Denny Emily Inez
Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget Sound
CHAPTER VIII.
MARCHING EXPERIENCES OF ESTHER CHAMBERS
The following thrilling account, written by herself and first published in the “Weekly Ledger” of Tacoma, Washington, of June 3, 1892, is to be highly commended for its clear and forcible style:
“My father, William Packwood, left Missouri in the spring of 1844 with my mother and four children in an ox team to cross the plains to Oregon.
“My mother’s health was very poor when we started. She had to be helped in and out of the wagon, but the change by traveling improved her health so much that she gained a little every day, and in the course of a month or six weeks she was able to get up in the morning and cook breakfast, while my father attended his team and did other chores. I had one sister older than myself, and I was only six years old. My little sister and baby brother, who learned to walk by rolling the water keg as we camped nights and mornings, were of no help to my sick mother.
“The company in which we started was Captain Gilliam’s and we traveled quite a way when we joined Captain Ford’s company, making upward of sixty wagons in all.
“Our company was so large that the Indians did not molest us, although we, after letting our stock feed until late in the evening, had formed a large corral of the wagons, in which we drove the cattle and horses, and stood guard at night, as the Indians had troubled small companies by driving off their stock, but they were not at all hostile to us.
“We came to a river and camped. The next morning we were visited by Indians, who seemed to want to see us children, so we were terribly afraid of the Indians, and, as father drove in the river to cross, the oxen got frightened at the Indians and tipped the wagon over, and father jumped and held the wagon until help came. We thought the Indians would catch us, so we jumped to the lower part of the box, where there was about six inches of water. The swim and fright I will never forget – the Indian fright, of course.
“I was quite small but I do remember the beautiful scenery. We could see antelope, deer, rabbits, sage hens and coyotes, etc., and in the camp we children had a general good time. All joined at night in the plays. One night Mr. Jenkins’ boys told me to ask their father for his sheath knife to cut some sticks with. When using it on the first stick, I cut my lefthand forefinger nail and all off, except a small portion of the top of my finger, and the scar is still visible.
“On another evening we children were having a nice time, when a boy by the name of Stephen, who had been in the habit of hugging around the children’s shoulders and biting them, hugged me and bit a piece almost out of my shoulder. This was the first time I remember seeing my father’s wrath rise on the plains, as he was a very even-tempered man. He said to the offending boy, ‘If you do that again, I shall surely whip you.’
“A few days later we came to a stream that was deep but narrow. Mr. Stephens, this boy’s father, was leading a cow by a rope tied around his waist and around the cow’s head for the purpose of teaching the rest of the cattle to swim. The current being very swift, washed the cow down the stream, dragging the man. The women and children were all crying at a great rate, when one of the party went to Mrs. Stephens, saying, ‘Mr. Stephens is drowning.’ ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘there is plenty of more men where he came from.’ Mr. Stephens, his cow and all lodged safely on a drift. They got him out safely, but he did not try to swim a stream with a cow tied to his waist again.
“We could see the plains covered with buffalo as we traveled along, just like the cattle of our plains are here.
“One day a band of buffalo came running toward us, and one jumped between the wheel cattle and the wheels of the wagon, and we came very near having a general stampede of the cattle; so when the teamsters got their teams quieted down, the men, gathering their guns, ran and killed three of the buffalo, and all of the company were furnished with dried beef, which was fine for camping.
“We came to a place where there was a boiling spring that would cook eggs, and a short distance from this was a cold, clear spring, and a short distance from this was a heap of what looked like ashes, and when we crossed it the cattles’ feet burned until they bawled. Another great sight I remember of seeing was an oil spring.
“Then we reached the Blue Mountains. Snow fell as we traveled through them.
“We then came down in the Grande Ronde valley, and it seemed as if we had reached a paradise. It was a beautiful valley. Here Indians came to trade us dried salmon, la camas cakes and dried crickette cakes. We traded for some salmon and the la camas cakes, but the crickette cakes we did not hanker after.
“A man in one train thought he would fool an Indian chief, so he told the Indian he would swap his girl sixteen years old, for a couple of horses. The bargain was made and he took the horses, and the Indian hung around until near night. When the captain of the company found out that the Indian was waiting for his girl to go with him, the captain told the man that we might all be killed through him, and made him give up the horses to the chief. The Indian chief was real mad as he took the horses away.
