CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A PLAN FOR A MEMORIAL TO THE PIONEERS
The ox is passing—in fact, has passed. The old-time spinning wheel and the hand loom, the quaint old cobbler's bench with its handmade lasts and shoe pegs, the heavy iron mush pot on the crane in the chimney corner,—all have gone. The men and women of sixty years or more ago are passing, too. All are laid aside for what is new in the drama of life. While these old-time ways and scenes and actors have had their day, yet the experiences and the lessons they taught are not lost to the world.
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 heroic men and women had fought a veritable battle—a battle that wrested half a continent from the native race and from another mighty nation contending for mastery in unknown regions of the West. To mark the field of that battle for future generations was a duty waiting for some one; I determined to be the one to fulfill it.
The journey back over the old Oregon Trail by ox team was made during my seventy-seventh year. On January 29, 1906, I left my home in Puyallup, Washington, and on November 29, 1907, just twenty-two months later to the day, I reached Washington, our national capital, with my cattle and my old prairie schooner. Not all of this time was spent in travel, of course; a good deal of it was taken up in furthering the purpose of the trip by arranging for the erection and dedication of monuments to mark the Trail.
To accomplish the purpose of marking the trail would have been enough to make the journey worth while to me, besides all the interest of freshening my recollections of old times and reviving old memories. There is not space in this book to dwell on all the contrasts that came to my mind constantly,—of the uncleared forests with the farms and orchards of today, of the unbroken prairie lands with the ranches and farms and cities that now border the old trail from the Rockies to the Mississippi. There is nothing like an ox-team journey, I maintain, to make a person realize this country, realize its size, the number of its people, and the variety of conditions in which they live and of occupations by which they live. I wish I could share with every boy and girl in the country the panorama view that unrolled itself before me in this journey from tidewater to tidewater.
The ox team was chosen as a typical reminder of pioneer days. The Oregon Trail, it must be remembered, is essentially an ox-team trail. No more effective instrument, therefore, could have been chosen to attract attention, arouse enthusiasm, and secure aid in forwarding the work, than this living symbol of the old days.
Indeed, too much attention, in one sense, was attracted. I had scarcely driven the outfit away from my own dooryard before the wagon and wagon cover, and even the map of the old trail on the sides of the cover, began to be defaced. First I noticed a name or two written on the wagon bed, then a dozen or more, all stealthily placed there, until the whole was so closely covered that there was no room for more. Finally the vandals began carving initials on the wagon bed and cutting off pieces to carry away. Eventually I put a stop to such vandalism by employing special police, posting notices, and nabbing some offenders in the very act.
Give me Indians on the Plains to contend with; give me fleas or even the detested sage-brush ticks to burrow into the flesh; but deliver me from cheap notoriety seekers!
I had decided to take along one helper, and a man by the name of Herman Goebel went as far as The Dalles with the outfit. There William Marden joined me for the journey across the Plains. Marden stayed with me for three years, and proved to be faithful and helpful.
And now a word as to my oxen. The first team consisted of one seven-year-old ox, Twist, and one unbroken five-year-old range steer, Dave. When we were ready to start, Twist weighed 1,470 pounds and Dave 1,560. This order of weight was soon changed. In three months' time Twist gained 130 pounds and Dave lost 80. All this time I fed them with a lavish hand all the rolled barley I dared give and all the hay they would eat.
Preparing to cross a river; unyoking the oxen.
Dave would hook and kick and perform every other mean trick. Besides, he would stick his tongue out from the smallest kind of exertion. He had just been shipped in off the Montana cattle range and had never had a rope on him, unless it was when he was branded. Like a great over-grown booby of a boy, he was flabby in flesh, and he could not endure any sort of exertion without discomfort. At one time I became very nearly discouraged with him.
Yet this was the ox that made the round trip. He bore his end of the yoke from the tidewaters of the Pacific to the tidewaters of the Atlantic, at the Battery, New York City, and on to Washington City to meet the President. He finally became subdued, though not conquered. At times he became threatening with his horns, and I never did trust his heels.
Taking off the wagon box.
The other ox, Twist, died suddenly on August 9, 1906, and was buried within a few rods of the trail. It was two months to a day after his death before I could find a mate for the Dave ox, and then I had to take another five-year-old steer off the cattle range of Nebraska. This steer, Dandy, evidently had never been handled; but he came of good stock and, with the exception of awkwardness, gave me no serious trouble. Dandy was purchased out of the stockyard at Omaha. He then weighed 1,470 pounds, and the day before he went to see the President he tipped the scales at the 1,760-pound notch. Dandy proved to be a faithful, serviceable ox.
On the journey Dave had to be shod fourteen times, I think, and he always struggled to get away. Once, on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, we had to throw Dave and tie him hard and fast before we could shoe him. It takes two shoes to one foot for an ox, instead of one as for a horse, though the fastening is the same; that is, by nailing into the hoof. At one time Dandy's hoofs became so worn that I could not fasten a shoe on him, and so I had what we called leather boots put on, that left a track like an elephant's; but he could not pull well with them on.
Calking the wagon box to turn it into a boat.
Besides the oxen we had a dog, Jim. More will be told of him later.
