Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 1 / Embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties

by William Denison Lyman

CHAPTER VI

INDIAN WARS AND OPENING OF COUNTRY TO SETTLEMENT

In the preceding chapter we have narrated the Whitman Massacre. It was followed by the first of the succession of wars which desolated Old Oregon for about eleven years. During that time Walla Walla, as well as the other parts east of the mountains, was swept clean of white settlers. Not till the public proclamation of opening Eastern Oregon by General Clarke in 1858 and the beginnings of immigration in the next year can the epoch of Indian wars be said to have ended.

The war following the Whitman Massacre may be taken as the starting point of this chapter. Great praise most be accorded to the Hudson's Bay Company's people for promptness and efficiency in meeting the immediate emergency. Dr. John McLoughlin, with whom we have become acquainted in earlier chapters, had retired from the company and made his home at Oregon City. This truly great man, a man for whom no commendation seems too strong in the minds of the old-timers, had been deciding during the years following the advent of the missionaries that American possession of Oregon was inevitable and that in order to ally himself with the future he should become an American. His humane and liberal policy toward the American immigrants was disapproved by the company in London, and in 1844 James Douglas was appointed to succeed him. The good doctor thereby not only lost what was then and in those conditions a princely salary, $12,000 per year, but was charged by the company for the large supplies which he had advanced to the Americans, who in many cases were unable to pay. Moving to the Falls of the Willamette where he had taken up a valuable claim, he started the process of naturalization. But after the Treaty of 1846, his claim was contested by the representative of the Methodist Mission, Rev. A. F. Waller, and the first territorial delegate to Congress, Samuel R. Thurston, was chosen largely on the platform of hostility to the Hudson's Bay Company and the British in general, and he secured a provision in the Congressional land law debarring anyone who had not acquired his final naturalization from holding a donation claim. This law deprived Doctor McLoughlin of the main part of his property. It was a cruel blow. He said with grief and bitterness that he had intended in good faith to become an American citizen, but found that he was rejected by the British and not received by the Americans and was practically a man without a country. It may truthfully be said that he died of a broken heart. It is gratifying to remember that the Oregon Legislature, recognizing the injustice, made amends by restoring his land claim. But this action came too late to do the "Old King of Oregon" any good. We have digressed to make this reference to Doctor McLoughlin, inasmuch as his change of location and condition occurred just prior to the Oregon Treaty and the Whitman Massacre. James Douglas, the new Chief Factor, while not at all equal in breadth and philanthropy to Doctor McLoughlin, was an energetic and efficient manager. Upon learning of the tragedy at Waiilatpu he immediately dispatched Peter Skeen Ogden to rescue the survivors. As narrated in Chapter Five, Ogden performed his duty with promptness and success, and as a result the pitiful little company, almost entirely women and children, were conveyed to the Willamette Valley, where nearly all of them made their homes. A number of them are still living in different parts of the Northwest.

When the tidings of the massacre reached the Willamette Valley, then the chief settlement in Oregon, there was an immediate response by the brave men who were carrying in that trying time the responsibility of the government of the scattered little community. And yet the situation was a peculiar and difficult one. The formal treaty placing Oregon within possession of the United States had legally set aside the Provisional Government. But Congress was absorbed, as it frequently has been, in furthering the little schemes of individual members, or in promoting the progress of slavery or some other tyrannical and corrupt interest, and hence had done nothing to establish a territorial government. In the emergency the Provisional Government assembled on December 9th and provided for a force of fourteen companies of Oregon volunteers to move immediately to the hostile country. Every feature of equipment had to be secured by personal contribution, and the services of the men were purely voluntary. It was a characteristic American frontiersmen's army and movement. Several men well known in Walla Walla and vicinity took part in this campaign. The commander of the force was Cornelius Gilliam, an immigrant of 1845 from Missouri. His son, W. S. Gilliam, was one of the best known and noblest of the pioneers of Walla Walla County. He was truly one of the builders of this region. Daniel Stewart, Ninevah Ford, William Martin, and W. W. Walter were among the citizens of the Walla Walla country and adjoining region who were in that historic army of the Cayuse war. While we shall not usually load this work with lists of names or other purely statistical matter, yet in the belief that the list of volunteers in the Cayuse war may have a permanent reference value to possessors of this volume, we are including here such a list derived from the "History of the Pacific Northwest," published by the North Pacific Publishing Co. of Portland in 1889:

