Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 25.djvu/360

318 ment of stately granite as a memorial of the heroic men and the valorous defense they made there in the pioneer days of old Oregon.

The steamer's delayed arrival with recruits found the rock vacated, but with evidences of a deadly conflict all about. Kirkpatrick had left a written note of the attack and the fight, which was found, but no further explanation of the escape, and it was assumed that all had been massacred, and the next day it was so reported at Portland by the ship's captain.

The newcomers were all landed and housed in a temporary fortification on the townsite, while the steamer with Captain Tichenor continued on her way to Portland. Further road builders were there again procured under command of Colonel W. G. T'Vault, a well known Oregon pioneer and editor and publisher of the first American newspaper west of the Rocky Mountains. He had also guided the American regular army troops under Major Kearney to California in 1846, all of which rightly commended him to Captain Tichenor as a competent leader for the Port Orford road makers. This new corps were then brought and safely landed at Port Orford on September 3rd, together with a portion of U. S. troops found stationed at Astoria, which because of the Battle Rock siege and further expected hostilities was thought necessary by the military authorities. Port Orford now also became a military camp with other troops from California ordered forward.

Barely had these precautions been observed when another tragedy occurred at the mouth of the Coquille River, far more disastrous to the whites engaged than at Battle Rock. This was of the T'Vault road makers. Eighteen of these had proceeded on their way up the Rogue River, but in a few days became confused in their course, and then lost in the impenetrable forests and