Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/388

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ing a log, the glib-tongued orator delivered a glowing, florid address. He com- meuced bj' showing his audience that the then western tier of states and terri- tories was over-crowded with a redundant population, who had not sufficient elbow room for the expansion of their enterprise and genius, and it was a duty they owed to themselves and posterity to strike out in search of a more expanded field and more genial climate, where the soil yielded the richest return for the slightest amount of cultivation, where the trees were loaded with perennial fruit, and where a good substitute for bread, called lacamas, grew in the ground, salmon and other fish crowded the streams, and where the principal labor of the settler would be confined to keeping their gardens free from the inroads of buffalo, elk, deer, and wild turkeys. He appealed to our patriotism by pictur- ing forth the glorious empire we would establish on the shores of the Paciiic. How, with our trusty rifles, we would drive out the British usurpers who claimed the soil, and defend the country from the avarice and pretensions of the British lion, and how posterity would honor us for placing the fairest portion of our land under the dominion of the Stars and Stripes. He concluded with a slight allusion to the trials and hardships incident to the trip, and dangers to be en- countered from hostile Indians, on the route, and those inhabiting the country whither we were bound. He furthermore intimated a desire to look upon the tribe of noble "red men" that the valiant and well-armed crowd around could not vanquish in a single encounter.

Other speeches were made, full of glowing descriptions of the fair land of promise, the far-away-Oregon, which no one in the assemblage had even seen, and of which not more than half a dozen had ever read any account. After the election of Mr. Burnett as captain, and other necessary officers, the meeting, as motley and primitive as one ever assembled, adjourned, with "three cheers" for Captain Burnett and Oregon. On the 20th day of May, 1843, after a pretty thor- ough military organization, we took up our line of march; with Captain John Gantt, an old arm.y officer, who combined the ' character of trapper and moun- taineer, as our guide. Gantt had in his wanderings been as far as Green River, and assured us of the practicability of a wagon road thus far. Green River, the extent of our guide's knowledge in that direction, was not half-way to the Wil- lamette valley, the then only inhabited portion of Oregon. Beyond that we had not the slightest conjecture of the condition of the country. We went forth trusting to the future, and would doubtless have encountered more difficulties than we experienced had not Dr. Whitman overtaken us before we reached the terminus of our guide's knowledge. He was familiar with the whole route and was confident that wagons could pass through the canyons and gorges of Snake River and over the Blue Mountains, which the mountaineers in the vicinity of Fort Hall declared to be a physical impossibility.

"Captain Grant, then in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company, at Fort Hall, endeavored to dissuade us from proceeding further with our wagons, and showed us the wagons that the emigrants of the preceding year had abandoned as an evidence of the impracticability of our determination. Dr. Whitman was per- sistent in his assertions that wagons could proceed as far as the Grand Dalles of the Columbia River, from which point he asserted they could be taken down by rafts or batteaux to the Willamette Valley, while our stock could be driven by an Indian trail over the Cascade Mountains, near Mount Hood. Happily