JOTTINGS OF PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF A PIONEER OF 1850: By GEORGE E. COLE

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CHAPTER III.

Marysville was now an incorporated city and the county seat. The long-looked-
for donation act had passed, and the people were happy. A Fourth of July
celebration was projected, and most enthusiastically taken up by the citizens,
whose numbers had greatly increased, many new buildings being in course of
construction. The settlers of the surrounding country joined in the
festivities. A bullock was roasted whole, and a great feast was spread. The
Declaration of Independence was read by A. G. Hovey, and the writer delivered
the oration. The day was very generally observed through the valley. Some of
the older towns, as Champoeg, Oregon City and Salem, indicated by the toasts
that were proposed, the rivalry existing among them. I recall that Dr. Newell,
an old and prominent citizen of Champoeg, gave the following:

"Champoeg for beauty,
Salem for pride;
If it hadn't been for salmon,
Oregon City would have died."

But a small area was sown in wheat in this part of Oregon at this time. Every,
farmer had a few acres. Ownby having forty acres, which was much larger than
most of the farmers had, as wheat was worth but seventy-five cents a bushel,
and harvest hands were four dollars per day and difficult to obtain at that,
as many of the men were still in California digging gold. Small as the acreage
was, much of the wheat was left uncut, except what could be cut with one s own
help. Ownby offered his son John and myself half of the crop if we could cut
it and thresh it, which we undertook to do. There was no harvesting machinery,
except hand cradles, with which a man could cut two or three acres a day.
Ownby furnished us a truck (an improvised wagon), and horses, and younger boys
to haul the grain to a dumping ground in the corner of the field. A circular
corral was built, and a band of horses were driven in and threshed out the
grain by tramping on it. It was cleaned by carrying it up ten or twelve feet
onto a raised platform and letting it fall onto blankets on the ground, being
winnowed by the sea breeze, which at this time of the year could be relied
upon every afternoon. This was quite different from the mode in vogue in our
day, and I give this instance that the reader may learn that farm machinery
for harvesting and for threshing was unknown in those days in Oregon, and,
however important it is regarded now, was not actually needed. The wheat
yielded about forty bushels to the acre, and we made good wages in the
transaction.

The legislature met on the first Monday of December, a decided majority of the
members going to Salem, the new capital, and holding the session. One member
of the council, however, from north of the Columbia river, and two members of
the house from that section, joined by two from the south side of the river,
met at Oregon City, and the governor and secretary being there, and the court
having held that was the proper location, they met and adjourned from day to
day, and adjourned finally. They were provided with stationery and other
conveniences and paid their per diem, while those at Salem were not provided
with any place to meet nor anything for incidental expenses. The citizens of
Salem, however, furnished whatever was required, giving them the old Methodist
Institute in which to hold their sessions.

Samuel Parker, joint senator from Marion and Klackimas counties, was made
president of the council, and seven other councilmen were with him, He was a
native of Virginia, and had had large experience in frontier life in
legislative matters, having been an early settler in the territory of Iowa,
was a member of the convention which framed the constitution for that state,
and made a very good presiding officer. When a point of order was raised by
any member of the council, he would proceed to decide the same by stating that
the "cheer are of opinion that the p int of order is well taken," or is not
well taken, as the case might be. Notwithstanding this peculiar wording of his
decisions, they were generally considered to be right.

William M. King, a resident of Portland, then in Washington county, and a
native of St. Lawrence county, in northern New York, was speaker of the house.
He was a good parliamentarian and also a man of education, and his language
was quite in contrast with that of the president of the council.

There were other members of both the council and the house who afterwards
became conspicuous in the territory and state of Oregon. M. P. Deady, from
Yamhill county, was a member of the council. He afterwards became United
States Judge of the territory, and when the territory became a state, in 1859,
he was made United States District Judge for Oregon, and held the office until
he died, a few years ago. John A. Anderson, a native Kentuckian, represented
Clatsop county in the house. He was a bright and affable young man, and when
the civil war broke out went into the Confederate service. Ben Harding, who
was afterwards United States senator, was clerk of the house. Dr. J. W. Drew
was there from Umpqua county, now a part of Douglas county, and was a very
efficient and prominent member. George L. Curry, from Klackimas county, was
afterwards territorial governor. Quite a number of others were for a long time
prominent in various positions in the territory and afterwards state.

