THE FIRST EXPLORERS AND THEIR ROUTES THROUGH THE REGION

Of all events in early American history influential in their bearing upon the territorial development of the United States, the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 must be accorded the foremost place. Until that event the United States, in spite of the fact that it had gained independence, was essentially European in its habit of thought and colonial in its aspirations and outlook. A few seers indeed recognized the possibilities of continental expansion. The doctrine of "manifest destiny" had held the glowing vision of the place in history which might be wrought by a continent, or at least the dominating parts of it, under the control of the same race of men who had redeemed the Atlantic seaboard from the wilderness and successfully maintained against the greatest empire of the world the proposition that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." The author of those words had seen more clearly perhaps than any other the world vision of a great American democracy, independent of Europe and yet by reason of geographical position as well as political ideals and social aspirations, the natural mediator among peoples and the ultimate teacher and enlightener of mankind.

When, therefore, as a result of the political revolution of 1800 and the permanent establishment of the democratic conception in the leadership of American politics, Thomas Jefferson found himself invested with the enormous responsibility of framing policies and measures for the new era, one of his foremost aims was to turn the face of the nation westward. Having long entertained the idea that the true policy was to secure such posts of vantage beyond the Alleghenies as would lead by natural stages to the acquisition of the country beyond the Mississippi, even to the Pacific, he was alert to seize any opening for pursuing that truly American policy. He did not have long to wait. At the time of his inauguration the stupendous energies of the French Revolution had become concentrated in that overpowering personality, Napoleon Bonaparte. Holding then the position of first consul, but as truly the imperial master as when he placed the iron crown of the Lombards upon his own head, "the man on horseback" perceived that a renewal of the great war was inevitable and that Austria on land and England at sea were going to put metes to his empire if human power could do it. Nothing was more hateful to Napoleon than to let French America, or Louisiana, slip from his grasp. But he had not the maritime equipment to defend it. England was sure to take it and that soon. Monroe, the American envoy, was in Paris fully instructed by President Jefferson what to do. All things were ready. The man and the occasion met. The Louisiana Purchase was consummated. For less than three cents an acre, a region now comprising thirteen states or parts of states, estimated at over five hundred and sixty-five million acres, equal in extent to all Europe outside of Russia and Scandinavia, became part of the United States.

When that great event was consummated and one of the milestones in the world's progress upon the highway of universal democracy had been set for good, the next step in the mind of Jefferson was to provide for the exploration of the vast new land. The westward limits of Louisiana were not indeed defined by the treaty of purchase otherwise than as the boundaries by which the territory had been ceded by Spain to France, and those boundaries in turn were defined only as those by which France had in 1763 ceded to Spain. Hence the western boundary of Louisiana was uncertain. Although subsequent agreements and usages determined the boundary to be the crest of the Rocky Mountains as far south as Texas, Jefferson seems to have thought that the entire continent to the Pacific ought to be included in the exploration, for he saw also that the destiny of his country required the ultimate union of Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as well as the great central valley. From these conceptions and aims of Jefferson sprang that most interesting and influential of all exploring expeditions in our history, the Lewis and Clark exploration from St. Louis up the Missouri, across the Rocky Mountains, and down the Snake and Columbia rivers to the Pacific Ocean. Jefferson had contemplated such an expedition a long time. Even as far back as December 4, 1783, in a letter to George Rogers Clark, he raised the question of an exploration from the Mississippi to California. In 1792 he took it up with the American Philosophical Society, and even then Meriwether Lewis was eager to head such an expedition. In a message to Congress of January 18, 1803, before the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson developed the importance of a thorough exploration of the continent even to the Western Ocean. With his characteristic secrecy, Jefferson was disposed to mask the great design of ultimate acquisition of the continent under the appearance of scientific research. In a letter to Lewis of April 27, 1803, he says: "The idea that you are going to explore the Mississippi has been generally given out; it satisfies public curiosity and masks sufficiently the real destination." That real destination was, of course, the Pacific Ocean, and the fundamental aim was the continental expansion of the then crude and straggling Republic of the West. Considering the momentous nature of the undertaking and the possibilities of the unknown wilderness which it was to cover, it is curious and suggestive that Lewis had estimated the expenses at $2,500, and Jefferson called upon Congress for that amount of appropriation. An explorer of the present would hardly expect to go out doors on that scale of expense. Jeffersonian simplicity with a vengeance!

