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HISTORY OF OREGON
CHAPTER I. OREGON IN 1834.The Northwest Coast and the Oregon Territory—Physical
Features —Mountain Ranges and Rivers—The Imperious Columbia—Distribution of Vegetation—Climate—Sunshine
and Rain—Post-plantings of Civilization — Fort Vancouver — Its Lord Paramount—
The Garden—Hospitality—Money, Morality, and Religion—Fort George—Fort
Nisqually—Forts Langley, Umpqua, and Walla Walla — Okanagan and Colville — Forts Hall and
Boise — Fort William and Wapato Island—The French-Canadian Settlement
—Missionaries, Traders, Farmers, Horse-dealers, Scientists, and Fur-hunters
as Empire-builders—Origin of the Term Oregon.
The Oregon Territory, when first the
term came into use, embraced the same somewhat undefined region which in these
Pacific States’ histories I have denominated the Northwest Coast; namely, the
lands lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, and extending
northward indefinitely from the forty-second parallel of latitude. Later the
name Oregon was applied to a narrower area.
In surface and climate it is varied; in resources limitless, though its possibilities are little known. There is grand and beautiful scenery in every portion of it; some wild and rugged, some treeless and lonely; altogether a magnificent stretch of primeval wilderness. It is divided longitudinally by the Cascade Mountains, one with the Snowy Range of California and Nevada, and so called from the turmoil of the Columbia in passing through them; while the eastern portion is cut transversely by the Blue Mountains—in popular parlance blue, from the contrast of their violet shadows with the tawny plain. Another and lower range rims the seaboard from Lower California and along the Oregon frontage to the Russian possessions; the high spurs thrown out by the Coast and Cascade ranges separate the valleys thus formed in southern Oregon by barriers as insurmountable as those in Greece. Besides mountains
and rivers there are forests, not spread over broad areas of level surface as
they were back of the English Plantations; beneficent nature has for the good
of civilized man confined them to the mountain sides and to the low lands along
the streams. On the mountains different species of pine, fir, and spruce
prevail, while near the streams grow deciduous trees, oak, maple, ash, alder,
cotton-wood, and willow. This distribution of forest and prairie gives a
charming diversity to the landscape in the western portion of the territory,
from California northward; and singularly attractive is the valley of the
Willamette with its infinite variety of forms, the richness of verdure, and the
frequent small rivers with their fertile and wooded borders.
In western
Oregon there is scarcely a spot, and few places in the eastern part, where
there is not visible some lofty snow-clad peak of the Cascade Range, standing
as sentinel of the centuries, and forming a landmark and guide. In many places
three or five of these glistening heights may be seen at once. Hardly less
striking are the purpled summits of the continuous range, silvered with snow
in spring and autumn, and glowing during the afternoons of summer under a rosy
violet mist. Eastern Oregon seems less prolific of natural beauties than the
country west of the Cascade Range, where the Columbia River provides not only
uninterrupted navigation from the sea to the heart of the mountains, but
constitutes in itself a continuous panorama of rare views, to which minds even
of the least ideality soon become attached. As the eastern foothills sink to
plain, the forest disappears, only a few scattering pines remaining in the
vicinity of the Dalles; by the bars and on sandy margins of the river grow
willows and low shrubs, while above them rise high rounded bluffs, bald and monotonous,
yet not without picturesque effect. Beyond these the country rolls off in
broken plains, covered in spring by a delicate verdure bright with flowers,
later wearing a russet hue that early gave it the name of desert. Yet even
through this eastern part there is much to please the eye in the softly flowing
outlines of the ever-changing scene, in the calm blue which canopies the
imperious Columbia raging at its rocky obstructions, and in the deep canons
that channel the inflowing rivers from the south. A hundred miles from the
mountains there are smaller streams with open valleys, occupied as grazing
lands by native horse-owners, the Umatillas, Cayuses,
Walla Wallas, and Nez Percés.
Yet farther
east, beyond the Umatilla and Walla Walla countries, is the Snake or Lewis
River region, in the eyes of those who visit it as worthless as it is wild and
lonely. Its waterless deserts, severely hot in summer and cold in winter,
inspire the overland tourist with dread; and many a trapper and voyageur meets
his death from want in crossing them. Yet fertile spots are found, pleasant
little valleys where the climate is delightful, and, so far as appears, the
earth fruitful. North of the Snake River the whole region is unexplored except
as traversed by fur-hunters; indeed, away at the base of the Rocky Mountains
is a large and diversified tract, a terra incognita to the world at large. And
for many years to come this portion of the Oregon Territory offers few
attractions to agriculturists. On the other hand, all the western portion of
Oregon, especially the Willamette Valley and the Puget Sound region, has been
favorably spoken of by successive explorers, until its spreading fame agitates
the question of ownership.
