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CHAPTER II.
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MISSISSIPPI TO THE COAST.
Eleven years before the departure of Lewis and Clarke, on their expedition to the Northwest, President Jefferson, in 1792, proposed a plan to the American Philosophical Society, involving a subscription for the purpose of employing a competent person who should proceed by land to the Northwest Coast. It is at this period that Captain Meriwether Lewis emerges from the obscurity of his military post at Charlotteville, Virginia. It had been arranged that M. Michaux, a French botanist, should become the companion of Captain Lewis. These two had proceeded on their journey so far as Kentucky, at that time one of the western states, when an end was put to this initial enterprise by the French minister, who suddenly discovered that he had use for the botanical abilities of M. Michaux elsewhere. The latter was recalled.
But this plan, which had grown in development of detail since its inception, was not abandoned by Jefferson. In 1803, on the eve of expiration of the act for the establishment of trading posts among Indians, the president again brought forward the scheme which he had first proposed to the American Philosophical Society. The object sought was to trace the Missouri river to its source, cross the Rocky Mountains, and gain the Pacific Ocean. This was most satisfactorily accomplished, and because this expedition first sighted the Pacific in latitude 46 degrees, 19 minutes 11.7 seconds, it becomes an important factor, within the territorial limits of this history. The confidential message, transmitted by President Jefferson to congress, in January, 1803, had been favorably received, and results were far beyond his most sanguine expectations. Not only had the original plan been fully approved, but it was considerably amplified in its details, and Captain Lewis had been given as a companion, William Clarke, brother of General George Rogers Clarke. To Captain Lewis, to whom was given full command of the expedition, instructions were imparted concerning the route, various objects to which inquiries should be directed, relating to geography, character of the country traversed, the different inhabitants, biology, and such other scientific information as it was possible to obtain.
Coincident with this momentous undertaking another, and equally important negotiation was being carried to a successful conclusion. This was the Louisiana Purchase, from Napoleon Bonaparte, by which the United States acquired title to a domain whose extent and topographical location made that other territory to which Lewis and Clarke were en route, "Oregon," an almost absolute necessity. Louisiana, at that period extending from the mouth of the Mississippi river to the, then, indefinite boundaries on the north of Montana and the Dakotas, had been recently ceded by Spain to France. The latter power, by a treaty involving the payment to Napoleon of $15,000,000, ceded it to the United States.
Following the return of the Lewis and Clarke expedition, a donation of land was made by congress to the members of the party. This was in 1807. Captain Lewis was appointed governor of our newly acquired territory of "Louisiana," and Clarke was made agent of Indian affairs. But while on his way to Philadelphia, to supervise the publication of his journal, p.8 in 1807, Captain Lewis was stricken with death.
That portion of Lewis and Clarke's expedition with which this history concerns itself relates chiefly to the achievements of these intrepid captains after they had entered the territory known as "Oregon," and from which the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho were carved: And what was this territory, at that period a terra incognita? Major Joshua Pitcher, early in 1800 contributes the following brief description:
The form or configuration of the country is the most perfect and admirable which the imagination can conceive. All its outlines are distinctly marked; all its interior is connected together. Frozen regions on the north, the ocean and its mountainous coast to the west, the Rocky Mountains to the east, sandy and desert plains to the south — such are its boundaries. Within the whole country is watered by the streams of a single river, issuing from the north, east and south, uniting in the region of tidewater, and communicating with the sea by a single outlet. Such a country is formed for defense, and whatever power gets possession of it will probably be able to keep it.This was published in Volume I, No. 39, senate documents. Twenty-first Congress, second session. A more extended description is sketched later by Mr. Parker, who says:
Beyond the Rocky Mountains nature appears to have studied variety on the largest scale. Towering mountains and wide-extended prairies, rich valleys and barren plains, and large rivers, with their rapids, cataracts and falls, present a great variety of prospects. The whole country is so mountainous that there is no elevation from which a person can not see some of the immense range which intersect its various parts. From an elevation a short distance from Fort Vancouver, five isolated, conical mountains, from ten to fifteen thousand feet high, whose tops are covered with perpetual snow, may be seen rising in the surrounding valley. There are three general ranges west of the Rocky chain of mountains, running in northern and southern directions; the first above the falls of the Columbia river; the second at and below the Cascades; the third toward and along the shores of the Pacific. From each of these branches extend in different directions. Besides these there are those in different parts which are large and high, such as the Blue Mountains, south of Walla Walla; the Salmon River Mountains, between Salmon and Kooskooskie rivers, and also in the region of Okanogan and Colville. The loftiest peaks of the Rocky Mountains have been found in about 52 degrees north latitude, where Mr. Thompson, astronomer of the Hudson's Bay Company, has ascertained the heights of several. One, called Mount Brown, he estimates at sixteen thousand feet above the level of the sea; another, Mt. Hooker, at fifteen thousand seven hundred feet. It has been stated, farther (though probably with some exaggeration) that he discovered other points farther north of an elevation ten thousand feet higher than these. Between these mountains are widespread valleys and plains. The largest and most fertile valley is included between Deer Island in the west, to within twelve miles of the Cascades, which is about fifty-five miles wide, and extending north and south to a greater extent than I had the means of definitely ascertaining ; probably from Puget Sound on the north, to the Umpqua river on the south.
