| Oregon or the Grave
A fresh perspective on the aftermath of the Lewis & Clark Expedition By Randol B. Fletcher Randol Fletcher is a history graduate of the University of Oregon and great great grandson of the Francis Fletcher in the following text. Randol, a Field Claims Contact Manager with the Farmers Insurance Group, lives in Eugene with his wife Karen, son Andrew, 14 and daughter Allison, 13. On the first day of May 1839 a group of 16 armed and mounted men rode up to the courthouse in the town square of Peoria, Illinois, bowed their heads, pledged themselves never to desert one another, turned and rode west to the cheers of local citizens who had turned out to see them off. Their stated intent was to colonize the Oregon country on behalf of the United States and drive out the English fur trading companies operating there. Their organizer and elected captain was a Peoria lawyer, Thomas Jefferson Farnham and he called his men the Oregon Dragoons. They carried with them a flag emblazoned with the motto Oregon or the Grave, a gift from Mrs. Farnham. The seed for the expedition had been planted the previous fall when Rev. Jason Lee visited Peoria on a national speaking tour about the Oregon country. Lee was a Methodist missionary who had been living and working among the Native Americans in the Willamette Valley since 1833. Lee was in the vanguard of missionaries that were sent to Oregon in response to an 1831 visit to the United States by a delegation of four Native Americans representing the Flathead and Nez Perce tribes of the Pacific Northwest. These tribes had contact with Catholic Iriquois Indians who were working with French-Canadian trappers in the Northwest. These meetings aroused the Northwest tribes’ curiosity about the white
man’s religion practiced by the Iriquois. Their delegation was dispatched
to seek counsel from the trusted white men who had visited the Oregon country
some 25 years earlier: Merriweather Lewis and William Clark.
Lewis was long A plea for Presidential help Lee left Oregon in March of 1838 to travel to New York City to request
supplies and more personnel for his mission. He carried with him
a petition signed by 36 settlers asking President Martin Van Buren to
“take formal and Both the United States and Great Britain laid claim to the Pacific Northwest, which since the end of the War of 1812. was under a treaty of joint occupation. The American claim was based upon the discovery of the Columbia River by Captain Robert Gray and upon the exploration of the Oregon country by the Lewis & Clark Expedition. The British claim was based upon occupation and settlement. The Hudson Bay Company had established a series of forts, the largest being Fort Vancouver, to protect and promote their lucrative fur trade.
Calapooyas provide incentive When Lee spoke at Peoria’s Main Street Presbyterian Church on October 1, 1838, he had with him five Native American boys from the Calapooya tribe. One of these, Thomas Adams, became ill and was left in Peoria to recuperate. Indian Tom, as he was called, created quite a sensation as he described his life in Oregon. The combination of Adams’ stories and Lee’s speech created the incentive to form the Oregon Dragoons with the intention of claiming Oregon for the United States. Almost all the Dragoons were single, in their early twenties, with a romantic sense of adventure. When they left Peoria, each man had his own horse, a rifle with powder and 120 balls, a Bowie knife weighing as much as 7-9 pounds, and $100-150 for supplies. The party jointly owned a tent large enough for all 16 men to sleep,, a wagon with two horse team, provisions and a communal kitty of $100 for contingencies. Farnham saw himself as a military leader and adventurer. He believed his army of 16 men, only one of whom had any military experience, could rally the Americans living in Oregon and drive out the British by force of arms if necessary. The party started each morning with marching orders and bugle calls. There was additional motivation of gaining wealth in Oregon. Plans were discussed to ship Northwest salmon and furs around the Horn to the east coast of the United States. Party member Joseph Holman was a cooper by trade and would be relied upon to make the barrels needed for preserving and shipping the salmon. Bickering threatens Peoria Party Almost immediately into the journey, the men started bickering which culminated a month later in a near fatal accident and the eventual dissolution of the Peoria Party. Three weeks after leaving Peoria, the men arrived in Independence, Missouri. There they bought more supplies, including an additional 200 pounds of flour, traded their wagon for pack mules and were joined by two more men: Robert Shortess, a Pennsylvania native who had lived some years in western Missouri, and John Pritchel, an Englishman. The group was reorganized, with Farnham again elected captain, while Chauncey Wood was named his lieutenant. The remaining men were divided into four companies of four men each. The Oregon Dragoons now consisted of two officers and 16 men. They agreed to bury their differences and start out fresh.
