The expedition to Oregon, as they looked upon it, called for a power of endurance that might be found only in the soundest. So by common consent poor health ruled its possessor from the ranks of the pioneers. One can readily see what must have been the result of this exclusion upon the health condition of Oregon during the early period of its history, if not through more remote chapters of its development.
We have thus forced upon us the conviction that the pioneer migration across the plains to Oregon consisted almost wholly of frontier people. That from their organized trains the rich excluded themselves; the dependent poor were kept aloof, and those subject to chronic sickness or feeble health at once accepted their inevitable exclusion. Now, with these ineligible groups cancelled, we may well ask: Who were left to go to Oregon.
Well, the proposed migration thus shorn of elements that did not fit the heart of the movement, there remained scattered along the frontier several thousands of the very material for pioneering. Men in the prime of life with small families who were themselves accustomed to the management of teams; were familiar with the dangers of desert travel and mountain climbing; were accustomed to Indian alarms, many of them to Indian fighting; and all of them accustomed from childhood to the use of the rifle—these were restlessly waiting the time for movement. Doctor Whitman was informed of this. And it was to take the message of readiness to these that he decided on a winter journey. He may have done other important things. He may have failed to do some things over zealously ascribed to him. This herald work he did. He announced to his synod in Oregon that he regarded this service as the work needing to be done. He did this work, and the Missouri ox-wagons followed. For the restless waiters on destiny along the frontier saw that their time had come.
THOMAS CONDON.
NATHANIEL J. WYETH.
His Adventures in the far West recalled in association with the family home near Boston. “In Historic Mansions and Highways Around Boston,” by Samuel Adams Drake, published by Little, Brown & Co., there is a sketch of the family home of Nathaniel J. Wyeth, the early explorer of Oregon. “Emerging from Mount Auburn,” the author writes, “we take counsel of the swinging sign pointing to the lane leading to Fresh Pond, which is found to be the natural source of numerous underground streams, which are found wherever the earth is penetrated to any depth between it and Charleston.” The writer continues:
Time out of mind the shores of the pond belonged to the Wyeths, and one of this family deserves our notice in passing. Nathaniel J. Wyeth was bred and born near at hand. Of an enterprising and courageous disposition, he conceived the idea of organizing a party with which to cross the continent and engage in trade with the Indian tribes of Oregon. He enlisted one and twenty adventurous spirits, who made him their leader, and with whom he set out from Boston on the first of March, 1832, first encamping his party on one of the harbor islands, in order to inure them to field life. The organizers provided themselves with a novel means of transportation—no other than a number of boats, built at the village smithy, and mounted on wheels. With these boats they expected to pass the rivers they might encounter, while at other times they were to serve as wagons. The idea was not without ingenuity, but was founded on a false estimate of the character of the streams, and of the mountain roads they were sure to meet with.
Wyeth and his followers pursued their route via Baltimore and the railway, which then left them at the base of the Alleghanies, onward to Pittsburg, at which point they took steamboat to Saint Louis, arriving there on the eighteenth of April. Hitherto they had met with only a few disagreeable adventures. They were now to face the real difficulties of their undertaking. They soon discovered that their complicated wagons were useless, and they were forced to part with them. The warlike tribes, whose hunting-grounds they were to traverse, began to give them uneasiness; and, to crown their misfortunes, they now ascertained how ignorantly they had calculated upon the trade with the savages.
Saint Louis was then the great depot of the Indian traders, who made their annual expeditions across the plains, prepared to fight or barter, as the temper of the Indians might dictate. The old trappers who had made their abode in the mountain regions met the traders at a given rendezvous, receiving powder, lead, tobacco, and a few accessories in exchange for their furs. To one of these parties Wyeth attached himself, and it was well that he did so.