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.