The party may have had a map of the West published in 1838, but it is more likely that they relied upon local trappers and traders for advice en route. Andrew Sublette, a mountain man and fur trader, was in Independence at that time and advised the Dragoons to go southwest on the more heavily traveled Santa Fe Trail. Farnham decided to follow the Santa Fe route across Kansas, then turn west across what is now Colorado, proceed north to Brown’s Hole and pick up what would later become the Oregon Trail between Brown’s Hole and Fort Hall. This decision added at least a month to the trip and winter became a looming factor as the party proceeded. The party departed Independence on May 30. Native American encountered On June 10 the Peoria Party had their first encounter with Native Americans along the trail. Farnham’s journal describes one of them: “He had no clothing, save a blanket tied over the left shoulder and drawn under the right arm. His head was shaven entirely bare, with the exception of a tuft of hair, about two inches in width, extending from the center occipital over the middle of the forehead. It was short and course and stood erect, like the comb of a cock. His figure was the perfection of physical beauty. He was five feet nine or ten inches in height, and looked the Indian in everything.” The white men gave this Native American some powder and flint and they parted peacefully. Rain fell continuously and the going was rough. Farnham noted in his journal: “I was so much reduced when I dismounted from my horse on the evening of the fifteenth, that I was unable to loosen my saddle or spread my blanket for repose.” Arguments again broke out among the party. Farnham had made a critical error by counting on game to sustain his men all the way to Oregon. They brought with them just flour, salt and a little bacon. The men were so inexperienced that after the first week on the trail they were low on food. They were not skilled marksmen and failed to kill anything with their flintlock rifles. Food rationing became necessary and each man was limited to a daily food allotment of one quarter cup of flour, mixed with water and fried in bacon fat. They were wet and hungry and their condition and morale was generally miserable. Three members of the group quit and headed back to Peoria. Protein pervades the diet Instead of the buffalo they had counted on, the party’s first meal of
wild game was turtle soup, made from a 20 pound turtle shot by Sidney Smith.
The next meals were catfish and antelope. It was more than a month
before they encountered the herds of buffalo they expected. Francis
Fletcher and Quinn Jordan brought down the first buffalo. By then,
the supplies of flour and salt were exhausted and the men lived the rest
of the trip on “meat straight” as described in Holman’s account of the
journey. Eventually, the party was surrounded by buffalo herds so
immense they couldn’t pass through them.
After crossing the Arkansas River (the “American Nile” to Farnham) the party overtook the Alvarez/Walworth pack train headed for Bent’s Fort. Due to their fear of Indian raids, the two groups traveled together for mutual protection. When it was time for the parties to head in separate directions, one of the traders, William Blair, joined the Peoria Party. Argument ends in gunfire Although food was no longer an immediate concern, disagreements continued among the men. The further they traveled, the more quarrelsome they became. One of the hottest tempered men was Sidney Smith, the turtle slayer. On June 20, 1839, with Farnham absent from camp, another petty bickering broke out as the men packed up to proceed. The argument culminated when Smith rushed to the tent and pulled out his rifle by the barrel. The gun discharged and Smith was shot in the side, seriously wounded. Smith insisted that someone had shot him, until he was shown the smoking barrel of his own rifle. Farnham had brought no medical supplies of any kind, so a rider was dispatched to bring back a wagon and a “doctor” from the wagon train they had met. Smith was placed in the wagon and the party headed southwest for Bent’s Fort. Before Smith’s injury, the party was able to cover 20-30 miles in a day. After his wounding, they were luck to make 15 miles per day. Following the accident, the party dissolved into chaos and Farnham lost all authority. On the trail to Bent’s Fort a heated meeting was held and Farnham, accused of incompetence and waste of party