Little is yet
known of agricultural and mineral resources, but its mild and equable climate,
affecting as it does the quality and value of furs, and being in itself so
peculiar considering the latitude, is better understood. The winters of
western Oregon are so mild that little ice forms; but they are wet, and cloudy
of sky. The rains begin about mid-autumn and continue with greater or less
constancy till May, after which fleeting showers occur until the June rise of the
Columbia begins to decline. This excessive moisture comes in a measure from
the Japan current, and is more immediately owing to the south-west winds of
autumn and winter, driving inland the evaporations of ocean, which being
arrested by the Cascade Range are precipitated on its seaward sides. Hence the
peculiarities of the Oregon climate; the mountains wall the moisture from
their eastern slopes, rendering that region arid. The dense growth of the
western forests are of those trees that live on the moisture of the atmosphere,
but do not like it about their roots. The evergreens of Oregon, the firs
especially, refuse to grow on land that is subject to overflow, and their
foliage protects the roots from rain. Spruce, yew, hemlock, and cedar grow on
lower lands than firs and pines. It may seem anomalous that trees which avoid
water should thrive in a so-called moist climate, and also that, while the
climate is so wet, Oregon’s atmosphere is remarkably dry, as evidenced by the
fact that wet articles exposed to the air, but protected from
the rain, dry quickly even in the rainy season. Observing this, the early
Oregonians call their ordinary rains ‘ mists,’ and maintain that they do not
wet people; and by a further stretch of imagination their descendants may fancy
themselves not affected by the December and January mists.
But even if the
winters are unpleasantly rainy, the summers compensate. By the
first of July the clouds which clothe the prairies in waving grass and beds of
flowers have passed away, and a clear sun ushers in each long delightful day,
which begins in a clear twilight two hours after midnight, and ends only in
another lingering twilight, softer though not more beautiful than the first.
Often the temperature of the dry summer season falls to sixty or fifty-seven
degrees Fahrenheit; seldom it exceeds seventy-two or seventy-six, though
occasionally rising for a brief period to ninety or one hundred; yet whatever
the heat of meridian, by four o’clock in the afternoon it begins to abate,
leaving the evening so pleasantly cool that the bed requires a blanket—so
comfortably cool that the settlers acquire a love for sleep that becomes characteristic,
and is sometimes mentioned to their discredit. About four months of dry
weather, with little or no rainfall, constitutes the summer of western Oregon,
during which the grass becomes yellow and the earth powdered Grain ripens and
is gathered in August. September is seeding time, experience early teaching
that it is better to have the wheat in the ground overwinter, even if it must
be pastured down, than trust the chance of late spring sowing.
The
food resources native to western Oregon are fish, game, and berries. The
Indians use a root resembling the potato, which they call wapato,
found in abundance on Wapato Island, and also in some shallow lakes or
overflowed prairie land. In wild fruit the country is prolific; but none are as
fine as the same kinds in the middle states of the continent. Elk, bear, and
deer are plentiful, but owing to the difficulty of pursuit through the dense
undergrowth of the mountain forests, the chase is laborious. There is an
abundance of water-fowl, conspicuous among which are brant, geese of several
species, cranes, mallard, canvas-back, and summer duck, blue-winged and
green-winged teal, snipe, golden and killdee plover,
and other wading birds, some of which are not palatable. Of game-birds
found in woods there are also plenty; grouse, quails, pheasants, and wood-doves
inhabit the thickets of young firs, and the groves of oak and fir that skirt
the older and darker forest. Singing birds which make their homes in trees are
rare. The only really musical bird of Oregon is the meadowlark, which carols
to the passer-by of the happiness he finds in his humble life near the ground.
The streams are
well stocked with fish—the brooks with trout, and the rivers with salmon of two
or three species. The most palatable and largest of these, the salmo quinnat, has been one of the chief articles of food
for twenty years, and constitutes a staple in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s
supplies; in fact, the company’s servants receive dried salmon and nothing else
when other articles are scarce.
