Oregon and Washington Volunteers/20

[Deposition of the principal merchants and traders of Jacksonville, Oregon Territory, relative to the hostility of Indians in southern, Oregon, prices of supplies, &c., dated November 12, 1857.]
Deposition taken before William Hoffman, a notary public within and for the county of Jackson and Territory of Oregon, at his office in Jacksonville, in said county.

John W. McCully, aged 36 years; Daniel Kenney, aged 35 years; W. W. Fowler, aged 44 years; Sigismund Ettlinger, aged 30 years; Jacob A, Brunner, aged 35 years; William Hesse, aged 37 years; John Anderson, aged 34 years; Benjamin T. Davis, aged 36 years; all merchants or traders, and residents of Jacksonville, Oregon, after being duly sworn, state that Rogue River valley is situated in southern Oregon, and Shasta valley in northern California; that these valleys are surrounded with rough and rugged mountains, which make them very difficult of access ; that these valleys are bounded on the west by the Coast range of mountains, on the east by the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges; that the Grave Creek hills, Umpqua, and Calapooia mountains separate Rogue River valley from steamboat navigation on the Willamette river, and Mount Shasta and the Trinity mountains separate Shasta valley from steamboat navigation on the Sacramento river, and Shasta and Rogue River valleys are divided by the Siskiyou mountain, which runs near due east and west, and close to the dividing line between Oregon and California. The principal towns in these valleys are Jacksonville, in Oregon, and Yreka, in California. These towns are noted for their rapid increase in population, the frequent changes and fluctuations in their markets, rich gold mines, frequent Indian wars, and high prices; but it will be seen by the following prices that the government has not been asked to pay as high prices to prosecute these wars as individuals have frequently paid in time of peace for the necessaries of life, while pursuing their common avocations. Yreka was settled in 1851, and Jacksonville in 1852.

The price of flour in Yreka, in 1851, varied from sixteen cents to a dollar per pound, and sugar, coffee, and salt, from forty cents to a dollar and twenty-five cents per pound. Since the settlement of Jacksonville prices have generally been higher in Yreka than in Jacksonville; and for the last five years these affiants have been merchandising or trading in the latter place, and the following are some of the prices which they, or some of them, have, at different times, sold bacon, flour, sugar, coffee, and salt, and the price of beef is the price they have paid for their own use.

January 15, 1852, flour 16 cents per lb.; March, flour 20 cents per lb.; April, flour 25 cents per lb.; May, flour 20 cents per lb.; June, flour 20 cents per lb.; July, bacon 70 cents, flour 20 cents, sugar 40 cents per lb.; August, flour 25 cents per lb.; August 29, bacon 70 cents, flour 35 cents, sugar 50 cents, coffee 70 cents, and salt 40 cents per lb.; September 27, bacon 75 cents, flour 31 cents, sugar 30 cents, coffee 60 cents, salt 35 cents, and beef 25 to 30 cents per lb.; October 10, bacon 50 cents, flour 45 cents, sugar 50 cents, coffee 75 cents, salt 50 cents, and beef 30 to 35 cents per lb.; November 16, bacon 50 cents, flour 30 to 35 cents, sugar 40 cents, coffee 40 cents, salt $1 85, beef 25 to 30 cents per lb.; December 20, flour $1 25, salt $4, beef 30 to 35 cents per lb.

January 8, 1853, flour $1 25, sugar $1, coffee $1, salt $3, beef 25 to 30 cents per lb.; February 9, flour 60 cents, sugar 50 cents, coffee 50 cents, beef 25 to 30 cents per lb.; March 12, bacon 40 cents, flour 48 cents, sugar 50 cents, coffee 75 cents, salt 33⅓ cents, beef 25 to 30 cents per lb.; April 12, flour 25 to 30 cents, sugar 38 cents, coffee 40 cents, salt 38 cents, beef 25 to 30 cents per lb.; May 12, bacon 75 cents, flour 23 cents, sugar 38 cents, coffee 45 cents, salt 25 cents, beef 25 to 30 cents per lb.; June 7, bacon 50 cents, flour 18 cents, sugar 33⅓ cents, coffee 50 cents, salt 20 cents, beef 20 to 25 cents per lb.; July 1, bacon 50 cents, flour 16 cents, sugar 25 cents, coffee 35 cents, salt 35 cents, beef 20 to 25 cents per lb; August 20, bacon 75 cents, flour 35 to 40 cents, sugar 50 cents, coffee 75 cents, salt 40 to 50 cents, beef 20 to 30 cents per lb.; September 10, bacon 75 cents, flour 40 cents, sugar 50 cents, coffee 75 cents, salt 50 cents, beef 25 to 30 cents per lb.; October 10, bacon 75 cents, flour 40 cents, sugar 50 cents, coffee 75 cents, salt 40 cents, beef 20 to 25 cents per lb.; November 7, bacon 50 cents, flour 20 cents, sugar 33⅓ cents, coffee 40 cents, salt 25 cents, beef 20 to 25 cents per lb.; December 3, bacon 50 cents, flour 25 cents, sugar 30 cents, coffee 40 cents, salt 30 cents, beef 20 to 25 cents per lb.

The above prices have been taken from the books and accounts of these affiants, and from them it will be seen that in 1852 and 1853 flour raised in Jacksonville from sixteen cents to one dollar and twenty-five cents per pound; bacon from forty to seventy-five cents per pound; coffee from forty cents to one dollar; sugar from thirty cents to one dollar; salt from thirty-five cents to four dollars, and beef from twenty-five to thirty-five cents per pound.