The scope of our book does not permit any detailed account of the preparations or of the personnel of the party. Suffice it to say that the leader, Meriwether Lewis, and his lieutenant, William Clark, were men of energy, discretion, courage, and the other necessary qualities for such an undertaking. While not men of education or general culture (Clark could not even spell or compose English correctly) they both had an abundance of common sense and in preparation for their mission gained a hurried preparation in the essentials of botany, zoology, and astronomy such as might enable them to observe and report intelligently upon the various objects of discovery and the distances and directions traversed.

Jefferson's instructions to Captain Lewis give one an added respect for the intelligence and broad humanity of the great democrat. Particularly did he enjoin upon the leader of the party the wisdom of amicable relations with the natives. The benevolent spirit of the President appears in his direction that kine-pox matter be taken and that its use for preventing smallpox be explained to the Indians. All readers of American history should read these instructions, both for an estimate of Jefferson personally, and for light they throw on the conditions and viewpoints of the times.

The number in the party leaving St. Louis was forty-five. But one death occurred upon the whole journey, which lasted from May 14, 1804, to September 23, 1806. Never perhaps did so extended and difficult an expedition suffer no little. And this was the more remarkable from the fact that there was no physician nor scientific man with the party and that whatever was needed in the way of treating the occasional sicknesses or accidents must be done by the captains. While to their natural force and intelligence the party owed a large share of its immunity from disaster, good fortune surely attended them. This seems the more noticeable when we reflect that this was the first journey across a wilderness afterwards accentuated with every species of suffering and calamity.

The members of the party were encouraged to preserve journals and records to the fullest degree, and from this resulted a fullness of detail by a number of the men as well as the leaders which has delighted generations of readers ever since. And in spite of the fact that none of the writers had any literary genius, these journals are fascinating on account of the nature of the undertaking and a certain glow of enthusiasm which invested with a charm even the plain and homely details of the long journey.

The first stage of the expedition was from St. Louis, May 14, 1804, to a point 1,600 miles up the Missouri, reached November 2. There the party wintered in a structure which they called Fort Mandan. The location was on the west bank of the Missouri, opposite the present City of Pierre. The journey had been made by boats at an average advance of ten miles a day. The river, though swift and with frequent shoals, offered no serious impediments, even for a long distance above Fort Mandan.

After a long, cold winter in the country of the Mandans, the expedition resumed their journey up the Missouri on April 7, 1805. Of the interesting details of this part of their course we cannot speak. Reaching the headwaters of the Missouri on August 12, they crossed that most significant spot, the Great Divide. A quotation from the journal of Captain Lewis indicates the lively sentiments with which they passed from the Missouri waters to those of the Columbia: "As they proceeded, their hope of seeing the waters of the Columbia rose to almost painful anxiety; when at the distance of four miles from the last abrupt turn of the stream, they reached a small gap formed by the high mountains which recede on either side, leaving room for the Indian road. From the foot of one of the lowest of these mountains, which rises with a gentle ascent for about half a mile, issued the remotest water of the Missouri. They had now reached the hidden sources of that river which had never before been seen by civilized man; and as they quenched their thirst at the chaste and icy fountain—as they sat down by the brink of the little rivulet which yielded its distant and modest tribute to the parent ocean—they felt themselves rewarded for all their labors and difficulties. *** They found the descent much steeper than on the eastern side, and at the distance of three-quarters of a mile, reached a handsome, bold creek of cold, clear water running to the westward. They stopped to taste for the first time the waters of the Columbia."

After some very harassing and toilsome movements in that vast cordon of peaks in which lie the cradles of the Missouri, Yellowstone, Snake, Clearwater, and Bitterroot rivers—more early reaching starvation point than at any time on the trip—the party emerged upon a lofty height from which their vision swept over a vast expanse of open prairie, in which it became evident that there were many natives and, as they judged, the near vicinity of the great river, which, as they thought, would carry them in short order to the Western Ocean of their quest. They little realized that they were yet more than six hundred miles from the edge of the continent. Descending upon the plain, they made their way to the Kooskooskie, now known as the Clearwater River. As judged by Olin D. Wheeler in his invaluable book, "On The Trail of Lewis and Clark," the explorers crossed from what is now Montana into the present Idaho at the Lolo Pass, and proceeded thence down the broken country between the north and middle forks of the Kooskooskie, reaching the junction on September 26. The camp at that spot was called Canoe Camp. There they remained nearly two weeks, most of them sick through overeating after they had sustained so severe a fast in the savage defiles of the Bitter Roots, and from the effects of the very great change in temperature from the snowy heights to the hot valley below. At Canoe Camp they constructed boats for the further prosecution of their journey. They left their thirty-eight horses with three Indians of the Chopunnish or Pierced-Nose tribe, or Nez PercÉ as we now know them.