Such were the
natural conditions of life in Oregon in 1834. European civilization, however,
had already driven in its stakes here and there about the wilderness
preparatory to its overthrow. For some time past the country had been dominated
exclusively by fur-traders from Canada and Great Britain; now people from the
United States begin to come and settle. Ownership becomes a moot question; the
territory is held by the United States and Great Britain under treaty of joint
occupancy. Although in the History of the Northwest Coast I have given full
descriptions of the fur-traders’ forts and incipient settlements, I deem it
advisable to review them here, so that the reader may have the picture fresh in
his mind at the opening of this part of my history.
The most
important post and place in all the Oregon Territory was Fort Vancouver, the
Hudson’s Bay Company’s headquarters. It was situated upon a beautiful sloping
plain, on the north bank of the Columbia, about six miles above the mouth of
the Multnomah River, as the Willamette below the falls was still called, and
opposite the centre of the Willamette Valley, at a
point where the Columbia is broad and much divided by low, woody islands, which
add diversity to a prospect embracing every element of grandeur and grace, from
glistening snow-peaks to the reflections of leaning shrubbery, whose flowers of
white or red are mirrored in the calm surface of this most majestic of rivers.
The fort was
not formidable in appearance. It consisted of a strong stockade about twenty
feet high, without bastions, embracing an area of two hundred and fifty by one
hundred and fifty yards. Within this enclosure, around three sides, were ranged
the dwellings and offices of the gentlemen in the company’s service. In the centre, facing the main entrance or great gate, was the
residence of Doctor John McLoughlin, the governor by courtesy of the Hudson’s
Bay Company in Oregon, a French Canadian structure, painted white, with piazza
and flower beds in front, and grapevines trained along a rude trellis. The
steps leading to the hall of the governor’s house were of horseshoe form, and
between the two flights stood a twenty-four-pound cannon, mounted on a ship’s
carriage, and on either side of this were two mortar guns, all with shot piled
orderly about them, but otherwise looking innocent enough in their peaceful
resting-places. There were no galleries around the walls for sentries, nor
loop-holes for small-arms, no appearances, in fact, indicating a dangerous
neighborhood. Near the centre of the enclosure rose
the company’s flag-staff, and everything about the place was orderly, neat, and
business-like. The magazine, warehouses, store, and shops were all contained
within the palisades, and during the hours appointed for labor every man
attended to his duties, whether as trader, clerk, smith, baker, or tailor.
A bell large
enough for a country church was supported by three stout poles about twenty
feet high, covered with a little pointed roof to keep off the rain. This
brazen monitor rang out at five o’clock in the morning, rousing the furriers,
mechanics, and farmers to their tasks. At eight it announced breakfast; at
nine, work again; at twelve, dinner; at one, work; at six, suspension of labor,
and supper. Saturday’s work ended at five in the afternoon, at which time the
physician of the establishment served to the men their week’s rations,
consisting in winter of eight gallons of potatoes and eight salt salmon, and in
summer of pease and tallow; no bread or meat being
allowed, except occasionally. The Indian servants of the Indian wives hunted
and fished for additional supplies. Nor was this unremitting industry
unnecessary. The management of the Hudson’s Bay Company required its posts to
be self-supporting. The extent of territory they traded over was immense, and
the number of their forts increased the demand for such articles as could be
produced only in favorable localities. For instance, at Fort Vancouver the demand
for axes and hatchets for the trappers and Indians required fifty of them to
be made daily. In addition to the manufacture of these, the smiths had plenty
to do in repairing farming tools and milling machinery, and making the various
articles required by a community of several hundred people. The carpenter, the
turner, and the tailor were equally busy; two or three men were constantly
employed making bread for the fort people and sea-biscuit for the coasting
vessels. The furs had to be beaten once a week to drive out moths and dust. The
clerks had not only to keep accounts and copy letters, but keep a journal of
every day’s affairs. Among so many persons, some were sure to be in the
hospital, and on these the best medical care was bestowed. Though so far from
the world as to seem removed from the world’s wants, Fort Vancouver was no
place for the indulgence of poetic idleness.
