This expedition of Fremont's never amounted to anything in Oregon; but it had a vast circulation in the Eastern states. Fremont was the son-in-law of Thomas H. Benton; Benton was United States senator from Missouri, and a great and good friend of Oregon; and that excused Fremont's shortcomings to the Missourians in Oregon, and made him a national figure under the title of the "Path Finder," and upon which capital he was finally nominated the second candidate of the republican party for the presidency of the United States. The writer of this book cast his first vote for president for John C. Fremont.

Fremont's expedition to Oregon left the Missouri river at the point where Kansas City is located on the 29th of May, 1843, and traveled along the Oregon trail just behind the Oregon emigration of that year. At the big bend of Bear river, Fremont turned south and visited Great Salt Lake, and after some examination of that salt sea returned again to the Oregon trail and followed along after the Oregon immigrants until he reached the Dalles. There he left his party and came down to Fort Vancouver in a canoe and purchased supplies for a southerly extension of his travels from the Dalles to California. These supplies were sent up to him at the Dalles by the Hudson's Bay Company. That Fremont's trip across to Oregon from the Missouri river was wholly destitute of any merit and without a single event to entitle him to any praise is evident from the oft-quoted testimony of Oregon's distinguished pioneer and statesman, James W. Nesmith. In his address to the Oregon Pioneer Association in 1875, Senator Nesmith says: "I have often been asked in the Eastern states how long it was after Fremont discovered Oregon that I emigrated to that country. It is true that in 1843, Fremont, then a lieutenant in the engineer corps, did cross the plains, and brought his party to the Dalles in the rear of our emigration. His outfit contained all the conveniences and luxuries that a government appropriation could procure, while he 'roughed it' in a covered carriage, surrounded by servants paid from the public purse. The path he found was that made by the hardy frontiersman who preceded him to the Pacific, and who stood by their rifles and held the country against hostile Indians and British threats without government aid or recognition until 1849, when the first government troops came to our relief.'

Returning now to Fremont at the Dalles, with his larder well filled from the stores of the Hudson's Bay Company, we find him on November 25, 1843, starting south from the Dalles with twenty-five men, nearly all of whom were Canadian French trappers, but among whom was the celebrated guide, explorer and Indian fighter, Kit Carson. The party kept up the south side of the Des Chutes river. passing through the points now known as Dufur, Tygh Valley, Wapanitia, Warm Springs and on up to the point where the railroad junction is to be at the town of Crescent. Fremont was following the old trappers' trail, and his object was to explore the Klamath Lake region. Crossing the Des Chutes near Crescent he kept on south until his carriage struck Klamath marsh, on December 10, 1843, and was compelled to stop or turn aside.

At Klamath marsh the party turned east, exploring the country on both sides. Fremont claims to have discovered and named in succession Summer, Abert and Christmas lakes in Lake county; but while some of his men may have been at Summer and Silver lakes, it is clear from his own map that Fremont never saw either Summer, Silver or Christmas lake. The Fremont party struck the Chewaucan river in the neighborhood of the site of Paisley, and kept on down the

river and its marsh until they rounded the south end of Abert lake. Thence proceeding north along the east side of Abert lake for about one-half its length, the party ascended the ridge and passed over the divide between Abert lake and the Warner lake valley, and then turned south and followed the Warner lake valley lakes and marshes down into what is now the state of Nevada. That is substantially the whole of Fremont's expedition to Oregon. It was of no value to the immigrants, to the future state, or to the United States. And yet Fremont's alleged discoveries in Oregon were more talked about than that of all the other explorers who did in fact render great service to the country. And as Senator Nesmith forcibly states the fact, for this trifling service Fremont achieved the fame of "The Path Finder," and was rewarded thereafter with the nomination for president of the United States.