First Company, Oregon Rifles: Captain, Henry A. G. Lee; first lieutenant, Joseph Magone; second lieutenant, John E. Ross; surgeon, W. W. Carpenter; orderly sergeant, J. S. Rinearson; first duty sergeant, J. H. McMillan; second duty sergeant, C. W. Savage; third duty sergeant, S. Cummings; fourth duty sergeant, William Berry; privates, John Little, Joel McKee, J. W. Morgan, Joseph B. Proctor, Samuel K. Barlow, John Richardson, Ed Marsh, George Moore, Isaac Walgamot, Jacob Johnson, John Lassater, Edward Robeson, B. B. Rodgers,—— Shannon, A. J. Thomas, R. S. Tupper, O. Tupper, Joel Witchey, G. W. Weston, George Wesley, John Flemming, John G. Gibson, Henry Leralley, Nathan Olney, —— Barnes, J. H. Bosworth, Wm. Beekman, Benjamin Bratton, John Balton, Henry W. Coe, John C. Danford, C. H. Derendorf, David Everst, John Finner, James Kester,—— Pugh (killed by Indians near the Dalles in a skirmish),—— Jackson (killed in a skirmish near the Dalles), John Callahan; Alex McDonald (killed by a sentry, who mistook him for an Indian at the camp on the east side of the Des Chutes). Forty-eight men.

Second Company: Captain, Lawrence Hall; first lieutenant, H. D. O'Bryant; second lieutenant, John Engart; orderly sergeant, William Sheldon; duty sergeants, William Stokes, Peter S. Engart, Thos. R. Cornelius, Sherry Ross; Color-bearer, Gilbert Mondon; privates, A. Engart, Thos. Fleming, D. C. Smith, W. R. Noland, Jos. W. Scott, G. W. Smith, A. Kinsey, John N. Donnie, A. C. Brown, F. H. Ramsey, S. A. Holcomb, A. Stewart, Wm. Milbern, A. Kennedy, Oliver Lowden, H. N. Stephens, P. G. Northrup, W. W. Walter, J. Z. Zachary, Sam Y. Cook, J. J. Garrish, Thos. Kinsey, J. S. Scoggin, Noah Jobe, D. Shumake, J. N. Green, J. Elliot, W. Williams, John Holgate, R. Yarborough, Robert Walker, J. Butler, I. W. Smith, J. W. Lingenfelter, J. H. Lienberger, A. Lienberger, Sam Gethard, John Lousingnot, A. Williams, D. Harper, S. C. Cummings, S. Ferguson, Marshall Martin.

Third Company: Captain, John W. Owen; first lieutenant, Nathaniel Bowman; second lieutenant, Thomas Shaw; orderly sergeant, J. C. Robison; duty sergeants, Benj. J. Burch; J. H. Blankenship, James M. Morris, Robert Smith; privates, George W. Adams, William Athey, John Baptiste, Manly Curry, Jesse Clayton, John Dinsmore, Nathan English, John Fiester, Jesse Gay, Lester Hulan, Stephen Jenkins, J. Larkin, Joshua McDonald, Thomas Pollock, J. H. Smith, S. P. Thornton, William Wilson, Benjamin Allen, Ira Bowman,—— Currier, George Chapel, William Duke,—— Linnet, T. Dufield, Squire Elembough, Henry Fuller, D. H. Hartley, Fleming R. Hill, James Keller, D. M. McCumber, E. McDonald, Edward Robinson, Chris. Stemermon, Joseph Wilbert, T. R. Zumwalt, Charles Zummond.

Fourth Company: Captain, H. J. G. Maxon; first lieutenant, G. N. Gilbert; second lieutenant, Wm. P. Hughes; orderly sergeant, Wm. R. Johnson; duty sergeants, O. S. Thomas, T. M. Buckner, Daniel Stewart, Joseph R. Ralston; privates, Andrew J. Adams, John Beattie, Charles Blair, John R. Coatney, Reuben Crowder, John W. Crowel, Manly Danforth, Harvey Graus, Albert H. Fish, John Feat, Andrew Gribble, Wm. Hawkins, Rufus Johnson, John W. Jackson, J. H. Loughlin, Davis Lator, John Miller, John Patterson, Richard Pollard, Wm. Robison, Asa Stone, Thos. Allphin, Wm. Bunton, Henry Blacker, Wm. Chapman, Samuel Chase, Sam Cornelius, James Dickson, S. D. Earl, Joseph Earl, D. O. Garland, Richmond Hays, Goalman Hubbard, Isaiah M. Johns, S. B. Knox, James H. Lewis, Horace Martin, John McCoy, James Officer, Henry Pellet, Wm. Russell, John Striethoff, A. M. Baxster, D. D. Burroughs, Samuel Clark, John M. Cantrel, Asi Cantrel, Albert G. Davis, S. D. Durbin, Samuel Fields, Rezin D. Foster, Isaac M. Foster, Horace Hart, Wm. Hock, Wm. A. Jack, Elias Kearney, James Killingsworth, Isaac Morgan, N. G. McDonnell, Madison McCully, Frederick Paul, Wm. M. Smith, H. M. Smith, Jason Wheeler, John Vaughn, Reuben Striethoff, Wm. Vaughn, Wm. Shirley.