funds, was deposed as captain. Robert Shortess, who had joined the group in Independence, was elected in Farnham’s place. At age 43, Shortess was eight years older than Farnham and had lived much longer in the west. Shortess and Farnham both published accounts of their party’s trip, and traded insults. Farnham referred to Shortess as “a vagabond, miscreant, Napoleon, and His Greatness.” Shortess accused Farnham of ineptness and neglect of duty. The men who has “pledged never to desert one another” argued over whether to leave Smith behind. Three more men, including their lieutenant, Chauncey Wood, quit the party and headed for Santa Fe. Farnham, Smith and Obadiah Oakley were nearly expelled, but were allowed to remain until they reached Bent’s Fort. Whatever Farnham’s shortcomings as a leader, he saved Smith’s life. Farnham cleaned and dressed Smith’s wound daily and personally drove the wagon in which Smith was transported. Bent’s Fort reached, party splits On July 5, 1839, the Peoria Party reached Bent’s Fort, a trading post on the south fork of the Platte River. At the fort, Smith’s wound was treated and he began a long road to recovery, although the borrowed wagon had to be returned to the traders and Smith was forced to ride horseback the rest of the trip. While at Bent’s Fort, Farnham, Smith and Oakley were voted out of the party. A division of supplies was made and the three expelled men left the fort on July 11, along with Joseph Wood and William Blair, who had chosen to go with them. Captain Shortess took six remaining men (Robert Moore, Charles Yates, Francis Fletcher, Amos Cook, Joseph Holman and Ralph Kilbourne) and headed for Fort St. Vrain, another Bent brothers trading post located north of present day Denver. So Farnham, with, as he put it: “three sound and good men, one wounded and one bad one, mounted our animals and took trail for the mountains and Oregon territory.” Along the trail, Farnham’s group encountered a group of fur trappers. The mountain men of the 1830’s were a rugged lot, but many had notable backgrounds. Farnham describes one in his journal: “One of these men was from New Hampshire and had been educated at Dartmouth College, and was, altogether, one of the most remarkable men I ever knew. A splendid gentleman, a finished scholar, a critic on English and Roman literature, a politician, a trapper, an Indian!” Farnham hired another trapper, a Kentuckian named Kelly to serve as guide. Kelly had been employed by the American Fur Company and had been back to the United States only once since 1827. Kelly led the men to Brown’s Hole, which was reached in mid August. Brown’s Hole is located in western Utah and today is called Brown’s Park. In the wild west days, the area was known as Hole in the Wall and was a notorious outlaw hideout. Here, Kelly’s guide services were ended. Rainy description discourages party While Farnham and his men were camped at Brown’s Hole, a mountain man named Paul Richardson, described as “an old Yankee woodsman,” arrived on his way from Fort Hall headed east to Missouri. Richardson gave a despairing account of the Oregon country. He included in his bleak description that “rain falls incessantly five months of the year.” Richardson persuaded Oakley and Wood, who had already seen enough rain on their trip, to join him and head back to Missouri. Farnham was left with Blair and the still ailing Smith as companions. Farnham hired a Native American called Jim to guide his trio the 200
miles from Brown’s Hole west to Fort Hall. They started out on August
19th. A week and a half later, they encountered a buckskin-clad
man riding a large Onward westward After two days rest, the Farnham trio hired a new Native American guide,
Carbo, and headed for Fort Boise. That trip was particularly rough
on the horses, because the terrain was mostly volcanic rock. With
Carbo as guide, the men made it to Fort Boise in 10 days. After resting
two days, the men resumed their westward way. On the trail they met
a group of Cayuse Indians that were on their way to the Whitman Mission
at Waiilatpu
Farnham reported a “pleasant stay” with Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and resumed his journey on October first. He traveled to The Dalles, where a mission was operated by the Rev. Daniel Lee, nephew of Jason Lee. Farnham spent a week at The Dalles “eating salmon and growing fat.” It was while at Lee’s Mission that Farnham had an unpleasant encounter with Native Americans.