With their canoes they entered upon a new stage of their journey, one easy and pleasant after the hardships of the mountains. Down the beautiful Kooskooskie, then low in its autumn stage, they swept gaily, finding frequent rapids, though none serious. The pleasant-sounding name Kooskooskie, which ought to be preserved (though Clearwater is appropriate and sonorous), was supposed by the explorers to be the name of the river. This it appears was a misapprehension. The author has been told by a very intelligent Indian named Luke, living at Kamiah, that the Indians doubtless meant to tell the white men that the stream was Koos, koos, or water, water. Koos was and still is the Nez PercÉ word for water. Luke stated that the Indians did not regularly have names for streams, but only for localities, and referred to rivers as the water or koos belonging to some certain locality.

After a prosperous descent of the beautiful and impetuous stream for a distance estimated by them at fifty-nine miles (considerably overestimated) the party entered a much larger stream coming from the south. This they understood the Indians to call the Kimooenim. They named it the Lewis in honor of Captain Lewis. It was the great Snake River of our present maps. The writer has been told by Mr. Thomas Beall of Lewiston that the true Indian name is Twelka. Still another native name is Shahaptin. The party was now at the present location of Lewiston and Clarkston, one of the most notable regions in the Northwest for beauty, fertility, and all the essentials of capacity for sustaining a high type of civilized existence. The land adjoining Snake River on the west is Asotin County, one of the components of our history. The party camped on the right bank just below the junction, and that first camp of white men was nearly opposite both Lewiston and Clarkston of today. They say that the Indians flocked from all directions to see them. The scantiness of their fare had brought them to the stage of eating dog-meat, which they say excited the ridicule of the natives. The Indians gave them to understand that the southern branch was navigable up about sixty miles; that not far from its mouth it received a branch from the south, and at two days' march up a larger branch called Pawnashte, on which a chief resided who had more horses than he could count.

The first of these must be the Asotin Creek, unless indeed they referred to the Grande Ronde, which is the first large stream, but is considerable distance from the junction. The Pawnashte must have been the Salmon, the largest tributary of the Snake. The Snake at the point of the camp of the explorers was discovered to be about three hundred yards wide. The party noticed the greenish blue color of the Snake, while the Kooskooskie was as clear as crystal. The Indians at this point are described as of the Chopunnish or Pierced-Nose nations, the latter of those names translated by the French voyageurs into the present Nez PercÉ. According to the observations of the party, the men were in person stout, portly, well-looking men; the women small, with good features and generally handsome. The chief article of dress of the men was a "buffalo or elk-skin robe decorated with beads, sea-shells, chiefly mother-of-pearl, attached to an otter-skin collar and hung in the hair, which falls in front in two queues; feathers, paints of different kinds, principally white, green, and light blue, all of which they find in their own country. The dress of the women is more simple, consisting of a long skirt of argalia or ibex-skin, reaching down to the ankles without a girdle; to this are tied little pieces of brass and shells and other small articles." Further on the journal states again: "The Chopunnish have few amusements, for their life is painful and laborious; and all their exertions are necessary to earn even their precarious subsistence. During the summer and autumn they are busily occupied in fishing for salmon and collecting their winter store of roots. In the winter they hunt the deer on snow-shoes over the plains, and towards spring cross the mountains to the Missouri for the purpose of trafficking for buffalo robes." It may be remarked here parenthetically that there is every indication that buffalo formerly inhabited the Snake and Columbia plains. In fact, buffalo bones have been found in recent years in street excavations at Spokane. What cataclysm may have led to their extermination is hidden in obscurity. But at the first coming of the whites it was discovered that one of the regular occupations of the natives was crossing the Rocky Mountains to hunt or trade for buffalo.