Thurston county was formed during this session of the legislature. Colonel
Mike Simmons, who lived at Tumwater, representing the people of that locality,
wished Olympia made the county seat, while J. B. Chapman, a lawyer living at
Steilacoom, desired that town to be made the county seat. The committee on
counties sided with Chapman, but Simmons, being a popular man, a good mixer
and an old pioneer at that time, succeeded in winning the fight. The next
legislature formed Pierce county and made Steilacoom its county seat.

I went to this legislature with the firm determination to do all the good in
my power for the territory, but, contrary to my expectations, while there were
some others who felt the same way, perhaps the majority of the legislature,
the control passed largely into the hands of members who were there for the
purpose of promoting their individual interests. They had ferry charters to
look after for themselves and their friends, and. county seats to locate, and
one had a wagon road project across the Cascade mountains, and they combined
and assisted each other in what was called "log rolling," forming a very
formidable party, which some of us designated as the "local interest" party.

Asahel Bush, the publisher of the Oregon Statesman, located at Oregon City,
moved a printing office to Salem and did the printing for the legislature,
leaving his paper at Oregon City, the former capital, until the location
question should be finally settled. His paper was the mouthpiece of the
legislature, which Governor Gaines and the other federal officials designated
as revolutionary. The Oregonian, published and edited by Thomas J. Dryer at
Portland, was the organ of the federal officials, being a Whig paper. The war
of words between these two organs was bitter and quite acrimonious.

Judge Pratt, the Democrat member of the supreme court, came by invitation to
Salem and read to the legislature a dissenting opinion, which, he being
learned man, was calculated to strengthen the position of the members at Salem
in their acting in contempt of the decision of the supreme court. A memorial
to Congress, setting forth our position in the matter and asking the action of
Congress, was passed, and, it being supported by our delegate, General Lane,
an act of Congress was passed confirming the location of the capital at Salem.

The hotel accommodations were very limited at Salem, and members of the
legislature had to secure places to stop at private houses. John Anderson and
myself were very fortunate in securing a room jointly and hoard at the home of
Dr. Belt, father of Judge George W. Belt. We were probably more readily
received and accommodated because of the fact that Dr. Belt was a native
Kentuckian, as was also my associate, Anderson.

On the following June, 1852, the issue on which the people were divided was
for and against the actions of the two legislatures, in which the voters
sustained the so-called revolutionary party, after Congress had affirmed the
act of the legislature, and the governor and secretary and the judges of the
supreme court moved their offices to Salem. Governor Gaines issued a
proclamation convening the legislature in August, for the purpose, as he said,
of enacting laws at the now proper place, claiming that those passed before
the action of Congress in the matter were invalid. The legislature met at
Salem, and after three days session adjourned sine die, affirming that no
legislation was necessary until the regular session in December.

At this special session M. P. Deady was elected president of the council, and
Ben Harding speaker of the house; and when the December session convened they
continued, in those positions respectively. While the Democrats were in a
decided majority, Whigs having been elected from Washington county, and
Democrats who had sustained the governor, from Klackimas county, in which was
located Oregon City, there was passed a resolution in the Democratic caucus
setting 'forth that, "Whereas, the legislature had been convened by order of
one John P. Gaines," a minority of the Democrats dissented from the wording,
although agreeing to what followed in the resolution, and it failed to pass
until in place of the phrase "one John P. Gaines" there was substituted "His
Excellency, John P. Gaines," and in that shape it passed.

Having come in from the mines in Jackson county to attend the special session,
and having returned there in the, interests that I was pursuing in that
locality, I again came back to the Willamet valley, arriving at Salem on the
first day of the regular session commencing in December.

