Settling Oregon

Once in Oregon Country, Marcus Whitman and Rev. Spaulding settled deep in the interior on the advice of John McLaughlin, from Hudson Bay Company.  In 1840, Oregon's American population amounted to fewer that 200 people, all of them in Willamette Valley.  Their right to settle there came from the Anglo-American agreement of 1818, but there was no governing body.  There seemed little need for courts or legislature until 1841.

In 1842 a situation arose that changed the need for a legal course of action.  A young, successful cattle rancher named Ewing Young had become the wealthiest American in Willamette Valley.  He also died suddenly without a will.  The question became - who got his property? 

Jason Lee called upon American settlers to meet and create a court to devise a constitution and a legal code.  They were to meet again in 1843.  These first meetings would give Oregon settlers a political structure from which to seek United States annexation.

Back East, missionary reports got wide publicity.  Letters from settlers told of rich land, giving Midwest farmers hope that economic conditions could be better for them and their families.  The Rockies were no longer the barrier to the limit of migration west.  The concept of Manifest Destiny was born - that the republic had a divine mission to spread from coast to coast.

In the spring of 1841, the first wagon train of 69 pioneers set out.  Half arrived in Oregon, the other half in California, but neither arrived with wagons in tow.  The next year, 1842, a group of 100 pioneers traveled from Missouri to Oregon also abandoning their wagons and possessions.  Finally in 1843, Whitman was returning from a trip east and helped guide the first wagon train of almost 1000 pioneers to the Pacific Coast. They arrived with all their wagons and supplies. 
The Great Emigration was in full swing.  By 1850, over 44,000 pioneers had traveled the Oregon Trail.

Next time...Jesuits Among the Native Tribes
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On January 24, 1848, Aamillwright named James Marshall discovers gold along the banks of Sutter’s Creek in California, forever changing the course of history in the American West.

The Divison of Labor on the Trail

The division of work on the Overland Trail was heavily weighted on the woman's side.  Martha Morrison recalls:

"the women helped pitch the tents, helped unload, helped yoking up the cattle.  Some of the women did nearly all the yoking.  One time my father was away hunting cattle that had been driven off by the Indians and that left Mother and the children to attend to everything."

Esther Hanna recorded her thoughts:

"I am now sitting in our carriage in the middle of a slough.  Our mules all fell down attempting to get through.  I have never witnessed anything like it.  We have put 14 yoke oxen to the wagons to get them out.  Our provisions got wet and they had to be unpacked to air and then packed again."

And we've learned that that fell under a woman's job, of course!  Many women on the trail felt reduced to hired hands. 

Martha Morrison later realized:

"We  did not know the dangers we were going through.  The idea of my Father was to get to the coast, no other place suited him and he went on until we got there where we settled in the Clatsop Plains close to the mouth of the Columbia River.  We did not arrive until the middle of January or first of Feburary.  We went down the Deschutes River in an open canoe, including all the children.  When we got down there was no way to get to the place my Father had determined to locate us,  but to wade through the tremendous swamps. 

I know some of the young men laughed at us girls, my oldest sister and me, for holding up what dresses we had to keep from miring, but we didn't think it was funny.  We finally waded through and got through and got all our goods.  Mother was a very fleshy woman and it was a terrible job for her to go through."

Yes it was an adventure for the young, but Martha's diary brings alive her father's determination who wouldn't give up until he reached the Pacific, and the hard work of that "fleshy" wife of his to get him there!

Next time...