Wahkiakum History

Arriving at Fort Vancouver, we were met by the Chief Factor Ogden, who kindly invited us all to accept his hospitality for such time as we desired, but as the officers all wished to go on, he offered to send them at once, so, after thanking him most heartily for his kindness all our party except my brother’s wife went to Oregon City in the same Batteaux. The baby having taken a severe cold, she thought she must remain and keep him from any more exposure until the arrival of the balance of our goods, which were expected to come by the next mail steamer from San Francisco. I remained with her, and in a short time my brother returned and I went to Oregon City in a canoe paddled by Indians.

In 1850 and ’51 there were but few white men on the North side of the Columbia River, except those connected with the Hudson’s Bay Company. I took up my residence at Cathlamet in the fall of 1850, and with two men looked after the getting out of the logs for brother William’s house on the claim he had taken up. He and his wife planned the house and selected the spot it was to occupy, and we worked at it the best we could. We also cleared off some land at the old Indian village for a garden. I did not remain there steadily, but attended to my duties as Clerk of the Court.

Brother William’s wife was a highly educated woman, a graduate of one of the best seminaries for young ladies in the State of New York, and although knowing she would be deprived to a great extent of almost every comfort to which she had been accustomed, still she had the courage to urge on the building of the log house, and late in the next spring (1851) was living in her own home in Cathlamet with two fine baby boys.

There was always quite a large number of Indians living near, and at first she was very much annoyed at having them come into the house without announcing their intention of so doing, squat down on her floors wherever they pleased and watch her every move. I can assure you it required no little amount of courage for a woman with two young babies and not accustomed to Indians to do that.

As time went on the house was made more and more comfortable, and more people settled in the valley of the Elochoman River, the soil of which was rich, and heavily timbered, and their only outlet was through Cathlamet, which continued to grow rapidly.

During the summer of 1850, before going to Cathlamet to reside, also during the summer and fall of 1851, and much of 1852-3 and 4, I spent at Fort Vancouver, and in traveling up and down the river. While at Fort Vancouver I became well acquainted with Major Rufus Ingalls, then Quartermaster at the United States Army post at Fort Vancouver, and with several officers of the Army stationed there, among whom (later on) was Captain U.S. Grant, as well as with the officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company. I cannot remember the date, but on meeting Chief Factor Ogden one day he invited me to come and live at his house, whenever I came to Fort Vancouver, and gave me a room which he said I could occupy whenever I wished.

Cathlamet was my home, and it was growing fast, and when I wished to build my house I went to San Francisco and bought everything necessary for it, that I could find already made, including white paint, and ordered them shipped to Cathlamet. They shipped them on a small sailing vessel, which unfortunately, was blown ashore and lost. Soon as I learned that fact I went to San Francisco and duplicated the order.

From the summer of 1851 I had business either for myself or others that called me to San Francisco once, and sometimes twice, a year, but I think it was on this trip that I met my old schoolmate, Henry M. Brackett, and persuaded him to go up to Cathlamet with me. We had lost track of each other and he had hard luck, having lost everything he possessed in a fire, barely escaping with his life. After my house was built, brother Charles, who had come to Cathlamet, Brackett and myself kept house in it, taking turns doing our own cooking.

As time went on, division of the Territory of Oregon began to be talked about, of which all of us at Cathlamet were in favor. Before the Territory was divided, when the subject of having a wagon on road from the Columbia River to Puget Island was being agitated, in company with Mr. Dray, William Anderson, William Stillwell, Newell Brewer (settlers in the valley back of Cathlamet) and two Indians, I surveyed a line for a road from Cathlamet to Boisfort Prairie, but found it impracticable, as road building was then understood. The expense of this survey was borne by the interested parties.

(...to be continued)