It has always been claimed by his partisans that Fremont was entitled to great credit in wresting California from the Mexicans in 1846. But a careful examination of the history of that Mexican province will not support that claim. The California Mexicans themselves had been prior to Fremont's advent, in a state of chronic rebellion against the Mexican Republic on account of the deportment of Mexican convicts to that province. Micheltorena, Castro and Pio Pico had been competing rivals for supremacy, until the California settlers, mostly American adventurers and hangers-on of the Swiss leader, John A. Sutter, were incited and emboldened into an attempt to set up an independent government under the name of "The California Republic." At that time Mexico was indebted to England and English bondholders to the amount of fifty millions of dollars, and Mexico was apparently willing to pay the debt by a transfer of California to the English, and England was ready to jump at the offer. The American government was fully informed of the scheme, and on June 24, 1844, George Bancroft, secretary of the navy, wrote Commodore Sloat, in command of the American squadron in the Pacific, as follows:

"The Mexican ports on the Pacific are said to be open and defenceless. If you ascertain with certainty that Mexico has declared war against the United States, you will at once possess yourself of the port of San Francisco, and blockade or occupy such other ports as your force may permit.'

In pursuance of that order, on July 7, 1846, Commodore Sloat with his war ships then in San Francisco bay, landed 250 marines, and issued the following proclamation:

"We are about to land on the territory of Mexico with whom the United States are at war. To strike her flag and to hoist our own in place of it is our duty. It is not only our duty to take California, but to preserve it afterward as a part of the United States at all hazards. To accomplish this, it is of the first importance to cultivate the good opinion of the inhabitants, whom we must reconcile."

Prior to this, on June 15, 1846, twenty-four American settlers, disgusted with the anarchy and misrule of the Mexican population and their rival governors, had gathered at Sonoma and seized the Mexican post at that point, issued a proclamation of independence as stated above for a republic, and had made and raised the celebrated "Bear Flag," with a lone star upon it, with William B. Ide as their commander-in-chief. These twenty-four rebels had endeavored to get Fremont and his party of explorers to join them; but Fremont held aloof from the move

ment until Commodore Sloat had landed his marines and raised the American flag. Then Fremont became the leader of the Ide rebels and rendered some assistance in making California an American state.

To the men and women of this age the account of the Hunt party and others will not appear as fairy stories, but rather as a hideous phrensy of a diseased or intoxicated imagination. But few people can comprehend it, and not a few may disbelieve it altogether. But only by such dangers, trials and privations of those fearless, self-sacrificing heroes was Oregon saved to the United States. There is now no more West; there is no more wilderness; there is no more privation, danger or heroism. The palace car glides swiftly from the Missouri to the great Pacific ocean; the traveler reclines on luxurious couches; a colored porter attends to every whim of a satiated appetite; instead of deserts, mountains, savages and grizzlies, he sees but a procession of peaceful homes and bustling cities. There is no other West, or desert, or mountains, savage beast or Indian foe to conquer and reclaim-and no more heroes.

We have given this much of the first expeditions to Oregon, and the fortunes of the first commercial venture to open commerce with this country and the strug gles of the brave and invincible men who did this pioneering, so that those now here in great prosperity from that feeble beginning of trade, and those who go down to the sea in ships may see how the great work was started, and all the more appreciate and honor the sturdy men who started it. Persons who would like to read the whole story of Astor's venture to the Columbia and the betrayal and loss of his property at Astoria, will find it most interesting reading and fully and graphically portrayed in Franchere's narrative, and in Washington Irving's Astoria. Mr. Elwood Evans, in his history of the northwest, fairly and justly sums up the character of Astor's enterprise as follows:

"The scheme was grand in its aim, magnificent in its breadth of purpose and area of operation. Its results were naturally feasible and not over-anticipated. Astor made no miscalculation, no omission; neither did he permit a sanguine hope to lead him into any wild or imaginary venture. He was practical, generous, broad. He executed what Sir Alexander Mackenzie urged as the policy of British capital and enterprise. That one American citizen should have individually undertaken what two mammoth British companies had not the courage to try, was but an additional cause which had intensified national prejudice into embittered jealousy on the part of his British rivals."

CHAPTER III

1792-1840

THE INDIANS, THEIR FAMILIES, TRIBES AND DISTRIBUTION-THEIR ANCIENT STONE AGE DESCENT AND IMPLEMENTS—THEIR MYTHS, HABITS AND RELIGION-THEIR NUMBERS AND WEAKNESS-THE JARGON LANGUAGE—THE INDIAN IDEA OF LAND TENURE.

