Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/86

76 cattle Mr. Finley and I took a circuit around the range of the cattle and struck his trail going toward the Santiam, and after tracking him a mile or two we came across the same Indians, where they were camped and were drying the beef, having killed the ox. When we turned toward the camp Mr. Finley said if that Indian runs I'll shoot him. When they saw us coming they broke for the brush and Mr. Finley fired at one of them, they in their hurry leaving everything in camp, including the only gun they had.

After selecting such things as we could carry that would be of any value we made a bonfire of the rest, burning everything they had. When we started away I saw an Indian head come up by the side of a log in the timber and took a shot at him, it was a long shot, and I think the ball struck the log, but the head disappeared very suddenly. Another Indian started to run from behind a tree when Mr. Finley fired, aiming, as he said, to break a leg, wounding the Indian above the knee, but not disabling him. This caused quite an excitement in the settlement, the Indians and many of the settlers fearing it would cause an outbreak among the Indians, arguing that we ought not have shot at them, but should have treated them as others had done. However, Mr. Finley and I told them that if they didn't want to be shot at they must not steal from us, as we would shoot every time and that to kill. This put a stop to their stealing in this part of the country and we were not annoyed after that by the natives, and they never called for the pay for their land.

The Rev. H. H. Spalding taught a neighborhood school in a log schoolhouse one mile above where Brownsville now stands in the summer of 1849, there being no public schools in the country at that time. The first school district on the Calapooia, being the third in Linn County, was organized, I think, in the spring of 1853; but many of the early records of the county were burned in the courthouse, and I am unable to give the precise date. The first school was taught in the district in the summer of 1853 by Robert Moore.

As to the motive for coming to the Willamette Valley at that early date I hardly know how to answer, unless it was love of adventure, as the question of sovereignty had not been settled between the United States and England when I came here. True, the United States senate had been discussing the matter of giving each settler in Oregon six hundred and forty acres of land, and we rather expected that would be done, but we had no real assurance that such would be the case.

Among the early county officers of Linn County, after its organization under the Territorial Government, quite a number were living on the Calapooia, Alexander Kirk being elected county judge, N. D. Jack assessor, John A. Dunlap representative, and William McCaw clerk in 1849, and in 1850 several men who were elected to county officers went to the mines and failed to qualify, among them the county treasurer,