An authentic prairie schooner, a true veteran of the Plains, was out of the question. In building the new one, use was made of parts of three old wagons. The woodwork of the wagon had to be new throughout except for one hub, which had done service across the Plains in 1853. This hub and the bands, boxes, and other iron parts were from two old-time wagons that had crossed the Plains in 1853. They differed somewhat in size and shape; hence the hubs of the fore and hind wheels did not match.
Launching the schooner to cross the river.
The axles were of wood, with the old-time linchpins and steel skeins, which called for the use of tar and the tar bucket instead of axle grease. Why? Because if grease were used, the spokes would work loose, and soon the whole wheel would collapse. The bed was of the old prairie-schooner style, with the bottom boat-shaped and the ribs on the outside.
My first camp for the return journey over the old trail was made in my own dooryard at Puyallup. This was maintained for several days to give the wagon and team a trial. After the weak points had been strengthened and everything pronounced to be in order, I left home for the long trip.
Brown Bros.
The first drive was to Seattle through the towns of Sumner, Auburn, and Kent. In Seattle I had a host of friends and acquaintances, and I thought that there I could arouse interest in my plan and secure some aid for it. Nothing came of the effort. My closest friends, on the contrary, tried to dissuade me from going; and, I may say, actually tried to convince others that it would be an act of friendship not to lend any aid to the enterprise. I knew, or thought I knew, that my strength would warrant undertaking the ordeal; I felt sure I could make the trip successfully. But my friends remained unconvinced; so after spending two weeks in Seattle I shipped my outfit by steamer to Tacoma, only to meet the same spirit there.
One pleasant incident broke the monotony. Henry Hewitt, of Tacoma, drove up alongside my team and said, "Meeker, if you get broke out there on the Plains, just telegraph me for money to come back on."
"No," I said, "I'd rather hear you say to telegraph for money to go on with."
"All right," came the response, "have it that way, then."
Henry drove off, perhaps not giving the conversation a second thought until he received my telegram two months later, telling him that I had lost an ox and wanted him to send me two hundred dollars. The money was immediately wired to me.
Somehow no serious thought of turning back ever entered my mind. When I had once resolved to make the trip, nothing but utter physical disability could deter me. I felt on this point just as I did when I first crossed the Plains in 1852.
From Tacoma I shipped again by steamer to Olympia. The end of the old trail is but two miles distant from Olympia at Tumwater, the extreme southern point of Puget Sound. Here the first American party of homeseekers to Washington rested and settled in 1845. At this point I set a post, and afterwards arranged for a stone to be placed to mark the spot.
On the twentieth of February I went to Tenino, south of Olympia, on the train. My outfit was drawn to this place by a horse team, the oxen being taken along under yoke. Dave was still not an ox, but an unruly steer. I dared not intrust driving him to other hands, yet I had to go ahead to arrange for the monument and the lecture.
The twenty-first of February was a red-letter day. At Tenino I had the satisfaction of helping to dedicate the first monument erected to mark the old trail. The stores were closed, and the school children in a body came over to the dedication. The monument was donated by the Tenino Quarry Company; it is inscribed "Old Oregon Trail: 1843-57."
Brown Bros.
In the evening I addressed a good-sized audience, and sixteen dollars was received to help on the good work. The spirit of the people, more than the money, was encouraging.
At Chehalis, Washington, the Commercial Club undertook to erect and dedicate a monument. John R. Jackson was the first American citizen to settle north of the Columbia River. One of the daughters, Mrs. Ware, accompanied by her husband, indicated the spot where the monument should be erected, and a post was planted. A touching incident was that Mrs. Ware was requested to put the post in place and hold it while her husband tamped the earth around it.
At Toledo, the place where the pioneers left the Cowlitz River on the trail to the Sound, another marker was placed by the citizens.
The first boulder marked on the old trail; near The Dalles of the Columbia.
From Toledo I shipped the whole outfit by steamer down the Cowlitz River, and took passage with my assistants to Portland, thus reversing the order of travel in 1853. We used steam instead of the brawn of stalwart pioneers and Indians to propel the boat. On the evening of March the first I pitched my tent in the heart of the city of Portland, on a grassy vacant lot.
On the morning of the tenth of March I took steamer with my outfit, bound up the Columbia for The Dalles. How wondrous the change! Fifty-four years before, I had come floating down this same stream in a flatboat with a party of poor, heartsick pioneers; now I made the trip enjoying cushioned chairs, delicious foods, fine linens, magazines and books—every luxury of civilized life.
That night I arrived at The Dalles, and drove nearly three quarters of a mile to a camping ground near the park. The streets were muddy, and the cattle were impatient and walked very fast, which made it necessary for me to tramp through the mud at their heads. We had no supper or even tea, as we did not build a fire. It was clear that night, but raining in the morning.
Prior to leaving home I had written to the ladies of the Landmark Committee at The Dalles. What should they do but provide a monument already inscribed and in place, and notify me that I had been selected to deliver the dedicatory address!
The weather of the next day treated us to some hardships that I had missed on the first overland journey. Ice formed in the camp half an inch thick, and the high wind joined forces with the damper of our stove, which had got out of order, to fill the tent with smoke and make life miserable.
The fierce, cold wind also made it necessary to postpone the dedication for a day and finally to carry it out with less ceremony than had been planned. Nevertheless, I felt that the expedition was now fairly started. We had reached the point where the real journey would begin, and the interest shown in the plan by the towns along the way had been most encouraging.
The Dalles, on the Columbia River.