MossyBrae Press - Becoming Oregon

BECOMING OREGON

From Expedition to Exposition

The book reprints newspaper articles in the 19th century detailing the formation of Oregon between the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806) to the Lewis and Clark Exposition (1905). It is divided into nine chapters:

Lewis and Clark Expedition
Oregon Trail
Strange and Wondrous Land
Homesteading and Settlement
White Americans and Native Americans
Conflict with Great Britain-Again
Statehood
Life Out West
Lewis and Clark Exposition

"Today, reading newspapers from that century is much like looking at a still-life painting in a museum or an old photograph in a grandmother's album-this was the way it was at that time with people's faces frozen and the background static....The newspaper articles gave current news to their readers; from our vantage point these many years later each article is a new now...." -from the introduction

…Next to the Mississippi, this river and its tributaries, water a greater extent of country than any river of our continent….The Multnomah was not discovered by Lewis and Clark when descending the Columbia, its entrance being concealed by an island; on re-ascending the Columbia, these celebrated travellers were astonished at the sight of a noble river little inferior to the principal stream.

The American, New York, “View of the Country on the Columbia,” September 20, 1820

Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, regretted that gentlemen were so backward: He should vote against the bill….His objections were that it would draw a portion of our population and of our active capital to appoint, where neither could be so profitably employed as in the United States; and the country would therefore sustain a loss….The Rocky Mountains should be the bounds of the United States.

Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, Philadelphia, “Columbia River,” December 24, 1822

…The quadrupeds are chiefly elk, red deer, black-tailed deer, black, brown and grisly bears,—the last very ferocious—wolf panther, tiger, cat, wild cat, marmot beaver, land otter, muskrat, wood rat, and the best of the fur tribes, sea otter. There are several kinds of eagles; and the pelican, cormorant, swan, heron, crane, bustard, grey goose and white goose, and many kinds of ducks.

The principal trees are cedar, spruce, pine, alder, &c. The alders are large, and some of them measure twenty inches in diameter. The cedars are often thirty feet in circumference. The fir trees are wonderful; one near the fort was called the king of the pines, and it measured forty-six feet in circumference, ten feet from the ground.

People…may talk of their bed-room, but it falls to the lot of few to have so much bed-room as we had. Our couch was as long and as broad as an American prairie, and our curtains were the spangled canopy of heaven….and though my hair, when I awoke in the morning, was often wet with dew and sometimes white with hoar-frost, yet, thank God, I never, during the whole journey, had the slightest attack of cold, nor any touch of sickness whatever.

…At about 11 o’clock we arrived, and stepped on shore, at the end of our journey! It is now three days over six months since I left my beloved home. I, as well as some of the rest, have been in some situations of danger, of trial, and of difficulty, but I have passed through them all unharmed with a constitution strengthened and invigorated by healthful exercise….[We arrived] at Fort Van Couver [sic].

Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, Philadelphia, “Extracts from a Private Journal Kept by Mr. John Townsend,” January 6, 1836

Mr. Linn, of Missouri, on leave, introduced a bill authorizing the occupation of the Columbia or Oregon river, establishing a Territory north of latitude 42 degrees, and west of the Rocky Mountains, to be called the Oregon Territory; authorizing the establishment of a fort on that river, and the occupation of the country by the military force of the United states [sic]; establishing a port of entry, and requiring that the country should then be held subject to the revenue laws of the United States….

National Gazette, Philadelphia, “Twenty-Fifth Congress in Senate,” February 10, 1838

The day is not far distant when, if the General government shall do its duty in the matter, Oregon will be inhabited by a hardy, industrious, and intelligent population, and the enterprise of our citizens find a new channel of trade with the islands in the Pacific, the western coast of this whole continent, and perhaps with Eastern Asia.

…I suppose by next Spring a year, we shall hear but little of emigration to Oregon. Three parties have gone this Spring…By next Spring the true character of the Oregon Territory will begin to be known; but not sufficiently, I think, to deter a considerable number from going. But by next Spring a year, the mania will run out. That the country belongs to the United States I have no doubt….It is mountainous and rugged; its plains are dry and barren; nothing but rain in winter, nothing but sun in summer; very few fertile valleys, and these of very limited extend, and no navigable rivers. This is Oregon.

…My health is very fine, and the country exceeds my expectations. The extent of it is not so great as the United States, but there is enough here for all settlers in the next twenty years. I see mill and town sites now vacant, that will be a fortune to the man who obtains them. There is one mill site twenty miles up the Columbia, as good as the world could ask, with the finest fir and pine timber around it you could imagine, standing thicker than the cotton wood in the Missouri bottoms, and from 150 to 300 feet high….

Public Ledger, Philadelphia, “From the Oregon Territory,” September 17, 1844

Not less than Ten Thousand of our fellow citizens have this year left the fertile prairies of the Great Valley to encounter the perils and privations of the tedious over-land journey to Oregon. That journey will cost the emigrants at least six months’ effort and endurance—in most cases eight or ten months, counting from the time of leaving their homes—will expose them to many weary days of famine and nights of drenching, chilling storm—it will inevitably cost the lives of some delicate women and children—and will leave the survivors, at the coming on of a winter of incessant rain and sleet, still hundreds of miles from the Willamette, which is their general destination.… But suppose they should reach Vancouver by the 1st of December (which not half of them can possibly do) their food consumed, their clothing worn out, their wagons generally broken or abandoned in the stony deserts of Eastern Oregon—what will they do?—Where are the dwellings, the provisions, the clothing, for the immense multitude? Who will provide for them the barest necessities of life?…We fear that the coming winter will be one of extreme suffering with thousands of these misguided people. We hear with pleasure that a large party [turned] South by the Salt Lake, and so proceed down the Colorado to California, and not enter Oregon. This is wise: it is desirable every way since there will likely to be food and shelter. Upper California is a fair country—not equal to Virginia or Ohio, by a great deal—nor approach to Kentucky or Missouri—but the climate is temperate and the soil reasonably fertile. But Oregon is not a tolerably fertile country—not a tenth part of its surface can ever be cultivated at all, while there is not a mile square of it on which a good crop of Indian Corn…can be raised….