The Log School-House on the Columbia

by Hezekiah Butterworth

  II.

  THE OREGON TRAIL.

  "There is the East. There lies the road to India."

  Such was Senator Thomas H. Benton's view of the coast and harbors ofOregon. He saw the advantage of securing to the United States theColumbia River and its great basin, and the Puget Sea; and he made himselfthe champion of Oregon and Washington.

  In Thomas Jefferson's administration far-seeing people began to talk of aroad across the continent, and a port on the Pacific. The St. Louisfur-traders had been making a way to the Rockies for years, and in 1810John Jacob Astor sent a ship around Cape Horn, to establish a post for thefur-trade on the Pacific Coast, and also sent an expedition of some sixtypersons from St. Louis, overland, by the way of the Missouri andYellowstone, to the Columbia River. The pioneer ship was called theTonquin. She arrived at the mouth of the Columbia before the overlandexpedition. These traders came together at last, and founded Astoria, onthe Columbia.

  Ships now began to sail for Astoria, and the trading-post flourished inthe beautiful climate and amid the majestic scenery. But the Englishclaimed the country. In June, 1812, war broke out with England, andAstoria became threatened with capture by the English. It was decided byAstor's agent to abandon the post; but Astoria had taught the UnitedStates the value of Oregon.

  The Oregon trail from St. Louis, by the way of the great rivers, theMissouri, the Yellowstone, and the Columbia, followed the fall of Astoria,and began the highway of emigration to the Pacific coast and to Asia. Overit the trapper and the missionary began to go. The Methodist missionaries,under the leadership of Revs. Jason and Daniel Lee, were among the firstin the field, and laid the foundations of the early cities of Oregon. Oneof their stations was at the Dalles of the Columbia. In 1835 the greatmissionary, Marcus Whitman, of the Congregationalist Board, establishedthe mission at Walla Walla. Yet up to the year 1841, just fifty years ago,only about one hundred and fifty Americans, in all, had permanentlysettled in Oregon and Washington.

  Senator Benton desired the survey of a route to Oregon, to aid emigrationto the Columbia basin. He engaged for this service a young, handsome,gallant, and chivalrous officer, Lieutenant John C. Fremont, who, withNicollet, a French naturalist, had been surveying the upper Mississippi,and opening emigration to Minnesota.

  Fremont espoused not only the cause of Oregon, but also Senator Benton'syoung daughter Jessie, who later rendered great personal services to herhusband's expedition in the Northwest.

  Kit Carson was the guide of this famous expedition. The South Pass wasexplored, and the flag planted on what is now known as Fremont's Peak, andthe country was found to be not the Great American Desert of the maps, buta land of wonderful beauty and fertility. In 1843 Fremont made a secondexpedition; this time from the South Pass to the Columbia country. Afterhe was well on his way, the War Department recalled him; but Mrs. Fremontsuppressed the order, in the interest of the expedition, until it was toolate to reach him.

  Fremont went by the way of Salt Lake, struck the Oregon trail, and finallycame to the mission that Dr. Whitman had founded among the Nez-Perces(pierced noses) at Walla Walla. This mission then consisted of a singleadobe house.

  The British claimants of the territory, finding that American immigrationwas increasing, began to bring settlers from the Red River of the North. Astruggle now began to determine which country should possess this vast andmost important territory. When Dr. Whitman learned of the new efforts ofthe English to settle the country, and the danger of losing Oregon bytreaties pending at Washington, he started for St. Louis, by the way ofSanta Fe. This ride, often called "Whitman's Ride for Oregon," is one ofthe poetical events of American history. He went to Washington, wastreated cavalierly by the State Department, but secured a delay of thetreaties, which proved the means of saving Oregon and Washington to theUnited States.

  So his missionary efforts gave to our country an empire that seemsdestined to become ultimate America, and a power in the Asian world.