The Willamette river, and a section of the Columbia, are included in this valley. The valley south of the Walla Walla, called the Grand Rond, is said to excel in fertility. To these may be added Pierre's Hole, and the adjacent country; also Recueil Amere, east of the Salmon River Mountains. Others of less magnitude are dispersed over different parts. To these may be subjoined extensive plains, most of which are prairies well covered with grass. The whole region of country west of the Salmon River Mountains, the Spokane woods and Okanogan, quite to the range of mountains that cross the Columbia at the Falls, is a vast prairie, covered with grass, and the soil is generally good. Another large plain which is said to be very barren, lies off to the southward of Lewis, or Malheur river, including the Shoshone country; and travelers who have passed through this have pronounced the interior of America a great, barren desert, but this is drawing a conclusion far too broad from premises so limited.Aside from Captains Lewis and Clarke, the party of exploration consisted of nine young men from Kentucky, fourteen United States soldiers, who had volunteered their services, two French watermen, (an interpreter and hunter), and a black servant, employed by Captain Clarke. Before the close of 1803 preparations for the voyage were all completed, and the party wintered at the mouth of Wood river, on the east bank of the Mississippi.
The start was on May 4, 1804, and the first reach, made on the sixteenth, was twenty-one miles up the Missouri. Of the many surprising adventures encountered in ascending this river to Fort Benton, it is not the province of p.9 this history to recount. It was toward the Northwest Coast that their faces were set, and the advent of these pioneers into the future "Oregon" becomes of material interest to present residents of this section.
August 18, 1805, fourteen months from the departure of this expedition, it had reached the extreme navigable point of the Missouri river, stated in Captain Lewis' journal, to be in latitude 43 degrees, 30 minutes, 43 seconds north. The party was now, for a certain distance, to proceed by land with pack horses. Tribe after tribe of strange Indians were encountered, a majority of whom met the explorers on friendly terms. The party endured hardships innumerable; game was scarce in certain localities, and at times the weather was inclement. They forded unknown streams, and christened many, Lewis river, Clarke's Fork, and others.
Particular inquiries were made regarding the topography of the country and the possibility of soon reaching a navigable stream. In answer to such questions an ancient chief, who, it was claimed, knew more concerning the geography of this section of the northwest than any one else, drew rude delineations of the various rivers on the ground. It soon developed that he knew little about them. But some vague information was gained sufficient to show that the different streams converged in one vast river, the Columbia, running a great way toward the "setting sun, and at length losing itself in a great lake of water, which was ill-tasted and where the white men lived." Still another route was suggested, an analysis of which convinced Captain Clarke that the rivers mentioned debouched into the Gulf of California. He then inquired concerning the route used by the Pierced-nose Indians who, living west of the mountains, crossed over to the Missouri According to Captain Lewis' journal the chief replied, in effect, that the route was a very bad one; that during the passage, he had been told, they suffered excessively from hunger, being obliged to subsist for many days on berries alone, there being no game in that part of the mountains, which was broken and rocky, and so thickly covered with timber that they could scarcely pass.
Difficulties, also, surrounded all routes, and this one appeared as practicable as any other. It was reasoned that if Indians could pass the mountains with their women and children, no difficulties which they could overcome would be formidable to the explorers. Lewis sets down in his journal: "If the tribes below the mountains were as numerous as they were represented to be, they would have some means of subsistence equally within our power. They had told us, indeed, that the natives to the westward subsisted principally on fish and roots, and that their only game was a few elk, deer and antelope, there being no buffalo west of the mountains."
