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34 chapters
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE AUTHOR
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE AUTHOR
This youthful veteran was Ezra Meeker, of Oregon Trail fame, who throughout his long, courageous, useful life has ever kept in the vanguard of progress. Seventy years ago he became one of the trail-blazers of the Farther West. In 1852, with his young wife and child, he made the hazardous journey over plains and mountains all the way from Iowa to Oregon by ox team. Then, after fifty-four years of struggle in helping to develop the country beyond the Cascades, this undaunted pioneer decided to reb
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CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER ONE
My father's ancestors came from England in 1637. In 1665 they settled near Elizabeth City, New Jersey, building there a very substantial house which stood till almost 1910. More than a score of hardy soldiers from this family fought for the Colonies in the War of Independence. They were noted for their stalwart strength, steady habits, and patriotic ardor. Both my parents were sincere, though not austere, Christian people. Father inherited to the full the sturdy traits of his ancestors. I well r
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CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER TWO
We used to force the big plowshare through and cut grubs as big as my wrist. When we saw a patch of them ahead, I would halloo and shout at the poor oxen and lay on the whip; but father wouldn't let me swear at them. Let me say here that I later discontinued this foolish fashion of driving, and always talked to my oxen in a conversational tone and used the whip sparingly. That reminds me of an experience I had later, in the summer when I was nineteen. Uncle John Kinworthy—a good soul he was, and
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CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER THREE
These two young people grew up to the age of manhood and womanhood, knowing but little of the world outside their home sphere. Who can say that they were not as happy as if they had seen the whole world? Had they not experienced the joys of the sugar camp while "stirring off" the lively, creeping maple sugar? Both had been thumped upon the bare head by the falling hickory nuts in windy weather; had hunted the black walnuts half hidden in the leaves; had scraped the ground for the elusive beechnu
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CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FOUR
Now as to the members of our little party. William Buck, who had joined us as partner for the expedition, was a man six years my senior. He had had some experience on the Plains, and he knew what outfit was needed; but he had little knowledge in regard to a team of cattle. He was an impulsive man, and to some extent excitable; yet withal a man of excellent judgment and honest as God makes men. No lazy bones occupied a place in Buck's body. He was scrupulously neat and cleanly in all his ways; co
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CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER FIVE
The whistle announced the arrival of a steamer. This meant that a dozen or more wagons could be carried across the river at a time, and that a dozen or more trips could be made during the day, with as many more at night. Very soon we were overtaken by this throng of wagons. They gave us some troubles, and much discomfort. The rush for the West was then at its height. The plan of action was to push ahead and make as big a day's drive as possible; hence it is not to be wondered at that nearly all
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CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SIX
How many people this army comprised cannot be known; the roll was never called. History has no record of a greater number of emigrants ever making so long a journey as did these pioneers. There must have been three hundred and fifty thousand in the years of the great rush overland, from 1843 to 1857. Careful estimates of the total migration westward from 1843 to 1869, when the first railroad across the continent was completed, make the number nearly half a million. The animals driven over the Pl
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CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVEN
As soon as a part of our outfits were landed on the right bank of the Missouri River, our trouble with the Indians began, not in open hostilities, but in robbery under the guise of beggary. The word had been passed around in our little party that not a cent's worth of provisions would we give up to the Indians. We believed this policy to be our only safeguard from spoliation, and in that we were right. Our women folks had been taken over the river with the first wagon and had gone on to a conven
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CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHT
When we reached the higher lands of Wyoming, our traveling became still more pleasant. The nights were cooler, and we had clearer, purer water. As we gradually ascended the Sweetwater, life grew more tolerable and discomfort less acute. We were now nearing the crest of the continent. The climb was so gradual, however, as to be hardly observable. The summit of the Rocky Mountains, through the South Pass, presents a wide, open, undulating country. The Pass offers, therefore, an easy gateway to the
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CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER NINE
The dust got deeper every day. Going through it was like wading in water as to resistance. Often it would lie in the road fully six inches deep, so fine that a person wading through it would scarcely leave a track. And when disturbed, such clouds! No words can describe it. At length, after we had endured five long months of soul-trying travel and had covered about eighteen hundred miles, counting from the crossing of the Missouri, we dragged ourselves on to the end of the Overland Trail at The D
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CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER TEN
I carried my wife, who had fallen ill, in my arms up the steep bank of the Willamette River and three blocks away to the lodging house, which was kept by a colored man. "Why, suh, I didn't think yuse could do that, yuse don't look it," said my colored friend, as I placed my wife on the clean bed in a cozy little room. This was the first house we had been in for five months. From April until October we had been on the move. Never a roof had been over our heads other than the wagon cover or tent,
