PIONEERS - THE STUFF OF DREAMS

In my looking into the 16th May I came across a number of people and incidents which I had always supposed to be the stuff of dreams. Stories depicted in the films that I grew up with and which continue to be part of the American Myth as depicted by Hollywood. 
On the 16th May 1842 Dr. Elijah White led the first wagon train over the Oregon Trail to Oregon that had more than 100 people. Trapper and later politician Osborne Russell served as guide to this migration. The party set out on from Elm Grove, Missouri, with 112 people, 18 wagons, and a variety of livestock. Along the journey, some in the migration grew wary of White’s leadership and L. B. Hastings was selected as leader for a time until the party split into two groups. François X. Matthieu along with several other Canadians joined the party along the way to Oregon. White arrived at Fort Vancouver ahead of the main party, arriving on September 20, 1842.

Elijah White

White was born in New York, in 1806. There he received his education, including medical training at a school of medicine in Syracuse New York. In May 1837 he and his family went to Oregon. After arriving the family took up residence at the Methodist Mission along the Willamette River at Mission Bottom. His infant son Jason drowned in 1838 after a canoe his wife and David Leslie (another missionary and pioneer, later Oregon Politician) were traveling in flipped over on the Columbia River. His other son also drowned that year while trying to ford the Willamette River. Elijah White and a Mr. Jason Lee would develop animosity towards each other and differences in opinion on the direction of the mission leading to White leaving in 1841 to return to the East. In 1842 he established the wagon train. For those of you who have seen How the West was Won (1962) and The Way West (1967), you will appreciate just where the plots for those films originated.

Osborne Russell (we think)

Osborne Russell (1814–1892) was a mountain man and politician who helped form the government of the State of Oregon. He was born in Maine. He kept a journal of his travels which was later published in 1921. As you will see from the account below, Russell did not actually join White's wagon train until it was half way across the Oregon Trail at Fort Hall, some 1000 miles from Missouri.

" March 25th — I started, in company with Alfred Shutes, my old comrade from Vermont, to go to the Salt Lake and pass the spring hunting water fowl, eggs and beaver. We left the fort and traveled in a southerly direction to the mountain, about thirty miles. The next day we traveled south about fifteen miles through a low defile and the day following we crossed the divide and fell on to a stream called "Malade" or Sick River, which empties into Bear River about ten miles from the mouth. This stream takes its name from the beaver which inhabit it, living on poison roots. Those who eat their meat become sick at the stomach in a few hours and the whole system is filled with cramps and severe pains, but I have never known or heard of a person dying with the disease. We arrived at the mouth of Bear River on the 2nd of April. Here we found the ground dry, the grass green and myriads of swans, geese, brants and ducks, which kept up a continual hum day and night, assisted by the uncouth notes of the sand hill cranes. The geese, ducks and swans are very fat at this season of the year. We caught some few beaver and feasted on fowls and eggs until the 20th of May and returned to the fort, where we stopped until the 20th of June, when a small party arrived from the mouth of the Columbia River on their way to the United States, and my comrade made up his mind once more to visit his native Green Mountains, after an absence of sixteen years, while I determined on going to the mouth of the Columbia and settle myself in the Willamette or Multnomah valley. I   accompanied my comrade up Ross Fork about twenty-five miles on his journey and the next morning, after taking an affectionate leave of each other, I started to the mountains for the purpose of killing elk and drying meat for my journey to the Willamette valley. I ascended to the top of Ross mountain (on which the snows remain till the latter part of August), sat down under a pine and took a last farewell view of a country over which I had traveled so often under such a variety of circumstances. The recollections of the past, connected with the scenery now spread out before me, put me somewhat in a poetical humor, and for the first time I attempted to frame my thoughts into rhyme, but if poets will forgive me for this intrusion I shall be cautious about trespassing on their grounds in future.

In the evening I killed an elk and on the following day cured the meat for packing. From thence I returned to the fort (Fort Hall), where I staid till the 22d of August.

In the meantime there arrived at the fort a party of emigrants from the States, on their way to the Oregon country, among whom was Dr. E. White, United States sub-agent for the Oregon Indians. 23d — I started with them and arrived at the falls of the Willamette river on the 26th day of September 1842.

It would be natural for me to suppose that after escaping all the dangers attendant upon nearly nine years' residence in a wild, inhospitable region like the Rocky Mountains, where I was daily, and a great part of the time, hourly, anticipating danger from hostile savages and other sources, I should, on arriving in a civilized and an enlightened community, live in comparative security, free from the harassing intrigues of Dame Fortune's eldest daughter, but I found it was all a delusion, for danger is not always the greatest when most apparent, as will appear in the sequel.

On arriving at the Falls of the Willamette, I found a number of Methodist missionaries and American farmers had formed themselves into a company for the purpose of erecting mills and a sawmill was then building on an island standing on the brink of the falls, which went into operation about two months after I arrived. -In the meantime. Dr. John McLoughlin, a chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company, who contemplated leaving the service of the company and permanently settling with his family and fortune in the Willamette valley, laid off a town (the present Oregon City) on the east side of the falls and began erecting a sawmill on a site he had prepared some years previous by cutting a race through the rock to let the water on to his works when they should be constructed.

The following spring the American company commenced building a flour mill and I was employed to assist in its construction. On the 6th day of June I was engaged with the contractor in blasting some points of rock in order to sink the water sill to its proper place, when a blast exploded accidentally by the concussion of small particles of rock near the powder, a piece of rock weighing about sixty pounds struck me on the right side of the face and knocked me, senseless, six feet backward.I recovered my senses in a few minutes and was assisted to walk to my lodgings. Nine particles of rock of the size of wild goose shot each had penetrated my right eye and destroyed it forever. The Contractor escaped with the loss of two fingers of his left hand. "

Jedidiah Smith

This is clearly the stuff from which many a script was derived. Jeremiah Johnson  (1972) which actually owes more to the life of Jedediah Strong Smith, is just one of many mountain men movies. Jedediah Smith was often recognized by significant facial scarring due to a grizzly bear attack along the Cheyenne River. In 1824, while looking for the Crow tribe to obtain fresh horses and get westward directions, Jedediah was stalked and attacked by a large grizzly bear. The huge bear jumped and tackled Jedediah to the ground. Jedediah's ribs were broken and members of his party witnessed Smith fighting the bear, which ripped open his side with its claws and took his head in its mouth. The bear suddenly retreated and the men ran to help Smith. They found his scalp and ear nearly ripped off, but he convinced a friend, Jim Clyman, to sew it loosely back on, giving him directions. The trappers fetched water, bound up his broken ribs, and cleaned his wounds. After recuperating from his bloody wounds and broken ribs, Jedediah wore his hair long to cover the large scar from his eyebrow to his ear. He featured large in Steven Spielberg’s TV Mini Series Into the West (2005).

Extraordinary stories, about extraordinary people and the stuff of dreams. Herewith a 1940 version, with young Tim Holt in his first western for RKO. Wagon Train .