Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/85

Rh time. I will state here that Mr. Finley had settled at the falls of the Calapooia where he contemplated building, and did in 1848 build a flouring mill, being the first mill south of Salem. In the fall of 1847, as before stated, I and Asa Moore settled in Brush Creek Valley above Mr. Finley, he being the upper settler up to that time, and at the same time James McHargue and Robert Montgomery, who crossed the plains that season, settled below Mr. Finley and Thomas Fields several miles farther up the stream. Wm. T. Templeton, William Robnett, William McCaw, John Findlay, John A. Dunlap, and Thomas S. Woodfin all crossed the plains in 1847 and subsequently settled on the Calapooia, but after the annoyance with the Indians had ceased.

The Indians in these early days were in the habit of stealing horses and cattle from the settlers and butchering them, and the settlers would trail them up and if able to catch them would flog them severely, but the Indians seemed to care about as much as a cur for such treatment and would laugh about it as if it was all a huge joke. Some time during the summer of 1847 Isaac B. Courtnay was hunting in Brush Creek Valley, being above the settlement at that time, when he met with a few Indians, who took his gun and ammunition and allowed him to go home. During the fall and winter of 1847 the Indians annoyed Mr. Fields so much that he finally moved down to my place on Brush Creek and stayed until the spring of 1848.

In the fall of 1847 when I and Mr. Moore came into Brush Creek Valley we were not aware that there were any Indians near there and selected a place to build a cabin in which to spend the winter, we being single men, were going to batch through the winter, when I intended to bring my mother to live with me, my father having died soon after starting for Oregon. When we commenced cutting logs for our cabin two or three Indians appeared on the scene and inquired what we were doing there, and on being told we were going to settle there they demanded pay for the land, and we finally made a bargain with them agreeing to pay them in wheat and pease after the next harvest, this being the way in which many of the early settlers bargained with them.

During the fall and early winter when an Indian happened to be present at mealtime we gave him something to eat, but it soon became apparent that if we kept this up we would run out of provisions before spring, as there were one or more Indians there nearly every meal, so we were obliged to quit feeding them, when they demanded pay for their land again we told them, however, that we would pay them according to contract. Soon after this they moved away, and we saw no more of them on Brush Creek.

As Mr. Finley was contemplating the building of a mill the next summer he traded for a fat ox which I had brought with me, intending to butcher him when he commenced work, but soon after the Indians left the ox disappeared also. When we missed him from the other