Fifty Years in Oregon was written by Theodore T.
Geer, a grandson of Joseph Carey Geer and a shirttail ancestor of
ours.
I have put much of the book on
this website. I started because several
chapters describe the early roots of our family history in Oregon. I
kept going because
I found many of the chapters from this perspective on the early
settlers and the history of Oregon to be quite
interesting.
If left to the
people of Oregon to decide by popular vote which of its citizens, past
or present, stands first in the general esteem, because of the value of
his public services and the impression he has made or left upon the
commonwealth, I have no doubt that George H. Williams would receive the
highest endorsement and James W. Nesmith would stand only second. Of
these two great men I will speak more at length later, but will remark
now that in my judgment Nesmith should outrank William – for one reason
– that he came here ten years before Williams and that he came without
friends or money, a rugged, ambitious young pioneer, embarking upon a
hazardous journey to a distant land about which little was known, though
that little was extremely favorable.
On the
contrary, Williams, Oregon's "grand old man," of towering intellect and
in disposition as gentle as a child, arrived here in 1853, when the
country was fairly well occupied, with a commission from President
Pierce as one of the associate judges for the new Territory.
I desire to
refer to Nesmith here for the purpose of quoting briefly from an address
he delivered before the Oregon Pioneer Association in 1876, in the
course of which he graphically described the manner in which a company
of immigrants came together from different parts of the country,
organized by the election of a captain and other officers, and proceeded
upon the great undertaking:
*************
As early as
the year 1840, being then art adventurous youth in what at that time was
known as the "Far West," I had heard of Oregon as a "terra incognita"
somewhere upon the western slope of the continent, as a country to which
the United States had some kind of a claim, and
"Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound
Save its own dashings."
During the
winter of 1841-42, being in Jefferson County, Iowa, I incidentally heard
that a company intended leaving Independence, Mo., in May or June, 1842,
for Oregon under the leadership of Dr. Elijah White, who had formerly
been in Oregon connected with the Methodist missions, and who was then
about returning to the Territory in the service of the United States
Government as sub-Indian agent. Thinking this a good opportunity to make
the trip I had for some time contemplated, I mounted my horse and rode
across western Iowa, then a wilderness, and arrived at Independence
seventeen days after White and his party had left. I at first
contemplated following them alone, but learning that I would be liable
to encounter the murderous Pawnees determined not to attempt the
dangerous experiment. I therefore abandoned the trip for the time and
spent the most of the ensuing year in the employment of the Government
as a carpenter in the construction of Fort Scott, in Kansas, about one
hundred miles south of Independence.
During the
winter of 1842-43, Dr. Marcus Whitman, then a missionary in the Walla
Walla valley, visited Washington to intercede in behalf of the American
interests on the coast.
Dr. Lewis F.
Linn, who was then in the United States Senate from Missouri, took a
great interest in the settlement of Oregon. The means for the
transmission of news at that time was slow and meager upon the frontier,
it being before the days of railroads, telegraphs and postage stamps.
But the Oregon question, through the medium of Senators Linn and Benton
and Dr. Whitman, did create a certain commotion in Washington, and
enough of it found its way to the "Far West" to make some stir among the
ever restless and adventurous frontiersman. Without any formal
promulgation it became understood and was-so published in the few border
papers then in existence-that our emigration party would rendezvous at
Independence to start for Oregon as soon as the grass offered
subsistence to the stock.
Without orders
from any quarter, and without pre-concerted action, promptly as the
grass started the emigrants began to assemble at Independence at a place
called Fitzhugh's Mill. On May 17, 1843, notices were circulated through
the different encampments that on the following day those contemplating
emigrating to Oregon would meet at a designated point to organize.