Soon after resuming the journey on October 11, the explorers noted with curiosity one of the vapor baths common among those Indians, which they say differed from those on the frontiers of the United States or in the Rocky Mountains. The bath-house was a hollow square six or eight feet deep, formed in the river bank by damming up with mud the other three sides and covering the whole completely except an aperture about two feet wide at the top. The bathers descended through that hole, taking with them a jug of water and a number of hot rocks. They would throw the water on the rocks until it steamed and in that steam they would sit until they had perspired sufficiently, and then they would plunge into cold water. This species of entertainment seems to have been very sociable, for one seldom bathed alone. It was considered a great affront to decline an invitation to join a bathing party.

The explorers seem to have had a very calm and uneventful descent of Snake River. They describe the general lay of the country accurately, noting that beyond the steep ascent of 200 feet (it is in reality a great deal more in all the upper part of this portion of Snake River) the country becomes an open, level, and fertile plain, entirely destitute of timber. They note all the rapids with sufficient particularity to enable anyone thoroughly familiar with the river to identify most of them. They make special observation of the long series of rapids commonly known now as the Riparia and Texas Rapids, and below these observe a large creek on the left which they denominate as Kimooenim Creek. This is rather odd, for that had already been noted as the native name of the main river. A few miles further down they pass through a bad rapid but twenty-five yards wide. Of course, it must be remembered that the time was October and the river was about at its lowest. This was the narrow crack of the Palouse Rapids, which, however, is not so narrow as they estimated, even at low water. At the end of this rapid they discovered a large river on the right, to which they gave the name of Drewyer, one of their party, their mighty hunter in fact. This was a many-named stream, for it was later the Pavion, the Pavillion, and at the last the present Palouse, the equivalent, we are told again by Thomas Beall, for gooseberry. The principal rapids below the entrance of the Palouse are known at present as Fishhook, Long's Crossing, Pine Tree, the Potato Patch, and Five Mile. Five Mile looked so bad to them that they unloaded the canoes and made a portage of three-quarters of a mile. At a distance below this, which they estimated as seven miles, they reached that interesting place where the great northern and southern branches of the Big River unite. They were then at the location of the present Village of Burbank. Many interesting events and observations are chronicled of their stay at that point. Soon after their arrival a regular procession of 200 Indians from a camp a short distance up the Columbia came to visit them, timing their approach with the music of drums, accompanied with the voice. There seems to have followed a regular love-feast, both parties taking whiffs of the friendly pipe and expressing as best they could their common joy at the meeting. Then came a distribution of presents and a mutual pledging of good will.

The captains measured the rivers, finding the Columbia 960 yards wide and the Snake 575. From their point of observation across the continued plain they noted how it rose into the heights on the farther side of the river. They had already taken into account the far distant mountains to the south, our own Blue Mountains, which they thought about sixty miles distant, just about the right estimate. It is to be hoped that it was one of the perfect days not infrequent in October and that the azure hues of those mountains which we love today were before them in all their rich, soft splendor. They noted in the clear water of the river the incredible number of salmon. The Indians gave them to understand that frequently in the absence of other fuel they burned the fish that, having been thrown upon the bank, became so dry as to make excellent fuel. These Indians were of a tribe known as Sokulks. According to the description they were hardly so good-looking a people as the Chopunnish, but were of mild and peaceable disposition and seemed to live in a state of comparative happiness. The men, like those on the Kimooenim, were said to content themselves with a single wife. The explorers noted that the men shared with their mates the labor of procuring subsistence more than is usual among savages. They were also very kind to the aged and infirm. Nor were they inclined to beggary. All things considered, these Sokulks at the junction of the big rivers were worthy of much esteem. Captain Clark made a journey up the Columbia, in the course of which he made sundry interesting observations on the Indian manner of preparing salmon for preservation, as well as for present use. At one point he entered one of the mat houses. He was immediately provided with a mat on which to sit and his hosts proceeded at once to cook a salmon for his repast. This they did by heating stones, and then, bringing in the fish in a bucket of water, they dropped in the hot stones in succession till the water boiled. After sufficiently boiling the salmon, they placed it before the captain. He found it excellent. He noticed that many of these Indians were blind in one or both eyes and had lost part of their teeth. The first of these unfortunate conditions he attributed to the glare of the water on their unshaded eyes, and the second to their habit of eating roots without cleansing them from the sandy soil in which they grew. It would appear from the topography of the journal that Captain Clark went a short distance above the present site of Kennewick, for he was near the mouth of a large stream flowing from the west, which the Indians called the Tapteal, but which later became known as the Yakima, also a native name. While on land during this trip, the party got grouse (or what we now call prairie chickens) and ducks, and also a "prairie cock, about the size of a small turkey." This was evidently a sage hen. It is recorded that they saw none of that bird except on the Columbia. While camped at the junction of the rivers, the men were busily engaged in mending their clothes and travelling outfits and arms, and otherwise preparing for the next stage of the journey. One very interesting feature of the stay here was the fact that one of the chiefs with one of the Chimnapum, a tribe further west, provided the party with a map of the Columbia and the nations on its banks. This was drawn on a robe with a piece of coal and afterwards transferred by some one of the explorers to a piece of paper. They preserved it as a valuable specimen of Indian delineation.