“We went on down to The Dalles, where we stopped a few days. There was a mission at The Dalles where two missionaries lived, Brewer and Waller. We emigrants traded some of our poor, tired cattle off to them for some of their fat beef, and some coarse flour chopped on a hand mill, like what we call chop-feed nowadays.
“Then we had to make a portage around the falls, and the women and children walked. I don’t remember the distance, but we walked until late at night, and waded in the mud knee-deep, and my mother stumped her toe and fell against a log or she might have gone down into the river. We little tots fell down in the mud until you’d have thought we were pigs.
“The men drove around the falls another way, and got out of provisions.
“My father, seeing a boat from the high bluffs, going down to the river hailed it, and when he came down to the boat he found us. He said he had gotten so hungry that he killed a crow and ate it, and thought it tasted splendid. He took provisions to the cattle drivers and we came on down the river to Fort Vancouver. It rained on us for a week and our bedclothes were drenched through and through, so at night we would open our bed of wet clothes and cuddle in them as though we were in a palace car, and all kept well and were not sick a day in all of our six months’ journey crossing the plains. My mother gained and grew fleshy and strong.
“Next we arrived in what is now the city of Portland, which then consisted of a log cabin and a few shanties. We stayed there a few days to dry our bedding.
“Then we moved out to the Tualatin Plains, where we wintered in a barn, with three other families, each family having a corner of the barn, with fire in the center and a hole in the roof for the smoke to go out. My father went to work for a man by the name of Baxton, as all my father was worth in money, I think, was twenty-five cents, or something like that. He arrived with a cow, calf and three oxen, and had to support his family by mauling rails in the rain, to earn the wheat, peas and potatoes we ate, as that was all we could get, as bread was out of the question. Shortly after father had gone to work my little brother had a rising on his cheek. It made him so sick that mother wanted us little tots to go to the place where my father was working. It being dark, we got out of our way and went to a man, who had an Indian woman, by the name of Williams. In the plains there are swales that fill up with water when the heavy rains come, and they are knee deep. I fell in one of these, but we got to Mr. Williams all right. But when we found our neighbor we began crying, so Mr. Williams persuaded us to come in and he would go and get father, which he did, and father came home with us to our barn house. My little brother got better, and my father returned to his work again.
“Among the settlers on the Tualatin Plains were Mr. Lackriss, Mr. Burton, Mr. Williams and General McCarver, who had settled on farms before we came, and many a time did we go to their farms for greens and turnips, which were something new and a great treat to us.
“Often the Indians used to frighten us with their war dances, as we called them, as we did not know the nature of Indians, so, as General McCarver was used to them, we often asked him if the Indians were having a war dance for the purpose of hostility. He told us, that was the way they doctored their sick.
“General McCarver settled in Tacoma when the townsite was first laid out and is well known. He died in Tacoma, leaving a family.
“After we moved out to the Tualatin Plains, many a night when father was away we lay awake listening to the dogs barking, thinking the Indians were coming to kill us, and when father came home I felt safe and slept happily.
“In the spring of 1845 my father took a nice place in West Yamhill, about two miles from the Willamette River and we had some settlers around, but our advantage for a school was poor, as we were too far from settlers to have a school, so my education, what little I have, was gotten by punching the cedar fire and studying at night, but, however, we were a happy family, hoping to accumulate a competency in our new home.
“One dog, myself and elder sister and brother were carrying water from our spring, which was a hundred yards or more from our house, when a number of Indians came along. We were afraid of them and all hid. I hid by the trail, when an old Indian, seeing me, yelled out, ‘Adeda!’ and I began to laugh, but my sister was terribly frightened and yelled at me to hide, so they found all of us, but they were friendly to us, only a wretched lot to steal, as they stole the only cow we had brought through, leaving the calf with us without milk.
“My father was quite a hunter, and deer were plenty, and once in a while he would get one, so we did get along without milk. During the first year we could not get bread, as there were no mills or places to buy flour. A Canadian put up a small chop mill and chopped wheat something like feed is chopped now.
“My father being a jack-of-all-trades, set to work and put up a turning lathe and went to making chairs, and my mother and her little tots took the straw from the sheaves and braided and made hats. We sold the chairs and hats and helped ourselves along in every way we could and did pretty well.
“One day, while my father’s lathe was running, some one yelled ‘Stop!’ A large black bear was walking through the yard. The men gave him a grand chase, but bruin got away from them.
“My father remained on this place until the spring of 1847, when he and a number of other families decided to move to Puget Sound. During that winter they dug two large canoes, lashed them together as a raft or flatboat to move on, and sold out their places, bought enough provisions to last that summer, and loading up with their wagons, families and provisions, started for Puget Sound.
