Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/128

 t in 1843.

This expedition of Fremont 's never amounted to anything in Oregon ; but it had a vast circulation in the Eastern states. Fremont was the son-in-lav? of Thomas H. Benton; Benton was United States senator from Missouri, and a great and good friend of Oregon ; and that excused Fremont 's shortcomings to the Mis- sourians in Oregon, and made him a national figure under the title of the ' ' Path Finder, ' ' and upon which capital he was finally nominated the second candidate of the republican party for the presidency of the United States. The writer of this book cast his first vote for president for John C. Fremont.

Fremont's expedition to Oregon left the Missouri river at the point where Kansas City is located on the 29th of May, 1843, and traveled along the Oregon trail just behind the Oregon emigration of that year. At the big bend of Bear river, Fremont turned south and visited Great Salt Lake, and after some examin- ation of that salt sea returned again to the Oregon trail and followed along after the Oregon immigrants until he reached the Dalles. There he left his party and came down to Fort Vancouver in a canoe and purchased supplies for a southerly extension of his travels from the Dalles to California. These supplies were sent up to him at the Dalles by the Hudson's Bay Company. That Fremont's trip across to Oregon from the Missoviri river was whollj' destitute of any merit and without a single event to entitle kim to any praise is evident from the oft-quoted testimony of Oregon's distinguished pioneer and statesman, James W. Nesmith. In his address to the Oregon Pioneer Association in 1875, Senator Nesmith says : "I have often been asked in the Eastern states how long it was after Fremont discovered Oregon that I emigrated to that country. It is true that in 1843, Fre- mont, then a lieutenant in the engineer corps, did cross the plains, and brought his party to the Dalles in the rear of our emigration. His outfit contained all the conveniences and luxuries that a government appropriation could procure, while he 'roughed it' in a covered carriage, surrounded by servants paid from the pub- lie purse. The path he found was that made by the hard}' frontiersman who pre- ceded him to the Pacific, and who stood by their rifles and held the country against hostile Indians and British threats without government aid or recogni- tion until 1849, when the first government troops came to our relief."

Returning now to Fremont at the Dalles, with his larder well filled from the stores of the Hudson 's Bay Company, we find him on November 25, 1843, starting south from the Dalles with twenty-five men, nearly all of whom were Canadian French trappers, but among whom was the celebrated guide, explorer and Indian fighter. Kit Carson. The party kept up the south side of the Des Chutes river, passing through the points now known as Dufur, Tygh Valley, Wapanitia, Warm Springs and on up to the point where the railroad junction is to be at the town of Crescent. Fremont was following the old trappers' trail, and his object was to explore the Klamath Lake region. Crossing the Des Chutes near Crescent he kept on south until his carriage struck Klamath marsh, on December 10, 1843, and was compelled to stop or turn aside.

At Klamath marsh the party turned east, exploring the country on both sides. Fremont claims to have discovered and named in succession Summer. Abert and Christmas lakes in Lake county ; but while some of his men may have been at Summer and Silver lakes, it is clear from his own map that Fremont never saw either Summer, Silver or Christmas lake. The Fremont party struck the Che- waucan river in the neighborhood of the site of Paisley, and kept on down the