THE ARRIVAL.
About nine o'clock at night, with a bright moon shining, on October
1st, 1852, I carried my wife in my arms up the steep bank of the
Willamette River, and three blocks away in the town of Portland to a
colored man's lodging house.
"Why, suh, I didn't think yuse could do that, yuse don't look it," said
my colored friend, as I deposited my charge in the nice, clean bed in a
cozy little room.
From April until October, we had been on the move in the tented field,
with never a roof over our heads other than the wagon cover or tent,
and for the last three months, no softer bed than either the ground
or bottom of the wagon bed. We had found a little steamer to carry
us from the Cascades to Portland, with most of the company that had
floated down the river from The Dalles, in the great scow. At the
landing we separated, and knew each other but slightly afterwards. The
great country, Oregon, (then including Puget Sound) was large enough
to swallow up a thousand such immigrations and yet individuals be lost
to each other, but a sorrier mess it would be difficult to imagine
than confronted us upon arrival. Some rain had fallen, and more soon
followed. With the stumps and logs, mud and uneven places, it was no
easy matter to find a resting place for the tented city so continuously
enlarging. People seemed to be dazed; did not know what to do;
insufficient shelter to house all; work for all impossible; the country
looked a veritable great field of forest and mountain. Discouragement
and despair seized upon some, while others began to enlarge the circle
of observation. A few had friends and acquaintances, which fact
began soon to relieve the situation by the removals that followed
the reunions, while suffering, both mental and physical, followed
the arrival in the winter storm that ensued, yet soon the atmosphere
of discontent disappeared, and general cheerfulness prevailed. A few
laid down in their beds not to arise again; a few required time to
recuperate their strength, but with the majority, a short time found
them as active and hearty as if nothing had happened. For myself, I can
truly say, I do not remember the experience as a personal hardship. I
had been born of healthy parents. I know of my father working eighteen
hours a day for three years in the Carlisle mill at Indianapolis,
Indiana, for 75 cents a day, and as an experienced miller at that. If
his iron will or physical perfection or something had enabled him to
endure this ordeal and retain his strength, why could not I, thirty
years younger, hew my way? I did not feel fatigued. True, I had been
"worked down" in flesh, but more from lack of suitable food than from
excessive exertion. Any way, I resolved to try.
My brother, Oliver, who had crossed the plains with me—a noble man
and one destined, had he lived, to have made his mark—came ahead by
the trail. He had spied out the land a little with unsatisfactory
results, met me and pointed the way to our colored friend's abode. We
divided our purse of $3.75, I retaining two dollars and he taking the
remainder, and with earliest dawn of the 2nd found the trail leading
down the river, searching for our mutual benefit for something to do.
Did you, reader, ever have the experience of a premonition that led you
on to success? Some say this is simply chance; others say that it is a
species of superstition, but whatever it is, probably most of us, some
time in our lives have had some sort of trials to set us to thinking.
As we passed up the Willamette, a few miles below Portland, on the
evening of our arrival, a bark lay seemingly right in our path as we
steamed by. Standing upon the lower deck of our little steamer, this
vessel looked to our inexperienced eyes as a veritable monster, with
masts reaching to the sky, and hull towering high above our heads.
Probably not one of that whole party of frontiersmen had ever before
seen a deep sea vessel. Hence, small wonder, the novelty of this great
monster, as we all thought of the vessel, should excite our admiration
and we might almost say, amazement. That was what we came so far for,
to where ships might go down to the sea and return laden with the
riches of the earth. The word passed that she was bound for Portland
with a cargo of merchandise and to take a return cargo of lumber.
There, as we passed, flashed through my mind, will be my opportunity
for work tomorrow, on that vessel.
Sure enough, when the morrow came, the staunch bark Mary Melville
lay quietly in front of the mill, and so, not losing any time in
early morning, my inquiry was made "do you want any men on board this
ship?" A gruff looking fellow eyed me all over as much as to say, "not
you," but answered, "yes, go below and get your breakfast." I fairly
stammered out, I must go and see my wife first, and let her know where
I am, whereupon came back a growl "of course, that will be the last
of you; that's the way with these new comers, always hunting for work
and never wanting it" (this aside to a companion, but in my hearing).
I swallowed my indignation with the assurance that I would be back in
five minutes and so went post haste to the little sufferer to impart
the good news.
Put yourself in my place, you land lubber, who never came under the
domination of a brutal mate of a sailing vessel fifty years ago. My
ears fairly tingled with hot anger at the harsh orders, but I stuck
to the work, smothering my rage at being berated while doing my very
best to please and to expedite the work. The fact gradually dawned on
me that the man was not angry, but had fallen in the way of talking
as though he was, and that the sailors paid slight heed to what he
said. Before night, however, the fellow seemed to let up on me, while
increasing his tirade on the heads of their regular men. The second and
third day wore off with blistered hands, but with never a word about
wages or pay.
"Say, boss, I'se got to pay my rent, and wese always gets our pay in
advance. I doesn't like to ask you, but can't you get the old boss
to put up something on your work?" I could plainly see that it was a
notice to pay or move. He was giving it to me in thinly veiled words.
