decatur would be off their guard.
[Illustration: _Middle block-house at the Cascades._]
Night fell on the Puget Sea. The people went into the block-house to
sleep, and the men of the Decatur guarded the town, taking their stations
on shore. As the night deepened, a thousand hostile Indians crept up to
the place and awaited the morning, when the guard should go on board the
ship for breakfast, and the people should come out of the block-house and
go to their houses, and "set the gun behind the door."
It was on this night, according to the legend, that "Old Angeline," as she
is now called, became the messenger that saved the inhabitants from
destruction.
The legend has been doubted; and when we asked the short, flat-faced old
woman, as she answered our knock, if she was the daughter of the chief who
saved Seattle, she simply said, "Chief," grinned, and made a bow. She was
ready to accept the traditional honors of the wild legend worthy of the
pen of a Cooper.
On returning from our visit to old Angeline, we asked Hon. Henry Yesler,
the now rich pioneer, why the princess was not better cared for by the
people of the city. He himself had been generous to her. "Why," he said,
"if you were to give her fifty dollars, she would give it all away before
night!" Benevolent old Angeline! She ought to live in a palace instead of
a hovel! Mr. Yesler doubted the local legend, but I still wished to
believe it to be true.
V.
The story of "Whitman's Ride for Oregon" has been told in verse by the
writer of this volume, as follows:
WHITMAN'S RIDE FOR OREGON.
I.
"An empire to be lost or won!"
And who four thousand miles will ride
And climb to heaven the Great Divide,
And find the way to Washington,
Through mountain cañons, winter snows,
O'er streams where free the north wind blows?
Who, who will ride from Walla-Walla,
Four thousand miles, for Oregon?
II.
"An empire to be lost or won?
In youth to man I gave my all,
And naught is yonder mountain wall;
If but the will of Heaven be done,
It is not mine to live or die,
Or count the mountains low or high,
Or count the miles from Walla-Walla.
I, I will ride for Oregon!"
'Twas thus that Whitman made reply.
III.
"An empire to be lost or won?
Bring me my Cayuse pony, then,
And I will thread old ways again,
Beneath the gray skies' crystal sun.
'Twas on those altars of the air
I raised the flag, and saw below
The measureless Columbia flow;
The Bible oped, and bowed in prayer,
And gave myself to God anew,
And felt my spirit newly born;
And to my mission I'll be true,
And from the vale of Walla-Walla
I'll ride again for Oregon.
IV.
"I'm not my own; myself I've given,
To bear to savage hordes the Word;
If on the altars of the heaven
I'm called to die, it is the Lord.
The herald may not wait or choose,
'Tis his the summons to obey;
To do his best, or gain or lose,
To seek the Guide and not the way.
He must not miss the cross, and I
Have ceased to think of life or death;
My ark I've builded--heaven is nigh,
And earth is but a morning's breath!
Go, then, my Cayuse pony bring;
The hopes that seek myself are gone,
And from the vale of Walla-Walla
I'll ride again for Oregon."
V.
He disappeared, as not his own,
He heard the warning ice winds sigh;
The smoky sun-flames o'er him shone,
On whitened altars of the sky,
As up the mountain-sides he rose;
The wandering eagle round him wheeled,
The partridge fled, the gentle roes,
And oft his Cayuse pony reeled
Upon some dizzy crag, and gazed
Down cloudy chasms, falling storms,
While higher yet the peaks upraised
Against the winds their giant forms.
On, on and on, past Idaho,
On past the mighty Saline sea,
His covering at night the snow,
His only sentinel a tree.
On, past Portneuf's basaltic heights,
On where the San Juan Mountains lay,
Through sunless days and starless nights,
Toward Taos and far Sante Fé.
O'er table-lands of sleet and hail,
Through pine-roofed gorges, cañons cold,
Now fording streams incased in mail
Of ice, like Alpine knights of old,
Still on, and on, forgetful on,
Till far behind lay Walla-Walla,
And far the fields of Oregon.
VI.
The winter deepened, sharper grew
The hail and sleet, the frost and snow;
Not e'en the eagle o'er him new,
And scarce the partridge's wing below.
The land became a long white sea,
And then a deep with scarce a coast;
The stars refused their light, till he
Was in the wildering mazes lost.
He droppèd rein, his stiffened hand
Was like a statue's hand of clay!
"My trusty beast, 'tis the command;
Go on, I leave to thee the way.
I must go on, I must go on,
Whatever lot may fall to me,
On, 'tis for others' sake I ride--
For others I may never see,
And dare thy clouds, O Great Divide,
Not for myself, O Walla-Walla,
Not for myself, O Washington,
But for thy future, Oregon."
VII.
And on and on the dumb beast pressed
Uncertain, and without a guide,
And found the mountain's curves of rest
And sheltered ways of the Divide.
His feet grew firm, he found the way
With storm-beat limbs and frozen breath,
As keen his instincts to obey
As was his master's eye of faith--
Still on and on, still on and on,
And far and far grew Walla-Walla,
And far the fields of Oregon.
VIII.
That spring, a man with frozen feet
Came to the marble halls of state,
And told his mission but to meet
The chill of scorn, the scoff of hate.
"Is Oregon worth saving?" asked
The treaty-makers from the coast;
And him the Church with questions tasked,
And said, "Why did you leave your post?"
Was it for this that he had braved
The warring storms of mount and sky?
Yes!--yet that empire he had saved,
And to his post went back to die--
Went back to die for others' sake,
Went back to die from Washington,
Went back to die for Walla-Walla,
For Idaho and Oregon.
IX.
At fair Walla-Walla one may see
The city of the Western North,
And near it graves unmarked there be
That cover souls of royal worth;
The flag waves o'er them in the sky
Beneath whose stars are cities born,
And round them mountain-castled lie
The hundred states of Oregon.
VI.
MOUNT SAINT HELENS.
We refer to the snowy range to the west, which terminates in the great
dome that now bears that name. There was once a great lava-flood in the
Northwest, and Mount Hood, Mount Adams, Mount Saint Helens, and Mount
Tacoma (Rainier) are but great ash-heaps that were left by the stupendous
event.