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In April of 1853, the word had begun to pass around that we were to have a new Territory to embrace the country north of the Columbia River. Its capital was to be on Puget Sound. Here on the Columbia we should be away off to one side, out of touch with the people who would shortly become a great separate commonwealth. It seemed advisable to look about a little, before making the move; so leaving the little wife and baby in the cabin home one bright morning in May, Oliver and I each made a pack o
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CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER TWELVE
As the tide and wind favored us, we did not stop. Soon we came in sight of a fleet of seven vessels lying at anchor in a large bay, several miles in extent. The sight of those seven vessels lying in the offing made a profound impression upon our minds. We had never before seen so many ships at one place. Curiously enough, among them was the good bark Mary Melville , with her gruff mate and big-hearted master, Captain Barston. Intense rivalry ran between the two towns, upper and lower Steilacoom,
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was an afternoon of the last week of June, in 1853, and the sun was yet high. I was well up the left bank of the Cowlitz River; how far I could not tell, for there were no milestones on the crooked, half-obstructed trail leading downstream. At best it would be a race with the sun, but the days were long, and the twilight was long, and I would camp that much nearer home if I made haste. My pack had been discarded on the Sound. I had neither coat nor blanket. I wore a heavy woolen shirt, a slou
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
While we were working on our new cabin, we received a letter from father, saying: "Boys, if Oliver will come back to cross with us, we will go to Oregon next year." The letter was nearly three months old when we received it. Our answer was immediate: "Oliver will be with you next spring." Then came the question of money. Would Davenport, who had bought the Columbia River claims, pay in the fall? Could he? We decided that we must go to the timber camp to earn the money to pay the expenses of Oliv
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I stuck close to the old trail, making my first camp alone, just west of the summit. I had reached an altitude where the night chill was keenly felt, and with only my light blanket missed the friendly contact of the faithful ox that had served me so well on the Plains. My pony had nothing but browse for supper, and he was restless. Nevertheless I slept soundly and was up early, refreshed and ready to resume the journey. Such a road as I found is difficult to imagine. How the pioneer trail-blazer
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
From the first chill night, following the sweat due to the climb of the day before, my muscles were a bit stiffened; but I was ready for the climb to the summit. Bobby was of a different mind. As I have said, he had been restless during the night. I had just strapped the roll of blankets and hard bread securely behind the saddle, when he suddenly turned his face homeward and trotted off gaily, down the mountain. I could do nothing but follow him. The narrow cut of the road and impenetrable obstr
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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The road lay through a forbidding sage plain, or rather an undulating country, covered by shifting sands and dead grass of comparatively scant growth. As the sun rose, the heat became intolerable. The dust, in places, brought vivid memories of the trip across the Plains. Strive against it as I might, my eyes would strain at the horizon to catch a glimpse of the expected train. Then an intolerable thirst seized upon me and compelled me to leave the road and descend into the valley for water. I da
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
On October 28, 1855, word came that all the settlers living on White River had been killed by the Indians and that the next day those in the Puyallup valley would be massacred. At the risk of his life a friendly Indian brought this news to us in the dead hours of the night. The massacre had occurred less than twenty miles from where we lived. For all we knew the Indians might be on us at any moment. There were three men of us, and each had a gun. The first thing we did was to harness and hitch t
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CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The wave of excitement that went through the little settlement upon the receipt of this news was repeated in every town and hamlet of the whole Pacific Coast. It continued even around the world, summoning adventurous spirits from all civilized countries of the earth. Everybody, women folk and all, wanted to go, and would have started pell mell had there not been that restraining influence of the second thought, especially powerful with people who had just gone through the mill of adversity. My f
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CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY
Three neighbors were all we had, and the nearest lived nearly two miles away. Two of them kept bachelor's hall. The thick, high timber made it impossible for us to see any of our neighbors' houses. We could reach only one by a road; to the others we might go by a trail. Under such conditions we could not have a public school. This, however, did not keep us from having a school of our own. One day one of our farther-off neighbors, who lived more than four miles away, came to visit us. Naturally t
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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
This unexpected prosperity came to us through the hop-growing industry, upon which we entered with all our force. The business was well started by the time of my father's death in 1869, and in the fifteen years following the acreage planted to hops was increased until the crop-yield of 1882, a yield of more than seventy-one tons, gave the Puyallup valley the banner crop, as to quantity, of the United States—and, some persons asserted, of the world. The public, generally, gave me the credit of in