Some Chinook tribesmen took Farnham’s saddle from Lee’s workshop. Lee and Farnham decided to go after the saddle and as they approached the Chinook camp, some 30 Native Americans surrounded them. Farnham pointed his rifle at the Chief’s chest, who, unflustered, pointed a pistol directly at Farnham’s chest. They faced off for nearly an hour, “undaunted except for an unpleasant knocking of my knees.” Finally, the saddle was returned and the episode ended without bloodshed. Fort Vancouver reached With the saddle recovered, Lee and Farnham set out for Fort Vancouver,
commercial capitol of the Oregon region. They arrived October 16,
1839 Farnham rested at Fort Vancouver until October 21st, then undertook a tour of the Willamette Valley. He visited Methodist missions and American settlements and gathered 60 signatures on a petition asking the United States government to take possession of Oregon. By early December, the former captain of the Peoria Party decided to depart. He boarded the sailing ship Vancouver, headed for Hawaii (there was regular ship traffic at that time between Vancouver and Hawaii). Farnham visited Monterrey, California en route, but was ordered to leave by Mexican authorities, who were trying to keep Americans out of California, lest they incite another Texas-style revolt. Peoria stragglers reach Oregon Although Smith and Farnham were the first members of the Peoria Party to visit Oregon, the Shortess group was not far behind. They had traveled from Bent’s Fort to Fort St. Vrain, where they intended to join a large party of traders headed for Brown’s Hole. They spent some six weeks at Fort St. Vrain, hunting buffalo and gathering berries. They lost seven of their pack animals to a Sioux raiding party. When it was time to leave, Robert Moore and Charles Yates chose to stay behind. Moore spent the winter at the fort, but eventually reached Oregon. Yates headed for Santa Fe. Shortess, Fletcher, Cook, Holman and Kilbourne arrived at Brown’s Hole just as winter was setting in. It was reported that over three feet of snow fell in less than 24 hours. There was a trading post at Brown’s Hole called Fort Davy Crockett, in honor of the Alamo hero killed just three years before. Fort Crockett, built for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company founded by Jedidiah Smith and Kit Carson, was the site of an annual fur trappers rendezvous where all mountain men gathered at the end of the trapping season to settle debts and make provisions for the winter. The Peoria men were advised to winter at the fort, and all but Shortess chose to do so. Driven by his rivalry with Farnham,. Shortess learned that Joe Meek and Robert Newell, who were also at Brown’s Hole, were preparing to travel to Fort Hall and Farnham obtained their permission to accompany them. Upon reaching Fort Hall, Newell and Meek headed to the Green River, leaving Shortess behind, determined to press on to Oregon. Shortess set out in the company of a French-Canadian trapper named Sylvetry and two Native Americans. The quartet encountered blizzards so severe that the Native Americans turned back, leaving Shortess and Sylvetry to travel alone through deep, drifting snow. The latter pair reached the Whitman Mission at Waiilatpu in early December. From Dr. Whitman, Shortess learned that his rival, Farnham, had visited there over two months before. The news that Shortess was so far behind the man he deposed as an incompetent leader must have been a shock. Any attempt to cross the Cascade mountains that late in the year was out of the question, so Shortess spent the winter as a guest of the Whitmans. Shortess left the Whitman Mission on March 12, 1840 and traveled alone to reach the Willamette Valley in April. Unlike Farnham, who returned east, Shortess spent the rest of his life in Oregon, became a prominent citizen and had a long career in government. Another Peoria Party adventure The four remaining members of the Peoria Party (Fletcher, Holman, Cook and Kilbourne), by now the closest of friends, remained throughout the winter at Brown’s Hole. They built a cabin, hunted, and prepared for the next leg of their journey in the spring. Holman passed the time making rifle stocks and saddles. Those items were traded for a horse, supplies, buckskin clothing and beaver skins, the latter better than money on the frontier. In February, 1840 Sioux raiding parties were reported in the Brown’s Hole area. The people there were warned that it was best to leave, and all the Brown’s Hole trappers fled.
The four Peoria Party friends took the advice as well and joined Robert Newell and set out for Fort Hall, a journey expected to take 10 days. They became caught in a blizzard that reduced them to a snail’s pace. Where Newell had expected to find buffalo, none were evident. After four days without food, the men met a Native American woman who sold them two dogs, which were killed and eaten. Cook reported that “it was not very good eating, but it was better than starving to death.” Later, they killed an old buffalo for sustenance. A trip that was to take 10 days concluded after 40 days through the snow to Fort Hall. The men at Fort Hall at that time were all French-speaking Canadians, which made communication difficult. The French-Canadians were, however, excellent hosts and shared their dried salmon and corn.
