Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/95

Rh babe on her back, but she had rendered that greater service which no one else could render—she had made friends for the party when they were in dire straits in the mountains, and secured from her tribe assistance in horses and provisions which no other person could have commanded; and when in doubt as to what course they should take, to reach safety towards the headwaters of the Columbia, Sacajawea pointed out the route through the mountain defiles. And it was left to the noble women of this city, and to their great honor they nobly performed the duty, of raising to this Indian benefactress of the great northwest, the first and fitting monument to perpetuate her name and unselfish labors—the heroic size bronze statue of the woman at Lewis and Clark exposition, and now standing in the city park.

Many persons have entertained the idea, that, with the exception of the leaders, who were educated, and came from distinguished families in old Virginia, the rank and file were rough and inconsequential characters, picked up around St. Louis. This is a great mistake; for they were nearly all of them, men of great natural force and ability, and selected by their leaders because of their inherent force of character. As the author of this history was personally acquainted with one member of the party, and with the family of another member of the party, the following sketches of them are given as fair samples of the whole force, and which will show our reader what character of men it was that braved the dangers of the unknown wilderness, and risked their lives in the most dangerous and arduous toils to navigate wild streams and scale frowning mountain barriers to uncover and make known to the world this old Oregon of ours.


 * This member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was undoubtedly the most vigorous and energetic character of the entire party; and notwithstanding some excesses in living outlived all his compatriots. Gass was the son of Irish parents, born near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania in 1771, and died at Wellsburgh in the state of West Virginia, April 30th, 1870, nearly one hundred years old. The Gass family moved from Chambersburgh, when the boy was a mere child carried in a creel on the sides of a pack horse, and settled near Pittsburgh. There were no schools in those days in the frontier settlements, and Patrick Gass grew up as other boys of his day, schooled to hardships and dangers, ready and eager for adventure of any sort. He was not long in finding an opportunity and joined a party of Indian fighters under the lead of the celebrated Lewis Wetzel, and had his experience in Indian warfare in Belmont county, Ohio, where the author of this book subsequently first saw the light of day forty years afterwards. Like other young fellows at that time Gass made trips down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, in "flat boats" in trading expeditions, returning home by ship to Philadelphia and thence to Pittsburgh with freight teams.

Gass learned the carpenter's trade; but when war was threatened with France in 1799, he joined the army and was ordered to Kaskaskia, Illinois, and while at that station, met Captain Meriwether Lewis who was hunting for volunteers for the great expedition to the Pacific. With the aid of Lewis, he managed to get released from his enlistment in the army, and safely made the trip from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia and return to the Ohio. He kept a journal of his great trip, which shows he had by his own efforts, picked up some book education, and his journal was the first account published, of the expedition. When the war of 1812 broke out, he again joined the army and served along with the writers grand-father at the battle of Lundy's Lane, where he was severely wounded. The remainder of his life was spent at and near Wellsburgh, West Virginia. In 183 1, at sixty years of age, he was married and lived a happy life thereafter, having seven children born to him. At ninety years of age when the southern rebellion broke out, he volunteered to fight for the union of the states, but of course his age precluded an acceptance of his patriotic offer. Soon after this event he became converted to the Christian