Colonel I. N. Ebey, from Island county, on the north side of the Columbia
river, and F. A. Chenoweth, from Clarke county, desired to pass a memorial to
Congress for the division of the territory. Accordingly a committee of three
was appointed, consisting of those two, being the entire number of members
from the north side of the Columbia river, and myself, from the south side. A
memorial was drawn up and passed in accordance with the desires of the people
on the north side of the Columbia river as represented by them, making the
present boundary line between Oregon and Washington the dividing line between
the two territories, and asking that the new territory be called Columbia.
General Lane, favoring the petition, succeeded in getting through Congress an
act granting the prayer of the memorialists in all except the name, which was
changed to Washington

Pierce having been elected president, Democrats were appointed to fill the
various offices in the territory of Oregon, among whom was George H. Williams,
supreme court judge, who, having previously been on the bench in Iowa, was a
man of experience and ability. He was afterwards United States senator from
Oregon and also attorney general under President Grant. General Lane was again
commissioned as governor, but he decided instead of accepting, to run again
for delegate, and so, keeping, it is said, his commission in his pocket,
without disclosing it to the. public, he was elected delegate in June, 1853.
George L. Curry was appointed secretary of the territory of Oregon, J. W.
Davis of Indiana was appointed governor, and General Joel Palmer was appointed
superintendent of Indian affairs.

Among the best known characters of Oregon whom I met at Salem during the
session of the supreme court was United States Marshal Joe Meek, an early
settler of Oregon. When Polk was President he went to Washington and, did good
service in securing the passage of the act organizing the territorial
government. He was a tall; fine-looking man as one would meet in many a long
day, and as there were many anecdotes connected with his name, he excited in
me much interest. He was a cousin of President Polk, from whom he received his
appointment as marshal, and he told me many interesting stories of his trip to
Washington; and his visits to "Cousin Jeems" in the White House. He said that
he arrived at Willard s Hotel in a buckskin suit and moccasins, and asked the
clerk for accommodations. When he was handed a pen with which to register he
pretended not to be able to write, and asked the clerk to register for him,
saying:
"I am Joseph L. Meek, Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary from
all Oregon to the United States of America."
At the first session of the court Meek had no funds, and jurors and witnesses
coming to subsequent terms were clamorous for their fees, but he was compelled
to put them off. Hearing that be had received some $15,000, they called his
attention to the fact, and demanded their money. He replied, "Oh, that is
'bar ly  enough for the officers."

He was fond of entertaining the judges, lawyers and visitors from the east
with stories of years gone by when Oregon was in its infancy. He said that he
came to Oregon when Mt. Hood was a hole in the ground. He delighted to tell
jokes on himself. He said he once took a party of volunteers out in the Burnt
river country, in eastern Oregon, to protect incoming immigrants, and that his
soldiers suddenly met a body of Indians. They had just crossed a river, but
they decided to cross back again, and they did so without any orders. His
mount was a bucking mule that would budge for neither whip nor spur, and in
consequence he was left alone while his comrades were making off down the
river for a ford. He called out to them lustily, "Come back and fight the
Indians, there s not more than a dozen of 'em. We can whip 'em," but they
proceeded to go up the opposite river bank in full retreat. Suddenly an arrow
struck his mule, which forthwith plunged down the river bank, forded the
stream, and struck the trail far ahead of his companions, who were looking
back to find him. Shouting, "Come on, boys, you can t whip them; there s more
than a thousand of them," he led the way to the rear.

He was as brave a man as ever lived, but like all successful Indian fighters,
he was wary and cautious. The boys apologized for having left him, but he had
to tell them that it was his mule and not he who made the stand, pleading with
them not to inform on him when he reached the valley.

The summer of 1852 brought a large immigration into the territory. The winter
following was very severe. The raising of wheat had been neglected since the
discovery of gold in California, farm hands being impossible to find, even at
high wages. Wheat became so scarce that flour was imported from Chile, and
sold at $16 a cwt., while seed wheat brought $4 or $5 a bushel.