Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/535

484 secure that useful commodity, as well as the more tangible one of $2,000 subscribed by citizens on condition of finding a good pass for the coming immigration, he formed the plan of exploring for a road leading from the Willamette Valley through the Cascade Mountains to the plains of eastern Oregon, which should avoid the hardships of the trail round Mount Hood and the passage down the Columbia River. On the 12th of July, accompanied by Joseph Gale, Baptiste Du Guerre, John Edmonds, Orris Brown, Moses Harris, Joseph Charles Saxton of the last immigration, and two others, he set out on an expedition along the foothills of the Cascade Range to the southern end of the Willamette Valley, finding no pass through the mountains to the east. While at the head of the valley he ascended, with Du Guerre, a prominent peak or butte in the foothills, which he named after the secretary of war, Mount Spencer.

Returning to the north along the west side of the valley, he sought to compensate himself for the disappointment by discovering a path through the Coast Range to the sea, at Yaquina Bay, after which he hastened back to Oregon City, and reported truthfully enough to the legislature, then in session, his failure and his partial success in "bringing ship navigation with all the products of the ocean within two days' drive with ox-teams of the centre of the valley," for which he received the thanks of that body, together with a resolution recommending to the favorable consideration of congress his just claims for a remuneration for the expense incurred in the expedition. The Oregon Spectator, the first newspaper published in Oregon, and owned and controlled principally by the former members of the Methodist Mission, mentions White's exploit with much favor, and says he meant to find a road into the Willamette by a route formerly travelled