It was decided by Captain Clarke to ascertain what difficulty, if any, would be encountered in descending the river on which the party was then encamped. Continuing down the stream, which runs nearly northwest, through low grounds, rich and wide, they came to where it forked, the western branch being much larger than the eastern. To this stream, or rather the main branch, was given the name of Lewis river. The party followed it until confronted by insurmountable obstacles; it foamed and lashed itself through a narrow pass flanked by the loftiest mountains Captain Clarke had ever seen. The Indians declared that it was impossible to descend the river or scale the mountains, snow-capped and repellant. They had never been lower than the head of the gap made by the river breaking through the range. Captain Clarke decided to abandon the route. It was determined to proceed on their course by land. On being questioned their guide drew a map on the sand, representing a road leading toward two forks of another river, where lived a tribe of Indians called Tushepaws. These people, he said, frequently came to Lewis river to fish for salmon. p.10
Through the broken, hilly country through which flow the tributaries of the Columbia the party pressed forward. On the 29th Captain Clarke and his men joined the main party, which had made a wide detour in order to gain information regarding a more feasible route. Although August was not yet passed the weather was quite cold, and during the night ink froze in the pen and frost covered the meadows. Yet the days were warm, and this atmospheric condition grew more pronounced as they drew nearer the "Oregon" climate.
The expedition began the passage across the mountains August 30, 1805. Accompanied by the old guide, his four sons and another Indian, the party began the descent of the Lemhi river. Three days later all the Indians, save the old guide, deserted them. There being no track leading across the mountains it became necessary to cut their way through the dense underbrush. Although the Indian guide appears to have lost his way, on September 4, after most arduous labor in forcing a passage through the almost impenetrable brush, the party came upon a large camp of Indians. The following day a "pow-wow" was held, conducted in many languages, the various dialects suggesting a modern Babel, but it proved sufficient to inform the Indians of the main object of the expedition. These Indians were the Ootlashoots, a band of the Tushepaws, on their way to join other bands in hunting buffalo on Jefferson river, across the Great Divide. Parting from them the toilsome journey was resumed. The party was seeking a pass across the Bitter Root mountains. Game disappeared. On September 14 they were forced to kill a colt, their, stock of animal food being exhausted. And with frequent recurrence to the use of horseflesh they pressed on through the wilderness. An extract from Captain Clarke's journal of September 18, conveys an idea of the destitute condition of his party:
We melted some snow and supped on a little portable soup, a few cannisters of which, with about twenty pounds' weight of bear's oil, are our only remaining means of subsistence. Our guns are scarcely of any service for there is no living creature in these mountains except a few small pheasants, a small species of gray squirrel, and a blue bird of the vulture kind, about the size of a turtle dove, or jay. Even these are difficult to shoot.Arriving at a bold, running stream on September 19, it was appropriately named "Hungry Creek," as at that point they had nothing to eat. On September 20 the party passed down the last of the Bitter Root range and gained a comparatively level country. Here they found another band of strange Indians, people who had never looked upon the face of a white man. They proved hospitable and the party remained with them several days.The Indians called themselves Chopunnish, or Pierced-noses, the Nez Perces of today. The expedition was now in the vicinity of Pierce City, at one period the capital of Shoshone county, Idaho. On a white elk skin, the chief, Twisted Hair, drew a chart of the country to the west, to explain the geography and topography of the district beyond. Captain Clarke translates it as follows:
According to this the Kooskooskee forks (confluence of its north fork) a few miles from this place; two days toward the south is another and larger fork (confluence of Snake river), on which the Shoshone or Snake Indians fish; five days' journey further is a large river from the northwest (that is, the Columbia itself) into which Clarke's river empties; from the mouth of that river (that is, confluence of the Snake. with the Columbia) to the falls is five days' journey further; on all the forks as well as on the main river great numbers of Indians reside.
On September 23 the Indians were assembled, and the errand of the party across the continent explained. The talk satisfied the savages: they sold their visitors provisions for man and beast and parted with amity. But immediate progress was somewhat delayed by illness of different members of the party. They were nearly famished when they encountered p.11 the Nez Perces, and had eaten too heartily following their privations. September 27 they camped on Kooskooskee river and began the building of canoes. Gradually the health of the men was recruited, and the early days of October were passed in making preparations to descend the river. According to Lewis' journal the latitude of this camp was 46 degrees 34 minutes 56 seconds north. It should be remembered that the Kooskooskee is now the Clearwater, flowing into the Snake river which, in turn, empties into the Columbia. October 8 the party began their long and adventurous voyage in five canoes, one of which served as an advance pilot boat, the course of the stream being unknown. They were soon assailed by disaster, one of the canoes striking a rock and sinking. The river was found to be full of rocks, reefs and rapids. At the confluence of the Kooskooskee and Snake rivers a night's camp was made, near the present Idaho town of Lewiston, named in honor of the commander of this expedition. And from this point the party crossed over into the territory now bounded by the limits of the state of Washington. Experience in this camp finds the following expression in Lewis' journal.
