Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/69

 later died on reaching the Umpqua Valley. These attacks de- terred other whites from traveling there for some time.

A few years after this tragedy, another visit for a peaceable purpose in the Christianizing of the Indians, was that by Jason Lee and Gustavus Hines, the pioneer Methodist Missionaries, who sought to establish a mission among the Umpqua River Indians. This was in 1840. The outlook they found was too discouraging and the Indians too treacherous to hazard a mis- sion there. These Indians were the same tribe that twelve years before had massacred the first coming of the white men under Jedediah Smith.

The first most public attraction to the country since then was in 1846, when it was believed 1 that a shorter and easier route for the incoming immigration than others had already traveled down the waters of the Snake and Columbia Rivers and the Barlow Pass, was by the Southern Pass from Fort Hall by the Humboldt, the Modoc and Klamath countries, and thence by the Rogue River and through the almost impassable Umpqua Canyon. This route was attempted with a caravan of nearly 100 wagons carrying immigrants and supplies. These Argonauts were sustained with the spirit of hope and con- fidence as they mentally chanted the pioneer refrain :

By incredible effort and much suffering and property loss, the way was opened. The next year many again traveled it to avoid the hostile Cayuse Indians on the upper Columbia. But with all this travel through Southern Oregon, none re- mained to settle it.

It was not until 1848, the first white men ventured into the country to make settlement. But these were only a few cour- ageous settlers who settled choice land claims in the Yoncalla and Looking Glass Valleys, though it is believed that as early as 1847 Warren N. Goodell located upon the land now the site of the town of Drain. No earlier settlements than these