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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I had lived in the old Oregon country forty-four years and had never seen a mine. Mining had had no attraction for me. But when my accumulations had all been swallowed up, I decided to take a chance. In the spring of 1898 I made my first trip over the Chilkoot Pass, went down the Yukon river to Dawson in a flatboat, and ran the famous White Horse Rapids with my load of vegetables for the Klondike miners. One may read most graphic descriptions of Chilkoot Pass; but the difficulties met by those e
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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The difference between a civilized and an untutored people lies in the application of experiences. The civilized man builds upon the foundations of the past, with hope and ambition for the future. The savage has neither past nor aspiration for the future. To keep the flame of patriotism alive, we must keep the memory of the past vividly before us. It was with these thoughts in mind that the expedition to mark the old Oregon Trail was undertaken. There was this further thought, that on this trail
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The load was very heavy, and so were the roads. With a team untrained to the road and one of the oxen unbroken, with no experienced ox driver to assist me, and the grades heavy, small wonder if a feeling of depression crept over me. On some long hills we could move only a few rods at a time, and on level roads, with the least warm sun, the unbroken ox would poke out his tongue. We were passing now through the great farming district of eastern Oregon. The desert over which we had dragged ourselve
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
We were landed on the historic site of old Fort Boise, established by the Hudson's Bay Company in September, 1834. This fort was established for the purpose of preventing the success of the American venture at Fort Hall, a post established earlier in 1834 by Nathaniel J. Wyeth. Wyeth's venture proved a failure, and the fort soon passed to his rival, the Hudson's Bay Company. Thus for the time being the British had rule of the whole of that vast region known as the Inland Empire, then the Oregon
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
An oppressive silence prevailed as we drove to the river and pitched our camp within a few feet of the bank, where we could hear the rippling waters passing and see the fish leaping in the eddies. We had our choice of a camping place just by the skirt of a refreshing green brush with an opening to give full view of the river. It had not been so fifty-four years before, with hundreds of camps ahead of you. The traveler then had to take what he could get, and in many cases that was a place far bac
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Such is the record in my journal of this noble animal's death. I think he died from eating some poisonous plant. When we started, Twist weighed 1470 pounds. After we had crossed two ranges of mountains, had wallowed in the snows of the Blue Mountains, followed the tortuous, rocky canyon of Burnt River, and gone through the deep sands of the Snake, this ox had gained 137 pounds, and weighed 1607 pounds. While laboring under the short end of the yoke that gave him fifty-five per cent of the draft
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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The first of March, 1907, found me on the road going eastward from Indianapolis. I had made up my mind that Washington should be the objective point. For my main purpose—to secure the building of a memorial highway—Congress, I felt, would be a better field to work in than out on the hopelessly long stretch of the trail, where one man's span of life would certainly pass before the work could be accomplished. But I thought it well to make a campaign of education to get the work before the general
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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
On the way to Philadelphia, between Newark and Elizabeth City, New Jersey, at a point known as Lyon's Farm, the old Meeker homestead stood, built in the year 1676. Here the Meeker Tribe, as we call ourselves, came out to greet me, nearly forty strong. On the way through Maryland we saw a good many oxen, some of them driven on the road. The funny part of it was to have the owners try to trade their scrawny teams for Dave and Dandy, offering money to boot, or two yoke for one. They had never befor
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THE WHITE INDIAN BOY
THE WHITE INDIAN BOY
"Uncle Nick" knew pioneer life and he knew the heart of the Indian. So Mr. Driggs persuaded him to write his recollections and helped him to make his story into a book that is a true record of pioneering and of Indian life with its hardships and adventures. The White Indian Boy is an exciting, true story that has interested many boys and girls and contributed to their understanding of the early history of the West....
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THE BULLWHACKER
THE BULLWHACKER
Mr. Hooker was one of these bullwhackers and his book is a true account of his adventures while driving frontier freighters. He tells one of the choice stories of America's making and in a way that makes the old West, with the Indian, the cowboy, and the outlaw, live again. Pioneer adventures are here recounted in an entertaining way, and they are convincing because the author is one of the few surviving men who whacked bulls and he knows of what he is writing. Used as an historical reader, this
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FRONTIER LAW
FRONTIER LAW
In straight-forward fashion he tells of his journey from Michigan to the coast, of mining in California, of homesteading in Oregon, of prospecting in Idaho. Most unusual and interesting is his account of the struggle against outlawry and the establishment of orderly government. Through this life story of a real American boy rings a clear note of Americanism with love of liberty, respect for law, and a willingness to face squarely the issues of life. It is one of the very few first-hand accounts
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DEADWOOD GOLD
DEADWOOD GOLD
There is in this volume much historical and geographical information. Especially does the book give a realistic picture of many aspects of the gold mining process and of the activities associated with the great gold rushes of all times. Serving as a supplementary reader in intermediate grades, this true story of American adventure will hold the interest of boys and girls....
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