Our arrival soon attracted the attention of the Indians, who flocked from all directions to see us. In the evening the Indian from the falls, whom we had seen at Rugged Rapid, joined us with his son in a small canoe, and insisted on accompanying us to the falls. Being again reduced to fish and roots, we made an experiment to vary our food by purchasing a few dogs, and after having been accustomed to horse-flesh felt no disrelish for this new dish. The Chopunnish have great numbers of dogs, which they employ for domestic purposes, but never eat; and our using the flesh of that animal soon brought us into ridicule as dog eaters.On October 11, having made a short stage in their journey, the party stopped and traded with the Indians, securing a quantity of salmon and seven dogs. They were now on the Snake river and proceeding rapidly toward the Columbia, known to all the various Indian tribes in "Oregon" as the "Great River." Dangerous rapids crowded the stream; disasters were encountered far too frequently to prove assuring to the voyageurs. October 14 another canoe was blown upon a rock sideways and narrowly escaped being lost. Four miles above the point of confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers the expedition halted and conferred with the Indians. During the evening of October 16 they were visited by two hundred warriors who tendered them a barbaric ovation, comprising a procession with drums, torches and vocal music far more diabolical than classical. Here seven more dogs were purchased, together with some fish and "twenty pounds of fat dried horseflesh." At the point where the party were then stationed the counties of Franklin, Yakima and Walla Walla now come together; the junction of the Snake and Columbia rivers. The Indians called themselves Sokulks.
Habit and experience necessarily render explorers more far-sighted and astute than the ordinary citizen of civilized habitat. But the prescience of the former is by no means infallible. Lewis and Clarke were now about to set forth upon the waters of the mighty Columbia, a famous stream variously known as "The River of the North" and "The Oregon;" a great commercial artery whose convolutions were subsequently to be insisted upon by Great Britain as the northern boundary of "Oregon" territory. But the magnitude of this stream and its future importance in international politics were, of course, unknown to Lewis and Clarke. These explorers had no knowledge of the "terminal facilities" of this stream other than that contributed by the legendary lore of Indians, dim. mythical, and altogether theoretical. And with this absence of even a partial realization of the great significance of his mission Captain Lewis writes in his journal of October 17, 1805:
"In the course of the day Captain Clarke, in a small canoe, with two men. ascended the Columbia. At a distance of five miles he passed p,12 an island in the middle of the river, at the head of which was a small but dangerous rapid."
With this simple introduction to the most important episode of his journey across the continent Captain Lewis faced the Occident that held so much in store for thousands of the future. On the 19th the voyageurs began to drift down the Columbia. Rapids impeded their course, many of them dangerous. Short portages were made around the more difficult ones, and forty miles down the stream they landed among a tribe known as the Pishguitpahs who were engaged in drying fish. Here they smoked the pipe of peace, exchanged presents and entertained the Indians with the strains of two violins played by Cruzatte and Gibson, members of the exploring party. October 21 they arrived at the confluence of a considerable stream, coming into the Columbia from the left, and named by the party Lepage, now known as John Day's river. Six years later, John Day, a Kentucky Nimrod, crossed the continent on the trail blazed by Lewis and Clarke, bound for Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia. From the rapids below the mouth of this stream the party gained their first view of Mount Hood, prominent in the Cascade range, looming up from the southwest eleven thousand two hundred and twenty-five feet. On the day following they passed a stream called by the Indians
Towahnahiooks; to modern geographers known as the Des Chutes. This is one of the largest southern tributaries of the Columbia.