Newell stayed at Fort Hall, but the Peoria four joined a Hudson Bay Company agent and traveled to Fort Boise. From here, the quartet traveled alone to The Dalles and then Fort Vancouver. Holman termed the trip from The Dalles to Fort Vancouver the “hardest part of our journey.” Trails along the edge of the Columbia River were covered by high water and the men had to hand lead their horses along the cliffs of the Columbia Gorge, a fact that Dr. McLoughlin could hardly believe when they arrived at his house at 11 on the morning of June 1, 1840, 13 months after leaving Peoria, Illinois. The four men were thin from near starvation, with long hair and heavy beards, clad in buckskin and bare headed. They traded their beaver skins for clothing and food. Fletcher still had some money, but was charged 20 per cent to change it to British coin. This Hudson Bay Company practice was another of the complaints that drove Americans to demand U.S. intervention in Oregon. Oregon colonization begins in earnest On the very same day that Fletcher, Cook, Kilbourne and Holman made
it They were business partners and life-long friends. Joseph Holman settled near Jason Lee’s Methodist Mission north of present day Salem. Ralph Kilbourne helped build the ship Star of Oregon and sailed aboard to California, where he settled. Sidney Smith recovered from his gunshot wound and was the longest surviving member of the Peoria Party, passing away on February 3, 1895. Cook, Fletcher, Holman and Smith, together with Peoria Party veterans Shortess and Moore, voted with the Americans at Champoeg on May 2, 1843 to found Oregon’s first provisional government and all became influential citizens, with their biographies recorded in the official pages of Oregon history. In 1845, the Oregon Treaty between the U.S. and Great Britain established the 49th parallel as the international boundary of the Pacific Northwest. Three years later, the Hudson Bay Company pulled out of Oregon and moved headquarters to Fort Victoria in British Columbia. John McLaughlin quit Hudson Bay, moved to Oregon City, became a U.S. citizen and earned the historic title, Father of Oregon. The U.S. government eventually paid the Hudson Bay Company $650,000 for all rights and titles to HBC property and buildings that remained in the United States. Oregon became a U.S. Territory in 1849 and became the 33rd state on February 14, 1859. Thomas J. Farnham returned to the eastern United States, where his journal of his western adventure was published and widely circulated in both America and Britain. His reports did much to create interest and stimulate immigration to the Oregon country. He eventually moved to California, where he died in 1852. He concludes his journal: For beauty of scenery and salubrity of climate, Oregon is not surpassed. It is peculiarly adapted for an agricultural and pastoral people, and no portion of the world beyond the tropics can be found that will yield so readily with moderate labor to the wants of man. Notable Oregon Dragoons Thomas Farnham, author Travels in the Great Western Prairies,
died San Francisco 1848
© 2003 Randol B. Fletcher Photos link to their source where possible. |
white
horse. The stranger turned out to be Joe Meek, the mountain man known
far and wide as the “bear killer,” after his legendary battle with a Grizzly.
Meek spent some time advising Farnham on the Oregon Territory and was seen
occasionally as Farnham’s party traveled. Their guide led Farnham,
Smith and Blair to Fort Hall on September 1, 1839, four months from the
day they left Peoria.
and
were met by Dr. John McLoughlin, chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company
who had just returned from a trip to Canada and London. Lee introduced
his new friend Farnham to McLoughlin, who invited the pair to be guests
in the McLoughlin home, and gave Farnham a set of clothes to replace his
trail-weary buckskins
safely
to Fort Vancouver, the ship Lausanne arrived from New York with Jason
Lee and 40 Methodist missionaries. With the party was Thomas
Adams, the Calapooya boy who had fallen ill in Peoria and whose stories
of Oregon inspired the formation of the Peoria Party. The American
colonization of Oregon was underway. Amos Cook and Francis Fletcher
took adjoining land claims along the Yamhill River.