What should I do? Suppose the old skipper should take umbrage, and
discharge me for asking for wages before the end of the week? But when
I told him what I wanted the money for, the old man's eyes moistened,
but without a word, he gave me more money than I had asked for, and
that night the steward handed me a bottle of wine for the "missus,"
which I knew instinctively came from the old captain.
The baby's Sunday visit to the ship; the Sunday dinner in the cabin;
the presents of delicacies that followed, even from the gruff mate,
made me feel that under all this roughness, a tender spot of humanity
lay, and that one must not judge by outward appearances too much—that
even way out here, three thousand miles from home, the same sort of
people lived as those I had left behind me.
"St. Helens, October 7th, 1852.
"Dear Brother: Come as soon as you can. Have rented a house,
sixty boarders; this is going to be the place. Shall I send you
money?
O. P. M."
The mate importuned me to stay until the cargo was on board, which I
did until the last stick of lumber was stowed, the last pig in the pen,
and the ship swung off bound on her outward voyage. I felt as though
I had an interest in her, but, remembering the forty dollars in the
aggregate I had received, with most of it to jingle in my pockets, I
certainly could claim no financial interest, but from that day on I
never saw or heard the name of the bark Mary Melville without pricking
my ears (figuratively, of course) to hear more about her and the old
captain and his gruff mate.
Sure enough, I found St. Helens to be the place. Here was to be the
terminus of the steamship line from San Francisco. "Wasn't the company
building this wharf?" They wouldn't set sixty men to work on the dock
without they meant business. "Ships can't get up that creek" (meaning
the Willamette), "the big city is going to be here." This was the talk
that greeted my ears, after we had carried the wife, (this time in a
chair) to our hotel. Yes, our hotel, and had deposited her and the baby
in the best room the house afforded.
It was here I made acquaintance with Columbia Lancaster, afterwards
elected as the first delegate to Congress from Washington. I have
always felt that the published history of those days has not done the
old man justice, and has been governed in part, at least, by factional
bias. Lancaster believed that what was worth doing at all was worth
doing well, and he lived it. He used to come across the Columbia with
his small boat, rowed by his own hand, laden with vegetables grown by
himself on his farm opposite St. Helens, in the fertile valley of the
Lewis River. I soon came to know what Lancaster said of his produce
was true to the letter; that if he told me he had good potatoes, he
had, and that they were the same in the middle or bottom of the sack
as at the top. And so with all his produce. We at once became his
heaviest customer, and learned to trust him implicitly. I considered
him a typical pioneer, and his name never would have been used so
contemptuously had it not been that he became a thorn in the side of
men who made politics a trade for personal profit. Lancaster upset
their well laid plans, carried off the honors of the democratic
nomination, and was elected as our first delegate in Congress from the
new Territory of Washington.
One January morning of 1853, the sixty men, (our boarders) did not
go to work dock building as usual. Orders had come to suspend work.
Nobody knew why, or for how long. We soon learned the why, as the
steamship company had given up the fight against Portland, and would
thenceforward run their steamers to that port. For how long, was
speedily determined, for the dock was not finished and was allowed to
fall into decay and disappear by the hand of time.
Our boarders scattered, and our occupation was gone, and our
accumulation in great part rendered worthless to us by the change.
Meantime, snow had fallen to a great depth; the price of forage for
cattle rose by leaps and bounds, and we found that we must part with
half of our stock to save the remainder. It might be necessary to feed
for a month, or for three months, but we could not tell, and so the
last cow was given up that we might keep one yoke of oxen, so necessary
for the work on a new place. Then the hunt for a claim began again. One
day's struggle against the current of Lewis River, and a night standing
in a snow and sleet storm around a camp fire of green wood, cooled
our ardor a little, and two hours sufficed to take us back home next
morning.
But claims we must have. That was what we had come to Oregon for; we
were going to be farmers. Wife and I had made that bargain before
we closed the other more important contract. We were, however, both
of one mind as to both contracts. Early in January of 1853 the snow
began disappearing rapidly, and the search became more earnest, until
finally, about the 20th of January, I drove my first stake for a claim,
to include the site where the town, or city, of Kalama now stands, and
here built our first cabin.
That cabin I can see in my mind as vividly as I could the first day
after it was finished. It was the first home I ever owned. What a
thrill of joy that name brought to us. Home. It was our home, and no
one could say aye, yes, or no, as to what we should do. No more rough
talk on ship board or at the table; no more restrictions if we wished
to be a little closer together. The glow of the cheek had returned to
the wife; the dimple to the baby. And such a baby. In the innocence
of our souls we really and truly thought we had the smartest, cutest
baby on earth. I wonder how many millions of young parents have since
experienced that same feeling? I would not tear the veil from off their
eyes if I could. Let them think so, for it will do them good—make them
happy, even if, perchance, it should be an illusion—it's real to them.
But I am admonished that I must close this writing now, and tell about
the cabin, and the early garden, and the trip to Puget Sound in another
chapter.