The spring of 1892 ought to be historically very interesting to the State of Washington, and it is likely to be so.
II.
THE OREGON TRAIL.
"There is the East. There lies the road to India."
Such was Senator Thomas H. Benton's view of the coast and harbors of Oregon. He saw the advantage of securing to the United States the Columbia River and its great basin, and the Puget Sea; and he made himself the champion of Oregon and Washington.
In Thomas Jefferson's administration far-seeing people began to talk of a road across the continent, and a port on the Pacific. The St. Louis fur-traders had been making a way to the Rockies for years, and in 1810 John Jacob Astor sent a ship around Cape Horn, to establish a post for the fur-trade on the Pacific Coast, and also sent an expedition of some sixty persons from St. Louis, overland, by the way of the Missouri and Yellowstone, to the Columbia River. The pioneer ship was called the Tonquin. She arrived at the mouth of the Columbia before the overland expedition. These traders came together at last, and founded Astoria, on the Columbia.
Ships now began to sail for Astoria, and the trading-post flourished in the beautiful climate and amid the majestic scenery. But the English claimed the country. In June, 1812, war broke out with England, and Astoria became threatened with capture by the English. It was decided by Astor's agent to abandon the post; but Astoria had taught the United States the value of Oregon.
The Oregon trail from St. Louis, by the way of the great rivers, the Missouri, the Yellowstone, and the Columbia, followed the fall of Astoria, and began the highway of emigration to the Pacific coast and to Asia. Over it the trapper and the missionary began to go. The Methodist missionaries, under the leadership of Revs. Jason and Daniel Lee, were among the first in the field, and laid the foundations of the early cities of Oregon. One of their stations was at the Dalles of the Columbia. In 1835 the great missionary, Marcus Whitman, of the Congregationalist Board, established the mission at Walla Walla. Yet up to the year 1841, just fifty years ago, only about one hundred and fifty Americans, in all, had permanently settled in Oregon and Washington.
Senator Benton desired the survey of a route to Oregon, to aid emigration to the Columbia basin. He engaged for this service a young, handsome, gallant, and chivalrous officer, Lieutenant John C. Fremont, who, with Nicollet, a French naturalist, had been surveying the upper Mississippi, and opening emigration to Minnesota.