Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 15.djvu/77



DEDICATION GRAND RONDE MILITARY BLOCK HOUSE 69

The old Indian jargon is disappearing. Gen. Sheridan, who spoke it fluently, calls it "the Court language of the Coast tribes." It would be of historical importance to preserve in this Museum record translations of this old common tongue of Hudson's Bay Indian times. Though mainly a trader's lan- guage it was made up of many words in common use by the Indians. Through it the Indian by well known accents and gestures could express, often even eloquently, their heart emo- tions ; and all along the coast they took to it quite naturally. A. B. Meacham, in his "Wigwam and Warpath," gives a num- ber of occasions when the rude, untutored eloquence of Indian character found vent in the Chinook language. One of the most striking instances of Indian heart-felt jargon was given me by Mr. Van Trump, who, with Gen. Hazard Stevens, made the first ascent of Old Mt. Rainier (then called by certain tribes Takoma,) who were guided to the snow-line by old Sluikin, who there in pathetic Chinook speech fervently im- plored his friends not to climb the snow and ice to the summit, because up there on the snowy heights was the throne of the Great Spirit himself, the Saghale Tyhe, who was sure to punish possibly through storm and avalanche, such sacrilege,

Block Houses are symbols of the Pioneer past. They were scattered far and near in Oregon and Washington. They were the outposts of civilization. How thought prolific is inspired as we look on these time scarred walls brought down from the past. When a babe in my mother's arms in 1851 I was carried from an old French bateaux on the portage landing the site of the old Block House at the upper Cascades destroyed by the elements and the flood of 76. It stood for years where now is the iron track of the Great North Bank Railroad, built at a cost of forty-eight million dollars along the Columbia River along where rolled "the Oregon and heard no sound save its own dashing." Note the epochs. Bryant and Thana- topsis ; Lieut. Phil Sheridan and the Block House. Gen. Sher- idan and the famous ride to Winchester. A Union saved under a Sheridan and a Grant and a Lincoln. One Flag and one Country, and Oregon the western gem of the Nation. Indian