Promptly at
the appointed hour the motley group assembled. It consisted of people
from all the States and Territories, embracing all nationalities. Most
of them, however, were from Missouri, Iowa, Illinois and Arkansas-all
strangers to one another, but deeply impressed with the imperative
necessity for mutual protection against the hostile Indians inhabiting
the great unknown wilderness, stretching away to the shores of the
Pacific, which they were about to traverse with their wives, children,
household goods and all their earthly possessions. Many of the emigrants
were from the western tier of counties in Missouri known as the Platte
Purchase, and among them was Peter H. Burnett, a former merchant, who
had abandoned the yardstick and become a lawyer of some celebrity, being
noted for his ability as a smooth-tongued advocate. He subsequently
emigrated to the Golden State and became its first Governor, was
afterward its Chief Justice, and is still an honored citizen of that
State. Mr. Burnett, or, as he was familiarly called, "Pete," was called
on for a speech. Mounting a log, the glib-tongued orator delivered a
florid, glowing address. He commenced by showing his audience that the
then western tier of States and Territories was overcrowded; that the
population had not sufficient elbow-room for the expansion of their
genius and enterprise, and that it was a duty they owed to themselves
and their posterity to strike out in search of a wider field and a more
genial climate, where the soil yielded the richest return for the
smallest amount of cultivation, where the trees were loaded with
perennial fruit and where a good substitute for bread, called "lacamash,"
grew in the ground, salmon and other fish crowded the streams, and where
the principal labor of the settler would be keeping his gardens free
from the inroads of elk, buffalo, deer and wild turkeys. He appealed to
our patriotism by picturing forth the glorious empire we would establish
on the shores of the Pacific; how, with our trusty rifles, we would
drive out the British usurpers who claimed the soil and defend the
country from the avarice and pretensions of the British lion, and how
posterity would honor us for placing the fairest portion of our land
under the dominion of the Stars and Stripes. He concluded with a slight
allusion to the trials and hardships incident to the trip and the
dangers to be encountered from hostile Indians on the way, and also
those inhabiting the country whither we were bound. He furthermore
indicated a desire to look upon the tribe of noble "red men" that the
valiant and well-armed crowd around him could not vanquish in a single
encounter . Other speeches were made, full of glowing descriptions of
the fair land of promise, far-away Oregon, which no one in the
assemblage had ever seen and of which not more than half a dozen had
ever read any account. After the election of officers, Mr. Burnett being
selected captain, the meeting, as primitive and motley a one as ever
assembled, adjourned with three cheers for Captain Burnett and Oregon.
On May 20,
1843, after a pretty thorough military organization, we took up our line
of march with Captain John Gannt, an old army officer who combined the
character of trapper and mountaineer, as our guide. Gannt had been as
far in his wanderings as Green River and assured us of the
practicability of the wagon road that far. Green River, the boundary of
our guide's knowledge in that direction, was not halfway to the
Willamette valley, at that time the only inhabited portion of Oregon. We
went forth trusting to the future and would doubtless have encountered
more difficulties than we did had not Dr. Whitman overtaken us before we
reached Green River. He was familiar with the whole route and was
confident that wagons could pass through the canyons and gorges of Snake
River and over the Blue Mountains, which the mountaineers in the
vicinity of Fort Hall declared to be a physical impossibility .
Describing his
experience upon his arrival in Oregon, Colonel Nesmith says:
With three comrades I left the emigration on the Umatilla River,
at a point near the present agency, and after a variety of adventures we arrived
in a canoe at Fort Vancouver on the evening of October 23, 1843. We encamped
on the bank of the river about where the Government wharf now stands.
The greater part of our means was spent in the purchase of provisions
and hickory shirts, consigning those that had done such long and
continuous service, with their inhabitants, to the Columbia. On the
morning of the 24th we started for what was known as the "Willamette"
settlement at the Falls.
Dr. McLoughlin
had told us that at a distance of seven miles below the fort we would
encounter the waters of the Willamette entering the Columbia from the
south. At about the distance indicated by the Doctor we reached what we
supposed was the mouth of the river, and after paddling up it until
noon, looked across, and to our astonishment saw Fort Vancouver . It
then flashed on our minds that we had circumnavigated the island
opposite the fort. We retraced our way and that evening discovered the
mouth of the Willamette and encamped on its banks. The next evening we
encamped on the prairie opposite Portland upon what is now the town site
of East Portland, owned by James Stephens, Esq. The present site of
Portland was a solitude surrounded by a dense forest of fir trees.
The following
amusing incident which illustrates the troubles of the early settlers in
endeavoring to understand the language and gestures of the Indians, is
related in this same address. It well illustrates the clumsy effort of
the Indian to convey his meaning to one who does not understand his
language, and the humorous manner of telling it is characteristic of
Nesmith.