And if within
the fort this industry was necessary, it was none the less so without, where a
farm of about seven hundred acres had been brought under cultivation,
on which was raised abundance of grain and vegetables, requiring extensive
storehouses. Large bands of cattle and sheep were kept, the latter im proved by careful breeding until they yielded twelvepound fleeces. From the few English apple seeds
elsewhere mentioned had sprung trees which, though young, were so crowded with
fruit as to need propping, and from the peach sprouts brought from Juan Fernandez
Island had grown large trees that were bearing their first fruit. Indeed, the
garden at Fort Vancouver rejoiced in a scientific overseer by the name of
Bruce, who on visiting England with McLoughlin would see nothing in the duke of
Devonshire’s garden so pleasing to him as his Fort Vancouver plants, yet was
careful to abstract as many of the Chiswick improvements as his mind could
carry. Even then, and before, Bruce cultivated strawberries, figs, and lemons,
the first with great success, the other two with the fruitless efforts that
alone could be expected in the northern temperate zone; ornamental trees and
flowers also received his fostering care.
On
the farm was a flouring mill and thrashing machine, worked by oxen or horses in
the Arcadian way, yet sufficient for the wants of all. A few miles above the
fort, on a little stream falling into the Columbia, stood a saw-mill, cutting
lumber enough during the year to supply not only the fort, but to load one or
two vessels for the Hawaiian Islands.
Between
the fort and the river, on the smooth sloping plain, lay a village consisting
of thirty or forty log houses, ranged along a single street, and occupied by
the servants of the company, Canadians, half-breeds, and Hawaiians, with a few
from the Orkney Islands. In every house an Indian woman presided as mistress,
and the street swarmed with children of mixed blood. Nothing offensive met the
eye; everywhere cleanliness and decorum prevailed.
When
a visitor came to Fort Vancouver—and the fort
was seldom without its guest even in 1834—he would, if a person of
consideration, be met at the boatlanding by the
presiding officer, McLoughlin, a tall, large, commanding figure of benevolent
mien, who courteously made him welcome to every comfort and convenience, as
well as to his own genial society and that of his associates. Entering by one
of the smaller gates at either side of the principal entrance, he was escorted
to the doctor’s own residence, and assigned plain but comfortable quarters; for
it was not in empty show that the hospitality of Fort Vancouver consisted, but
in its thorough home-like features, its plenty, and its frank and cordial
intercourse. The visitors were all of the sterner sex, no white ladies having
yet set foot within these precincts.
It was a rule
of the company that the Indian wives and offspring of the officers should live
in the seclusion of their own apartments, which left the officers’ messroom to
themselves and their guests; and while no more time than necessary was consumed
at table, the good cheer and the enlightened conversation of educated gentlemen
threw over the entertainment a luxury and refinement all the more enjoyable
after the rude experiences of a journey across the continent or a long voyage
by sea. After the substantial dinner, concluded with a temperate glass of wine
or spirits, the company withdrew for half an hour to the ‘bachelors’ hall,’ to
indulge in a pipe, and discuss with animation the topics of the time. When the
officers and clerks returned to business, the guest might choose between the
library and outdoor attractions. A book, a boat, and a horse were always at
his command. The sabbath was observed with the decorum of settled society. The
service of the established church was read with impressiveness by Doctor
McLoughlin himself, and listened to with reverence by the gentlemen and
servants of the company. Respect for religion was inculcated both by precept
and example. Observing that during his ten years’ residence in the country many
young children were coming forward in the village and within the walls of the
fort, McLoughlin secured the services of an American as teacher, one Solomon
Smith, left objectless by the failure of Wyeth’s expedition; and the school
thus organized, the first in Oregon, was a good one, wherein were taught the
English branches, singing, deportment, and morality. It was the heart and brain
of the Oregon Territory, though there were other places pulsating in response
to the efforts at Fort Vancouver.
The most
western establishment was Fort George, the Astoria of 1811-14. It no longer
deserved to be called a fort, the defences of every
description having disappeared, while at a little distance from the old
stockade, now in ruins, was one principal building of hewn boards, surrounded
with a number of Indian huts. Only about four acres were under cultivation, and
only one white man, the trader in charge, resided there. It was maintained more
as a point of observation than as a post affording commercial advantages.