“Coming up the Cowlitz River was a hard trip, as the men had to tow the raft over rapids and wade. The weather was very bad. Arriving at what was called the Cowlitz Landing we stayed a few days and moved out to the Catholic priest’s place (Mr. Langlay’s) where the women and children remained while the men went back to Oregon for our stock. They had to drive up the Cowlitz River by a trail, and swim the rivers. My father said it was a hard trip.
“On arriving at Puget Sound we found a good many settlers. Among them, now living that I know of, was Jesse Ferguson, on Bush Prairie. We stayed near Mr. Ferguson’s place until my father, McAllister and Shager, who lives in Olympia, took them to places in the Nisqually bottoms. My father’s place then, is now owned by Isaac Hawk.
“Mr. McAllister was killed in the Indian war of 1855-6, leaving a family of a number of children, of whom one is Mrs. Grace Hawk. The three families living in the bottom were often frightened by the saucy Indians telling us to leave, as the King George men told them to make us go, so on one occasion there came about 300 Indians in canoes. They were painted and had knives, and said they wanted to kill a chief that lived by us by the name of Quinasapam. When he saw the warriors coming he came into our house for protection, and all of the Indians who could do so came in after him. Mr. Shager and father gave them tobacco to smoke. So they smoked and let the chief go and took their departure. If there were ever glad faces on this earth and free hearts, ours were at that time.
“My father and Mr. McAllister took a job of bursting up old steamboat boilers for Dr. Tolmie for groceries and clothing, and between their improving their farms they worked at this. While they were away the Indians’ dogs were plenty, and, like wolves, they ran after everything, including our only milch cow, and she died, so there was another great loss to us, but after father got through with the old boilers, he took another job of making butter firkins for Dr. Tolmie and shingles also. This was a great help to the new settlers. The Hudson Bay Company was very kind to settlers.
“In 1849 the gold fever began to rage and my father took the fever. I was standing before the fire, listening to my mother tell about it, when my dress caught fire, and my mother and Mrs. Shager got the fire extinguished, when I found my hair was off on one side of my head and my dress missing. I felt in luck to save my life.
“In the spring of 1850 all arrangements were made for the California gold mines and we started by land in an ox team. We went back through Oregon and met our company in Yamhill, where we had lived. They joined our company of about thirty wagons. Portions of our journey were real pleasant, but the rest was terribly rough. In one canyon we crossed a stream seventy-five times in one day, and it was the most unpleasant part of our journey.
“After two months’ travel we arrived in Sacramento City, Cal., and found it tolerably warm for us, not being used to a warm climate.
“Father stayed in California nearly two years. Our fortune was not a large one. We returned by sea to Washington and made our home in the Nisqually Bottom.
“On April 30, 1854, I was married to a man named G. W. T. Allen and lived with him on Whidby Island seven years, during which time four children were born. We finally agreed to disagree. Only one of our children by my first husband is living. She is Mrs. L. L. Andrews of Tacoma, Washington. He is in the banking business. On July 7, 1863, I was married to my present husband, McLain Chambers. We have lived in Washington ever since. We have had nine children. Our oldest, a son, I. M. Chambers, lives on a farm near Roy, Wash. Others are married and live at Roy, Yelm and Stampede. We have two little boys at home. Have lost three within the last three years. We live a mile and a half southeast of Roy, Wash.
“I have lived here through all the hostilities of the war. Dr. Tolmie sent wagons to haul us to the fort for safety. My present husband was a volunteer and came through with a company of scouts, very hungry. They were so hungry that when they saw my mother take a pan of biscuits from the stove, one of them saying, ‘Excuse me, but we are almost starved,’ grabbed the biscuits from the pan, eating like a hungry dog.
“I suppose you have heard of the murder of Col. I. N. Ebey of Whidby Island? He was beheaded by the Northern or Fort Simpson Indians and his family and George Corliss and his wife made their escape from the house by climbing out of the windows, leaving even their clothes and bushwhacking it until morning. I was on Whidby Island about seven miles from where he was killed, that same night, alone with my little girl, now Mrs. Andrews. When one of our neighbors called at the gate and said, ‘Colonel Ebey was beheaded last night,’ I said ‘Captain Barrington, it cannot be, as I have been staying here so close by alone without being disturbed.’ Shortly after the Indians came armed, and one of them came up to me, shaking a large knife in his hand saying, ‘Iskum mika tenas and klatawa copa stick or we will kill you.’ I said to him, ‘I don’t understand; come and go to the field where my husband and an Indian boy are,’ but they refused to go and left me soon. I started for the field with my child, and the further I went the more scared I got until when I reached my husband, I cried like a child. He ran to the house and sent a message to the agent on the reservation, but they skipped out of his reach, and never bothered me again, but I truly suffered as though I were sick, although I stayed alone with a boy eight or nine years old.”