These affiants are informed and verily believe that during the same time, in Yreka, a distance of sixty miles, flour sold from sixteen cents to two dollars per pound, and coffee and sugar from forty and fifty cents to a dollar and fifty cents and two dollars per pound; salt and tobacco from one dollar to fourteen dollars per pound ; and that thousands of persons, during the winter of 1852 and 1853, lived in Jacksonville and Yreka for upwards of six months upon beef straight; that as late as March, 1853, thousands of pounds of flour were sold in Yreka for cash at one dollar per pound.

In 1854 the roads and pack trails were better, and the prices lower and more uniform—flour varying from fourteen cents to forty cents per pound; bacon, from thirty-five cents to seventy-five cents per pound; sugar, from twenty to forty cents per pound; coffee, from thirty to seventy-five cents per pound; and salt from fifteen cents to forty cents per pound, and everything else in proportion.

In the latter part of the summer and first of the fall of 1854 the quartermaster general of Oregon was wholly unable to get flour at forty cents, sugar at fifty cents, bacon and coffee at seventy-five cents, enough in Jacksonville to supply Captain Jesse Walker’s company of mounted volunteers ninety-six days, while in active service, on the credit of the Territory and the faith of the United States, but was compelled to apply to the merchants of Yreka, California, for the necessary supplies for the use of this company and the indigent immigrants who were then on their way to southern Oregon and northern California. We know this of our own knowledge, for we were applied to and urged to furnish the necessary supplies at the above prices. As late as December, 1854, flour sold at sixteen cents per pound at Jacksonville, and as high, at the same time, as twenty and twenty-three cents at Yreka; but in the spring of 1855 it fell to twelve and thirteen cents, and this article has never been above thirteen cents since in this market; and now these affiants are selling an excellent article of flour at five cents per pound, bacon at thirty-five cents, sugar and coffee at thirty-three cents, and salt as low as twelve cents per pound. However, flour has declined more in price than any other article, owing to large and fine crops of wheat being raised in Rogue River, Shasta and Scott’s valleys, in the immediate vicinity of, probably, the best gold mines on the Pacific coast, while sugar, coffee, salt and dry goods are still transported here from San Francisco, California. Since the first settlement of these towns to the present the great body of merchandise which has been sold in Jacksonville and Yreka has been transported on the backs of pack-mules, either from the head of steamboat navigation on the Sacramento river, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles, or from the head of steamboat navigation on the Willamette river, a distance of two hundred miles, or across the Coast range of mountains from Crescent City, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles. Freights upon whole stocks of goods and groceries have frequently been from fifteen to twenty and thirty cents per pound from these places to Jacksonville, and sometimes as high as fifty cents on unhandy articles to pack.

As late as November, 1854, the said Fowler was compelled to pay fifty cents per pound for packing some billiard tables from Crescent City to Jacksonville, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, and as late as the fall of 1855 many of the merchants of Jacksonville paid upwards of sixteen cents per pound freight on whole cargoes of their goods from San Francisco to Jacksonville, and as late as April, 1856, they paid upwards of thirteen cents; but during the last summer it only cost them from five to six cents. This great change so recently in the price of transportation doubtlessly may be attributed to the removal of the hostile Indians to the Coast reservation from the immediate vicinity of the roads and pack-trails over which the Jacksonville merchandise had to pass. Now there is less danger of Indians, the pack animals are more constantly employed, and more pack animals have come on the route from Lower California, which has caused greater competition between the packers. From the first settlement of Shasta and Rogue River valleys to the time of the removal of the Indians to the Coast reservations in 1856, the roads and trails leading to and through these valleys have been considered more or less dangerous, and many transportation animals that would have been employed on these trails, owing to the hostility of the Indians, have been kept employed on other roads and trails where the Indians were considered less dangerous.

These numerous fluctuations and high prices have been caused by a variety of facts and circumstances, such as the hostility of Indians, scarcity of capital, high price of interest, muddy and snowy roads, rough and rugged mountains over which the merchandise had to pass, the scarcity of transportation animals, and the high price of labor. Interest, from the first discovery of gold mines in Shasta valley to the present time, has been from three to five per cent, per month; hence the merchants could only buy or sell on very short credits, and the miners have made from nothing to one hundred dollars per day to the hand. Under these circumstances, common laborers, who have no claims, will not work for less than from two to six dollars per day.

Witnesses further state that they are acquainted, from common reputation, with the general character of the Shasta, Modoc, and Pi-ute Indians, and know something of the dangers, difficulties, trials, and hardships that many of the overland immigrants have to encounter, and the hostilities of these Indians in the summer of 1854, at the time Captain Jesse Walker’s company was called into active service, and they believe the company was actually necessary for the safety of the lives and property of the immigrants; that the regular army, stationed in the vicinity of the emigrant road, was small and wholly failed to keep the peace within the settlements between the whites and Indians.

These witnesses have no interest in these claims for supplies, &c., furnished to Captain Jesse Walker’s company, but make this affidavit, at the request of the claimants, that justice may be done.  J. W. McCULLY, D. M. KENNY, W. W. FOWLER, S. ETTLINGER, J. A. BRUNNER, W. HESSE, JOHN ANDERSON, and BENJAMIN T. DAVIS.  , Jackson County, ss.

I, William Hoffman, notary public within and for the said county, do hereby certify that the above and foregoing affidavit was taken before me, and reduced to writing by myself, on the 12th day of November, A. D. 1857, at my office, in Jacksonville, and that the said affidavit was carefully read to said witnesses, and then subscribed and sworn to by them. I further certify that the said affiants are credible persons, and that I have no interest in this claim.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my notarial seal, at Jacksonville, this twelfth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven.  WILLIAM HOFFMAN, Notary Public. 