A place of more
importance was Fort Nisqually, situated on a little tributary of the river of
that name, and less than a mile from the waters of Puget Sound. It consisted of
a stockade about two hundred feet square, guarded by bastions well armed,
enclosing a dozen small dwellings and the magazine and warehouses of the
company. The situation was unsurpassed, on an open plain, yet convenient to
exhaustless forests of good timber, within a short distance of navigable
waters, and with the grand Mount Rainier in full view. The fort had only been
established about one year, at this time. Away to the north, on rivers draining
the valleys of British Columbia, were several trading posts, Fort Langley and
the rest, owing allegiance to the Oregon governor, but not requiring mention in
this connection.
The only other
post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, in what is now Oregon, was situated near the
confluence of Elk Creek with the Umpqua River, two hundred miles south of the
Columbia, and occupying a fine position among the hills of that beautiful country.
It was but a small place, with a twenty-acre farm attached, under the charge of
a French trader. The neat dwellings and other buildings were surrounded by the
usual palisade, with bastions at the corners, for the
Indians in this quarter were more savage than those in the vicinity of the
Columbia.
About
two hundred miles east of Fort Vancouver, on the east bank of the Columbia,
near where it makes its great bend to the west, and at the mouth of the Walla
Walla River, was a fort of that name. This establishment was also a stockade,
and being in the country of warlike savages, there were two bastions, with an
inner gallery, and other defences strongly
constructed of drift-logs which had been brought from the mountains and heaped
ashore at this place by the June freshets. Little agricultural land being found
in the vicinity, and no timber, Fort Walla Walla was without the attractions of
Fort Vancouver, but it ranked nevertheless as a place of importance, being the
principal trading post between California and Stuart Lake, and accessible by
water from Fort Vancouver. It was on the way from the great fur-hunting
region about the head-waters of the Snake River and its tributaries, and the
first resting-place the overland traveller met after
leaving the Missouri River. There was always a genial and generous officer
stationed at Fort Walla Walla, on whose head many a weary pilgrim called down
blessings for favors received. Horses were plentiful, and a few cattle were
kept there, but no grain was raised. The little garden spot by the river
furnished vegetables, and those of an excellent quality. The climate was
usually delightful, the only discomfort being the strong summer winds, which
drove about with violence the dust, and sand, and gravel, so that it was deemed
impossible to cultivate trees or shrubbery; hence the situation appeared
without any beauty except that derived from a cloudless sky, and the near
neighborhood of the picturesque cliffs of the Columbia and Walla Walla rivers.
One
hundred and thirty-eight miles north from Fort Walla Walla lay Fort Okanagan,
at the mouth of the Okanagan River, like the others a stockade, in charge of a
gentlemanly officer. Other trading posts were located at favorable points on
the Kootenais River, on the Spokane, on Lake Pend d’Oreille, and on the Flathead River, besides several north
of the fiftieth parallel. But the post of the greatest importance next to
Fort Vancouver was Fort Colville, situated on the Columbia River, one hundred
miles northeast of Fort Okanagan, though much farther by the windings of the
river. In the midst of a good agricultural country, with a fine climate, good
fishing, and other advantages, it was the central supply post for all the other
forts in the region of the north Columbia. Established shortly after Fort
Vancouver, with its allotment of cattle, consisting of two cows and a bull, it
had now like Fort Vancouver its lowing herds, furnishing beef, butter, and
milk. It had, besides, bands of fine horses and other stock, and a grist-mill
for the large yield of grain. On the well-cultivated farm grew also excellent
vegetables in abundance.
Such a
convenience as a saw-mill did not exist in all the upper country,
notwithstanding the number of posts, hence there could be little architectural
display or furniture except of the rudest kind. Bedsteads and chairs were
luxuries not to be thought of; bunks and stools were made from split logs, with
a hatchet. Yet, since those who called at Fort Colville had travelled many
hundred miles with only a blanket for a bed, the good fare here afforded made
the place to them a Canaan.
Two forts had
this year been established in the territory east of the Blue Mountains drained
by Snake River. The first was Fort Hall, erected by an American, Nathaniel J.
Wyeth, on this river, at its junction with the Portneuf;
the second was erected by the Hudson’s Bay Company, on the same river, a mile
below the mouth of the Boise, and called Fort Boise.