“A BOY OF SEVEN WHO CAME TO SHOW HIS FATHER THE WAY.”
In the same columns with the preceding sketch appeared R. A. Bundy’s story of his juvenile adventures:
“I will try to give an account of my trip crossing the plains in the pioneer days. You need not expect a flowery story, as you will observe before I get through. The chances for an education in those days were quite different from what they are today. Here goes with my story, anyway:
“My father left his old home in the State of Illinois in the month of April in the year 1865. As I was a lad not seven years of age until the 27th of the month, of course I was obliged to go along to show the old man the way.
“We were all ready to start, and a large number of others that were going in the same train had gathered at our place. There were also numerous relatives present to bid us good-bye, and warn us of the big undertaking we were about to embark in, and tell of the dangers we would encounter. But a lad of my age always thinks it is a great thing to go along with a covered wagon, especially if ‘pap’ is driving. I crawled right in and did not apprehend anything dangerous or wearisome about a short trip like that. I will have to omit dates and camping places, as I was too young to pay any attention to such things; and you may swear that I was always around close. Everything went along smoothly with me for a short time. Riding in a covered wagon was a picnic, but my father’s team was composed of both horses and cattle, and the oxen soon became tenderfooted and had to be turned loose and driven behind the wagons.
“About this time A. L. McCauley, whose account of the trip has appeared in the ‘Ledger,’ fell in with the train. He thought himself a brave man and as he had had a ‘right smart’ experience in traveling, especially since the war broke out, and was used to going in the lead and had selected a great many safe camping places for himself during that time, the men thought he would be a good man to hide from the Indians, so he was elected captain. He went ahead and showed my old man the way. I being now relieved of this responsibility, stayed behind the train and drove the tenderfooted oxen. When McCauley found a camping place I always brought up the rear.
“That was not quite so much of a picnic as some of us old-timers have nowadays at Shilo. I found out after driving oxen a few days, that I was going ‘with’ the old man.
“For a week or two my job was not as bad as some who have never tried it might imagine. But six months of travel behind the wagons barefooted, over sagebrush, sand toads, hot sand and gravel, rattlesnakes, prickly pears, etc., made me sometimes wish I had gone back home when the old dog did, or that ‘pap’ had sold me at the sale with the other property. In spite of my disagreeable situation, however, I kept trudging alone, bound to stay with the crowd. I thought my lot was a rough one when I saw other boys older than myself riding and occasionally walking just for pleasure. I could not see where the fun came in, and thought that if the opportunity was offered I could stand it to ride all the time. I thought I had the disadvantage until the Indians got all the stock.
“I remember one night that our famous captain said he had found us a good, safe camping place. The next morning the people were all right but the horses and cattle were all gone. For a while it looked like the whole train would have to walk. I did not care so much for myself but I thought it would be hard on those that were not used to it.
“During the day the men got a part of the horses back, and I was feeling pretty good, thinking the rest would get to ride, but along in the afternoon my joyful mood was suddenly changed. All the men, excepting a few on the sick list, were out after the stock, when the captain and some other men came running into camp as fast as their horses could carry them. The captain got off his horse, apparently almost scared to death. He told the women that they would never see their men again; that the Indians were coming from every direction. That was in the Wood River country, and it made me feel pretty bad after walking so far. We were all frightened, and some boys and myself found a hiding place in a wagon. We got under a feather bed and waited, expecting every minute that the Indians would come. They did not come so we came out and found that the captain was feeling rather weak and had laid down to have a rest. Shortly after we came out, one of the men came in leading an Indian pony. It was then learned that the captain and some of the men with him had been running from some of the men belonging to the train, thinking they were Indians. They found all their horses but two and captured two Indian ponies. The next day we journeyed on and I felt more like walking, knowing that the others could ride. We did not meet with any other difficulty that seriously attracted my attention.
“We arrived on the Touchet at Waitsburg in October or November, and don’t you forget it, I had spent many a hot, tiresome day, having walked all the way across the plains.”