At Fort Hall
we fell in with some Cayuse and Nez Perce Indians returning from the
buffalo country, and as it was necessary for Dr. Whitman to precede us
to Walla Walla, he recommended to us a guide in the person of an old
Cayuse Indian called "Sticcus." He was a faithful old fellow, perfectly
familiar with all the trails and topography of the country from Fort
Hall to The Dalles, and although he could not speak a word of English,
and no one in our party a word of Cayuse, he succeeded by pantomime in
leading us successfully over the roughest wagon road I ever saw. Sticcus
was a member of Dr. Whitman's church, and the only Indian I ever saw
that I thought had any conception of the Christian religion or practiced
it. I met him afterward in the Cayuse war. He did not participate in the
murder of Dr. Whitman and his family, and remained neutral in the war
between his tribe and the whites which grew out of the massacre.
I once dined
with Sticcus in his camp on what I supposed was elk meat. I had arrived
at that conclusion because, when I looked at the cooked meat
interrogatively, the Indian held up his hands in a manner that indicated
elk horns; but after dinner, seeing the ears, tail and hoofs of a mule
near camp I became satisfied that what he meant to convey with his
pantomime was “ears,” not “horns.” But digestion waited on appetite and
after dinner it did not make much difference about the appendages of the
animal that furnished it.
Still another
"film" in the great moving picture which was presented to an astonished
world by the Oregon pioneers between 1840 and 1852 was introduced by J.
Quinn Thornton in an address before the State Association in 1878, when
he described three events which occurred in the same camp on June 14 of
that year, on the Platte River. He says:
Three
companies camped near each other on June 14, which was Sabbath, and as
if by previous arrangement determined to spend the day together. All the
members of one of these companies had, without much ceremony, been
invited to attend a wedding at the tent of a Mr. Lard in the evening.
Rev. J. E. Cornwell, acting as the officiating minister, proceeded at
once to unite Miss Lard and a Mr. Mootry in the holy bonds of wedlock.
The bride was arrayed very decently but rather gaily. The groom had on
his best. Some of the young women present were dressed with a tolerable
degree of taste and with even some degree of elegance. Among the men
there were no long beards, dirty hands, begrimed faces, soiled linen or
torn garments. Indeed, at that time and place there were four others who
expected to be married in a few days. I cannot say that I approved this
marrying on the road. It looked as though the women, at least, were
making a sort of hop, skip and jump into matrimony, without knowing what
their feet would come down upon or whether they might not be bruised and
wounded.
During that
afternoon a boy's leg was amputated by one not a surgeon, the
instruments employed being a butcher knife and an old dull hand-saw. He
bore his sufferings with the most wonderful fortitude and heroism. He
seemed scarcely to move a muscle. A deathlike paleness would sometimes
cover his face, but instead of groaning he would use some word of
encouragement to the almost shrinking operator, or some expression of
comfort to his afflicted friends. The limb was at length severed, the
arteries gathered and the flap brought down in an hour and forty-five
minutes after making the first incision. An emigrant who had been
frequently compelled to retire from the afflicting spectacle, but who at
the time the operation was completed held the boy's hands in his,
observing that he appeared much exhausted, tenderly inquired if he
suffered much pain. The boy withdrew his hands, clasped them together,
and partially raising them, exclaimed: "Oh, yes, I am suffering! I am
suffering so much!" His hands fell on his breast, his white lips
quivered a few moments, his eyeballs rolled back, and his spirit went to
God. He was buried in the night, and the sad and silent procession, by
the light of the torches to the lonely grave so hastily dug in the
solitude and almost unbroken silence of that far-away wilderness,
contrasted strangely with the wedding festivities at the neighboring
tent.
Strange as
it may seem, that same evening another interesting event transpired –
the birth of a child on the same plain – so that the three great epochs
of life, birth, marriage and death, were all represented at nearly the
same time and place.
Next Chapter -
In 1841, the first organization meetings for the
Oregon Territory were held and the first "laws" were put in place by the
early settlers.
If you are interested in finding this book, Fifty
Years in Oregon, it can
often be located at Powell's Books in Portland
which is one of the largest used book stores in the United States or, through the
Alibris service
which catalogs used books from stores across the country. For more information on the Geer Family, visit the Geer Family website. Other resources
and references include:
Links To Other Oregon Trail Diaries and Information