The American,
Wyeth, this being his second adventure in these parts, who had thus recently
built, stocked, and manned Fort Hall, went on to the lower Columbia River that
same autumn to meet a vessel, the brig May Dacre, of Boston, laden with goods
from the United States, as the eastern seaboard of the great republic was then
designated by western adventurers, and at the time of which I write he was engaged
in building a fort and trading post on Wapato Island, which he called Fort
William. With him came others, of whom I shall have occasion to speak in another
place. While the work was being advanced, the men in Wyeth’s service were
living in temporary huts; pigs, chickens, goats, and sheep were running about
in the vicinity; the May Dacre was moored to the bank, and a prospective rival
of Fort Vancouver was already well under way. Mr Wyeth’s adventures are given at length in The Northwest Coast, this volume
beginning with an account of settlers from the United States promising
permanence.
Nor was Fort
William the only settlement in Oregon exclusive of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s
forts. Thomas McKay, one of the race of Alexander McKay of the Astor
expedition, and one of the company’s most celebrated leaders, occupied a farm
on the Multnomah opposite the lower end of Wapato Island. And there were other
farms from fifty to a hundred miles south of this. The servants of the company
were hired for a term of years, and were free at its expiration. But as they
had been obliged to receive their pay in kind, for which they had not always
use, and had seldom saved their earnings, if they wished to retire they must
live not far from Fort Vancouver, and continue as the company’s dependents,
raising wheat, in exchange for which they received such indispensable articles
as their condition of life demanded.
There were of
this class, commonly called the French Canadians, a dozen or more families,
most of them settled on a beautiful and fertile prairie about forty miles south
of the Columbia, in the Valley Willamette. They lived in log houses, with
large fireplaces, after the manner of pioneers of other countries; had
considerable land under cultivation; owned horses of the native stock, not
remarkable for beauty, but tough and fleet; and had the use of such cattle as
the fur company chose to lend them. Numerous halfbreed children played about their doors; they had no cares of church or state; no
aspirations beyond a comfortable subsistence, which was theirs; and being on
good terms with their only neighbors, the natives, they passed their lives in
peaceful monotony. At the falls of the Willamette were the log houses which had
been built by McLoughlin in connection with his mill-works there, and which
were occupied occasionally by the company’s servants, some improvements being
still in progress at that place.
In addition to
the French Canadians were a number of Americans who had come to the country
with Wyeth’s first expedition, and had also made settlements in the same
neighborhood, on the east side of the Willamette River. In all the American
territory west of the Blue Mountains there were about thirty-five white men,
including the party at Fort William, who had not belonged to the Hudson’s Bay
Company, but were there with the intention to settle permanently.
Another element
was this year introduced into the early society of Oregon. Since the fallen
condition of the race left no spot of earth untainted, it followed that
missionaries were needed to look after the spiritual interests of the natives
of this western Eden. Missionaries were there in the persons of two brothers,
named Lee, assisted by certain laymen, who, after having been received with the
usual hospitality at Fort Vancouver, were busy erecting a dwelling and making
other improvements at the place selected for their station, a little to the
south of the French Canadian settlement in the Willamette Valley.
Besides the
missionary family, there were at Fort Vancouver two gentlemen from the United
States, who were travelling in the interests of science, Messrs Townsend and Nuttall, naturalists, after whom and by whom so many of our
western plants were named; so that it cannot be said of Oregon that her
earliest society was not good. After the failure of the Astor adventure,
and previous to 1834, few persons had visited the Columbia River except those
in some way connected with the fur-traders. Wyeth’s first company of twelve,
including himself, was the only party of the kind and number to enter Oregon.
Two years previous, David Douglas, a Scotch botanist, had visited the territory
and had spent some time roaming over its mountains; and rarely had the river
been entered by a foreign or American vessel.
Another
constituent of early Oregon society appears at this juncture, and if not so
respectable as the fur magnates, so religious as the missionaries, so learned
as the scientists, or so order-loving as the French Canadians, united with the
small American element it became a power in the land. It made its appearance
in the form of ten persons coming with a band of horses from California, and
led by Hall J. Kelley, who once figured on paper as the would-be founder of a
new Pacific empire.
East
of the Blue Range, and in and about the Rocky Mountains, were American trappers
and traders, who from their wandering and precarious mode of life could not be
accurately numbered, but were in all probably ten or twelve hundred, to whom
were opposed equal numbers owing allegiance to the Hudson’s Bay Company. These
were at that time hardly to be spoken of as component parts of any Oregon community,
but some in time added themselves to those who had come from the United States.
Thus
has been outlined a picture of the Oregon Territory in 1834, at which time this
History of Oregon begins.
CHAPTER
II.
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