Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/92

58 the way" to the Columbia's headwaters, and to safety and success. And by her aid as an interpreter, and her kinship to the Shoshones, the party was enabled to procure horses from a band of wandering Shoshones, and by "caching" their boats, and packing their goods and blankets on the ponies, they got out of the labyrinth of mountains, crossed over the great divide, struck the middle fork of the Clearwater, and made their way down to where the city of Lewiston now stands.

Here they got canons from the Nez Perce Indians, and floated down the Snake river to the Columbia, and on down the Columbia to where Astoria now stands, and paddled around Taylor's point and crossed over Young's bay and built log huts at a point named Fort Clatsop, where they went into winter quarters until the spring of 1806.

With the troubles and experiences of the exploring party, during the long rainy season of 1805-6 at Fort Clatsop, we have no concern. The men put in their time hunting, fishing, mending their clothes, making moccasins for the long tramp homeward in the spring, and in making salt by the seaside out of the Pacific ocean water, and some remains of the old furnace in which they placed their kettles to evaporate the salt water, being still in existence after the lapse of one hundred and four years. As early in the spring of 1806 as it was practicable to travel, the party started on their return to the states. Whether the expedition, as a party, ever camped on the present site of Portland, is uncertain. The probability is very strong that they did camp on the river flat in front of the town of St. Johns, which is a suburb of this city, and it is certain that members of the party came up the river as far as Portland townsite. On their return up the Columbia, the explorers camped at the mouth of the White Salmon river on the north side of the Columbia, and there it was that Tomitsk (Jake Hunt), the Klickitat Indian, pictured on another page, saw the explorers, the first white men he had ever seen, when he was a little boy, eleven years of age, making Tomitsk one hundred and fifteen years old now, and probably the oldest Indian on the Pacific coast.

The party pursued their way back over the mountains, and down the Missouri river without loss, or anything specially eventful, arriving at St. Louis in September in 1806, having been absent from civilization for two years and four months. Their safe return caused great rejoicing throughout the west. "Never," says President Jefferson, "did a similar event excite more joy throughout the United States. The humblest of its citizens had taken a lively interest in the issue of this journey and looked forward with impatience to the information it would bring." The expedition had accomplished a great work, for it opened the door not only into the heart of the far west, but to the shores of the great Pacific, and laid the foundation of a just national claim to all the regions west of the Rocky mountains, north of the California line, up to the Russian possessions. There is no other expedition like it, or equal to it, in the history of civilization; and every member of it down to the humblest returned to their homes as heroes of a great historical deed. The president promptly rewarded the two leaders with just recognition, appointing Captain Lewis, governor of Louisiana territory, and making Captain Clark, governor and Indian agent of Missouri territory. The only regretable circumstances of the whole great work, was the untimely death of Sergeant Floyd, which took place, as before stated, before the expedition got fairly started on the way. A great monument has been erected to his memory at the location of his burial near Sioux City, Iowa. The only miscarriage of justice, was the neglect of the brave and patient little Indian heroine, Sacajawea, who received no reward whatever. Both Lewis and Clark, so far as words could go, recognized the great services of the woman to the fullest extent, but gave no reward. The services of Sacajawea was equal to that of any of the whole party, and much greater than those of most of the party. She had not only paddled the canoes, trudged where walking was necessary, and in every event, done as much as a man, and that too with her infant