When the white man discovered Oregon he found a large population of Indians scattered in groups, families and tribes over the entire country from the Rocky mountains to the Pacific ocean, and from California up to the Alaska line. The first comers detected no differences among these people of the forest and plain. They were all simply Indians. As time and experience brought the Indians more and more under the observation of traders and naturalists, marked differences were discovered, and such distinction as the various tribes themselves maintained and enforced. By the study of the language and dialects of these families and tribes, and by investigation of their beliefs in the supernatural, and their regulation of the social and family life, scientists versed in the principles of ethnology were able to arrange and segregate this apparently heterogeneous population of wild men into such a classification as would be intelligible to students of Indian life. This has been accomplished for this history, and for the first time given to the general reader not only in printed form but also on a map of the location of all the Indian families described. For this invaluable service the history is indebted to the Rev. J. Neilson Barry, of Baker, Oregon, and a member of the Advisory Board of the History for the Inland Empire Section.

THE INDIANS OF THE OLD OREGON COUNTRY

There were fifteen groups or families of Indian tribes in that part of the Old Oregon country which is now occupied by Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

I. THE ATHAPASCAN FAMILY

(1) Kwal-hi-o-qua tribe, so called by the Chinooks, meaning at a lonely place in the woods;" they lived on the Willopah river. Lewis county, Washing

ton.

(2) Tlatskanai, lived on the Clatskanie river, Columbia county, Oregon; a warlike tribe; the early Hudson's Bay trappers did not dare to pass their possessions in less numbers than sixty armed men.

(3) Ump-qua, lived on the Umpqua river, Douglas county, Oregon.

(4) Coquille, or Mishikhwutmetunne, lived on the Coquille river in Coos county, Oregon.

(5) Tal-tush-tun-tude, lived on Galice creek, a tributary of Rogue river, in Josephine county, Oregon.

(6) Chas-ta-costa, lived on the north side of the Rogue river in Curry and Josephine counties, Oregon.

(7) Tu-tut-ni, lived on Rogue river near its mouth in Curry county, Oregon. (8) Chet-co, lived on the Chetco river, Curry county, Oregon. A number of their villages were destroyed by the whites in 1853.

II. CHIMAKUAN

(1) Quil-eute, on the Quillayute river in Clallam county, Washington. (2) Chim-a-kum, occupied the peninsula between Hood's canal and Port Townsend, Jefferson county, Washington.

III. CHINOOKAN

This family of Indians occupied the shores of the Columbia from its mouth to the Dalles, and the Willamette from Oregon City to its junction with the Columbia. They artificially deformed their heads.

A.-Lower Chinookan

(1) Chin-ook, lived at the mouth of the Columbia in Pacific county,, Washington. Their language formed the basis of the Chinook jargon and has given the name for the Chinook wind.

(2) Clat-sop, the name means "dried salmon;" lived along the Columbia from its mouth to Tongue Point and along the coast to Tillamook Head in Clatsop county, Oregon.

B.-Upper Chinookan-These were visited by an epidemic called ague fever in 1829, which in a single summer swept away four-fifths of the people. (The heaps of unburied bones of these people on Sauvie's island is mentioned by Wyeth and by other early settlers on this island.)

(1) Cath-la-com-a-tup, resided on the south side of Sauvie's island in Multnomah county, Oregon.

(2) Cath-la-cum-up, lived on the west bank of the lower mouth of the Willamette river, Columbia county, Oregon.

(3) Cath-la-ka-he-kit, lived at the Cascades of the Columbia in Hood River county, Oregon, and Skamania county, Washington.

(4) Cath-la-met, on the lower Columbia from Tongue Point to Puget island in Clatsop county, Oregon.

(5) Cath-la-nah-qui-ah, lived on the southwest side of Sauvie's island, Multnomah county, Oregon.

(6) Cath-la-potle, lived in Clark county, Washington.

(7) Cath-lath-la-las, lived on the Columbia below the Cascades in Skamania

county, Washington, and Multnomah county, Oregon.

(8) Chak-way-al-ham, lived near Pillar Rock on the Columbia river, Clatsop county, Oregon.