On October 18, the party packed up and pushing off into the majestic river, proceeded downward toward the highlands, evidently what we call the Wallula Gateway. In the general journal, called the Edition of 1814., in which the contributions of all the party are merged, there seems to be some confusion as to the mouth of the Walla Walla River. The record mentions an island near the right shore fourteen and one-half miles from the mouth of Lewis' River and a mile and a half beyond that of small brook under a high hill on the left, "seeming to run its whole course through the high country." This evidently must be the Walla Walla River, though it can hardly be called a "small brook," even in the low season, and it flows quite distinctly in a valley, though the highlands begin immediately below. They also say: "At this place, too, we observed a mountain to the southwest, the form of which is conical, and its top covered with snow." This is obviously incorrect, for Mount Hood, which is the only snow mountain to the southwest visible anywhere near that place, cannot be seen from near the mouth of the Walla Walla, except by climbing the highlands. On the next day, October 19, the party was visited by a chief of whom they saw more and tell more on their return. This was Yelleppit. They describe him as a "handsome, well-proportioned man, about five feet, eight inches high and about thirty-five years old, with a bold and dignified countenance." His name is preserved in a station on the S. P. & S. Railroad, located just about at the place where the party met the chieftain.

After the meeting with Yelleppit, the party once more committed themselves to the downward rushing current of the Columbia, and passed beyond the range of our story. Of the interesting details of their continued journey down the river and the final vision of the ocean, "that ocean, the object of all our labors, the reward of all our anxieties," we cannot speak.

Having spent the winter at Fort Clatsop, about ten miles from the present Astoria and nearly the same distance from the present Seaside, they left Fort Clatsop for their long return journey, on March 23, 1806. They saw many interesting and important features of the country on the return, which they failed to note in going down. Among these, strange to say, was the entrance of the Willamette, the largest river below the Snake. The return was made as far as the "Long Narrows" (The Dalles) with the canoes, but at that point they procured horses and proceeded thence by land. They passed the "Youmalolam" (Umatilla) and then entering the highlands, were again within the area of "Old Walla Walla County." Reaching the country of the "Wallawollahs," they again came in contact with their old friend, whose name appears in that portion of the journal as Yellept. They found him more of a gentleman than ever. He insisted on his people making generous provision for the needs of the party, and gave them the valuable information that by going up the Wallawollah River and directly east to the junction of the Snake and Kooskooskie they might have a route full of grass and water and game, and much shorter than to follow the banks of Snake River. Accordingly crossing from the north bank of the Columbia, which they had been following, they found themselves on the Wallawollah. They do not now describe it as before as a "small brook," but as a "handsome stream, about fifty yards wide and four and a half feet in depth." They got one curious misapprehension here which was held later by explorers in general in regard to the Multnomah or Willamette. They understood from the Indians that the Willamette ran south of the Blue Mountains and was as large as the Columbia at the mouth of the Wallawollah, which they say was about a mile wide. They infer from the whole appearance, as the Indians seem to explain it, that the sources of the Willamette must approach those of the Missouri and Del Norte. One quaint and curious circumstance is mentioned at this stage of the story, as it has been, in fact, at various times. And that is the extravagant delight which the Indians derived from the violin. They were so fascinated with the sound of the instrument and the dancing which accompanied it that they would come in throngs and sometimes remain up all night. In this particular instance, however, they were so considerate of the white men's need of sleep that they retired at ten o'clock.