Five miles below the mouth of this stream the party camped. Lewis and Clarke had learned from the Indians of the "great falls," and toward this point they had looked with some apprehension. October 23 they made the descent of these rapids, the height of which, in a distance of twelve hundred yards is thirty-seven feet eight inches. Around the first fall, twenty-five feet high, a portage was made, and below the canoes were led down by lines. At the next fall of the Columbia the expedition camped, among the Echeloots, a tribe of the Upper Chinooks, at present nearly extinct. They received the white men with much kindness, invited them to their huts and returned their visits, but the Echeloots were then at war with another tribe and at all times anxious concerning an expected attack by their enemies. Following a long talk with Lewis and Clarke, who were ever ready to extend their good offices toward making peace between hostile tribes, the Echeloots agreed to drop their quarrel with their ancient enemies. Here, too, the chiefs who had accompanied the expedition from the headwaters of the streams, bade the explorers farewell, and prepared to return eastward. Purchasing horses of the Echeloots they went home by land.
The closing days of October were passed in descending the Columbia, in which portion of their voyage they met a number of different tribes of Indians, among them the Chilluckittequaws, from whom they purchased five small dogs, some dried berries and a white bread or cake, made from roots. They passed a small, rapid stream which they called Cataract river, now known as the Klickitat. Going thirty-two miles farther they camped on the right bank of a river in what is now Skamania county, Washington, which is either the White Salmon or Little White Salmon. On the last day of October Captain Clarke pushed on ahead to examine the next of the more difficult rapids, known as "the great shoot." This obstacle was conquered, however, although not without a number of hair-breadth escapes, and on November 2 the party were below the last of all the descents of the Columbia. At this point tidewater commences and the river widens.
From tidewater to the sea the passage was enlivened with incidents sufficient to quicken the pulse of the enthusiastic explorers. Near the mouth of Sandy river they met a party of fifteen Indians who had recently come up from the mouth of the Columbia. By them they were told of three vessels lying at anchor below. It was certain that these craft must be either p.13 American or European, and the explorers could ill conceal their unbounded pleasure and anticipation. A group of islands near the mouth of the Multnomah, or modernly, Williamette, had concealed this stream, upon which is now situated the city of Portland, from view. The voyageurs had missed this important river entirely. Proceeding westward the explorers obtained their first sight of Mount Rainier, or Mount Tacoma, nine thousand seven hundred and fifty feet high. Nearing the coast the party met Indians of a nature widely divergent from any whom they had before seen. Captain Lewis says:
These people seem to be of a different nation from those we have just passed; they are low in stature, ill-shaped, and all have their heads flattened. They call themselves Wahkiacum, and their language differs from that of the tribes above, with whom they trade for wapatoo roots. The houses are built in a different style, being raised entirely above ground, with the eaves about five feet high and the door at the corner. * * * The dress of the men is like that of the people above, but the women are clad in a peculiar manner, the robe not reaching lower than the hip, and the body being covered in cold weather by a sort of corset of fur, curiously plaited and reaching from the arms to the hip: added to this is a sort of petticoat, or rather tissue of white cedar bark, bruised or broken with small strands, and woven into a girdle by several cords of the same material.These Indians, as a tribal nation, have entirely disappeared, but their name is perpetuated by a small county on the coast of Washington, north of the Bay of Columbia.
Practically the Lewis and Clarke expedition reached the end of its perilous trip across the continent on November 15, 1805. Of this achievement the Encyclopedia Britannica says: "They had traveled upwards of four thousand miles from their starting point, had encountered various Indian tribes never before seen by whites, had made scientific collections and observations, and were the first explorers to reach the Pacific coast by crossing the continent north of Mexico."
The closing statement of this article partially ignores the expeditions of Sir Alexander Mackenzie who, while he did not cross the continent from a point as far east as Washington, D. C, made a journey, in 1789, from Fort Chipewyan, along the great Slave Lake, and down the river which now bears his name, to the "Frozen Ocean," and a second journey in 1792-3 from the same initial point, up the Peace and across the Columbia rivers, and thence westward to the coast of the Pacific, at Cape Menzies, opposite Queen Charlotte Island. Only to this extent is the statement of the Encyclopedia Britannica misleading, but it is quite evident that there is no pronounced inclination to do an injustice to the memory of Mackenzie.
The Lewis and Clarke party passed the following winter in camp at the mouth of the Columbia. Before the holidays Captain Clarke carved on the trunk of a massive pine this simple inscription:
WM. CLARKE.
DECEMBER 3, 1805, BY LAND FROM THE U.
STATES IN 1804 AND 5.
During the return of the expedition the Clarke division came down the Yellowstone, in Montana. On a mass of saffron sandstone, an acre in base, and four hundred feet high, called Pompey's Pillar, twenty miles above the mouth of the Big Horn river, about half way up, the following is carved:
WM. CLARKE,
JULY 25. 1806.
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