"The Indians have massacred all the white settlers on White River and are coming down on us here in Puyallup," was passed from house to house on that fateful October day of 1855. Mrs. Woolery and Mrs. Boatman were the only survivors present at the reunion who witnessed the scenes that followed. Some had wagons; some had none. Strive as best they could, they only got across the river the first day. Two canoes were lashed together and the wagons ferried across, after being first taken apart. The trip out the next day was made on foot, the women carrying the young children on their backs. Then came the volunteer company a week later to rescue the provisions, stock, clothing and other property that had been abandoned. This party consisted of the settlers of the valley, with a few others—nineteen in all. The author was one of the "others," not having yet settled in the valley. As we went in by the "lower" road the column of United States troops and volunteers abandoned the field and withdrew by the "upper" road, leaving our little band in utter ignorance of our danger for four days, when we crossed the trail of the retreating column, which we afterwards learned had halted at Montgomery's, at the edge of the prairie. Our women folks were disturbed at our long stay, and the troops were under orders to advance to our rescue, when lo! and behold! at nightfall on the sixth day we returned, loaded with property and provisions, in most cases being all the possessions of the owners who formed a part of the company, and there was great joy in camp. Not an Indian had been seen nor a shot fired, except to empty our guns to make sure that they would "go," as some of the men quaintly expressed it.
After looking back over the vista of years, none of the party could say that life had been a failure; there was the lady bordering close on eighty years; the gentleman eighty-four and past (Peter Smith), with the "kids" of the party past the sixty-eighth mark, yet one would scarcely ever meet a more cheerful and merry party than this of the reunion of the old settlers of 1855. [18]
FOOTNOTE:
[18] Since this meeting in June, 1904, all of the ten pioneers that comprised the party have died, prior to the writing of this note, except the author and one other.
CHAPTER XXXI.
A CHAPTER ON NAMES.
In the latter part of the seventeenth century that intrepid American traveler, Jonathan Carver, wrote these immortal words:
"From the intelligence I gained from the Naudowessie Indians, among whom I arrived on the 7th of December (1776), and whose language I perfectly acquired during a residence of five months, and also from the accounts I afterwards obtained from the Assinipoils, who speak the same tongue, being a revolted band of the Naudowessies; and from the Killistinoes, neighbors of the Assinipoils, who speak the Chipeway language and inhabit the heads of the River Bourbon; I say from these natives, together with my own observations, I have learned that the four most capital rivers on the continent of North America, viz.: the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the River Bourbon and the Oregon, or the River of the West (as I hinted in my introduction), have their sources in the same neighborhood. The waters of the three former are within thirty miles of each other; the latter, however, is further west."
All students of history acknowledge this is the first mention of the word Oregon in English literature. The narrative quoted was inspired by his observations on the upper Mississippi, and particularly upon the event of reaching his farthest point, sixty miles above the Falls of St. Anthony, November 17th, 1776. This was the farthest up the Mississippi that the white man had ever penetrated, "So that we are obliged solely to the Indians for all the intelligence we are able to give relative to the more northern parts," and yet this man, seemingly with prophetic sight, discovered the great river of the West, attempted to name it, and coined a word for the purpose. While Carver missed his mark and did not succeed in affixing the new-born name to the great river he saw in his vision, yet the word became immortal through the mighty empire for which it afterwards stood. Carver made no explanation as to where the word Oregon came from, but wrote as though it was well known like the other rivers mentioned. Probably for all time the origin of this name with be a mystery.