On the last day of April, 1806, the party turned their horses' heads eastward up the Wallawollah River across sandy expanses, which, however, they soon discovered to improve in verdure and in groves of trees. Having followed the main stream fourteen miles, they reached "a bold, deep stream, about ten yards wide, which seems navigable for canoes." They found a profusion of trees along the course of this creek and were delighted to see all the evidences of increasing timber. This stream, which they now followed for a number of miles, was evidently the Touchet, and the point where they turned to follow it was at the present Town of Touchet. Their course was up the creek for about twelve miles to a point where the creek bottom widened into a pleasant country two or three miles in width. This presumably was the fertile region beginning a mile or so east of the present Lamar, and extending thence onward to Prescott and beyond. The party made a day's march of twenty-six miles and camped at a point, which according to the figures of the next day, would have been near the present Bolles Junction. One rather quaint incident appears at this point in the narration, to the effect that when encamped for the night, three young men of the Wollawollahs came up with a steel trap which had inadvertently been left behind. The Indians had come a whole day's journey to restore this. This exhibition of honesty was so gratifying that the narration affirms that: "Of all the Indians whom we have met since leaving the United States, the Wollawollahs were the most hospitable, honest, and sincere."

Resuming the march the next day the explorers noted at a distance of three miles a branch entering the creek from the "southeast mountains, which, though covered with snow, are about twenty-five miles distant, and do not appear high." That branch must have been our Coppei, which joins the main creek at our pleasant little City of Waitsburg. Having proceeded a total distance of fourteen miles from the previous night's camp, the travellers found themselves at a point where the main creek bore to the south toward the mountains from which it came, and where a branch entered it from the northeast. This spot was evidently the site of Dayton, and the branch from the northeast which they now followed was the Patit. The next day they crossed the Kimooenim, which is the same that they had designated the Kimooenim Creek on their descent of Snake River in the fall, being, curiously enough, as already noted, the same name that they had already understood to be the Indian name of Snake River. The stream was evidently the Tucannon. From the Tucannon the course led our adventurers over the high, fertile plains near to the "southwest mountains" to a ravine "where was the source of a small creek, down the hilly and rocky sides of which we proceeded for eight miles to its entrance into Lewis' River, about seven miles and a half above the mouth of the Kooskooskie." This creek was the Asotin and therefore the point where they again reached Snake River was that grand and picturesque place where the attractive town of Asotin is now located.

The explorers having crossed the river were beyond the jurisdiction of this volume, and even of the State of Washington, being within that of Idaho, and hence we cannot follow them further on their return journey. We must content ourselves, in this farewell glance at this first, and in many respects, the most interesting and important of all the early transcontinental expeditions, with saying that the effects were of momentous, even transcendent value to the development of our country. Without the incorporation of Old Oregon into the United States, we would in all probability not have got California, and without our Pacific Coast frontage, think what a crippled and curtailed Union this would be! We would surely have missed our destiny without the Pacific Coast. The Lewis and Clark expedition was one of the essential links in the chain of acquisition. The summary of distances by the party is a total of 3,555 miles on the most direct route from the Mississippi at the mouth of the Missouri, to the Pacific Ocean, and the total distance descending the Columbia waters is placed at 640 miles.

President Jefferson did not exaggerate the character of this expedition in the tribute which he paid to Captain Lewis in 1813, when he expressed himself thus: "Never did a similar event excite more joy throughout the United States; the humblest of its citizens have taken a lively interest in this journey, and looked with impatience for the information which it would furnish. Nothing short of the official journals of this extraordinary and interesting journey will exhibit the importance of the service, the courage, the devotion, zeal, and perseverance, under circumstances calculated to discourage, which animated this little band of heroes, throughout the long, dangerous, and tedious travel."

Though many additional valuable discoveries of this land where we live were made by later explorers, Lewis and Clark and their assistants may justly be regarded as the true first explorers. They were, moreover, the only party that came purely for exploration. Later parties, though making valuable explorations, did such work as incidental to fur trade. With the completion of this great expedition, therefore, we may regard the era of the explorers completed and that of the fur-hunters begun.