FROM COLUMBIA RIVER TO PUGET SOUND.

"Can I get home tonight?" I asked myself, while the sun was yet high one afternoon of the last week of June (1853).

I was well up river, on the left bank of the Cowlitz. I could not tell how far, for there were no milestones, or way places to break the monotony of the crooked, half obstructed trail leading down stream. I knew that at the best it would be a race with the sun, for there were many miles between me and the cabin, but the days were long, and the twilight longer, and I would camp that much nearer home if I made haste. My pack had been discarded on the Sound; I did not even have either coat or blanket. The heavy, woolen shirt, often worn outside the pants, will be well remembered by my old-time pioneer readers. Added to this, the well worn slouch hat, and worn shoes, both of which gave ample ventilation, completed my dress; socks, I had none, neither suspenders, the improvised belt taking their place; and so I was dressed suitable for the race, and was eager for the trial.

I had parted with my brother at Olympia, where he had come to set me that far on my journey; he to return to the claims we had taken, and I to make my way across country for the wife and baby, to remove them to our new home. I did not particularly mind the camping so much if necessary, but did not fancy the idea of lying out so near home, if I could by extra exertion reach the cabin that night. I did not have the friendly ox to snug up to for warmth, as in so many bivouacs while on the plains, but I had matches, and there were many mossy places for a bed and friendly shelter of the drooping cedars. We never thought of "catching cold" by lying on the ground or on cedar boughs, or from getting a good drenching. Somehow it did seem I was free from all care of bodily ailment, and could endure continued exertion for long hours without the least inconvenience. The readers of this generation doubtless will be ready to pour out their sympathy for the hardships of the lonely trail, and lone camp, and the supperless bed of boughs, but they may as well reserve this for others of the pioneers whose systems were less able to bear the unusual strain of the new conditions. But the camp had to be made; the cabin could not be reached, for the trail could not be followed at night, nor the Kalama Creek crossed; so, slackening my pace at nightfall to gradually cool my system, I finally made my camp and slept, as sound as if on a bed of down, with the consolation that the night was short and that I could see to travel by 3 o'clock, and it did not make so very much difference, after all.

I can truly say that of all those years of camp and cabin life, I do not look upon them as years of hardship. To be sure, our food was plain as well as dress, our hours of labor long and labor frequently severe, and that the pioneers appeared rough and uncouth, yet underlying all this, there ran a vein of good cheer, of hopefulness, of the intense interest always engendered with strife to overcome difficulties where one is the employer as well as the employed. We never watched for the sun to go down, or for the seven o'clock whistle, or for the boss to quicken our steps, for the days were always too short, and interest in our work always unabated.

The cabin could not be seen for a long distance on the trail, but I thought I caught sight of a curl of smoke and then immediately knew I did, and that settled it that all was well in the cabin. But when a little nearer, a little lady in almost bloomer dress was espied milking a cow, and a frisking, fat calf in the pen was seen, then I knew, and all solicitude vanished. The little lady never finished milking that cow, nor did she ever milk others when the husband was at home, though she knew how well enough, and never felt above such work if a necessity arose, but we parceled out duties on a different basis, with each to their suited parts. The bloom on the cheek of the little wife, the baby in the cabin as fat as the calf, told the story of good health and plentitude of food, and brought good cheer with the welcome home. The dried potato eyes had just been planted, although it was then the first week of July, following the receding waters of the June freshet up the Columbia, and were sprouting vigorously. I may say, in passing, there came a crop from these of nearly four hundred bushels at harvest time.

It did seem there were so many things to talk about that one could scarcely tell where to begin or when to stop. "Why, at Olympia, eggs were a dollar a dozen. I saw them selling at that. That butter you have there on the shelf would bring a dollar a pound as fast as you could weigh it out; I saw stuff they called butter sell for that; then potatoes were selling for $3.00 a bushel and onions at $4.00. Everything the farmer raises sells high." "Who buys?" "Oh, almost everybody has to buy; there's the ships and the timber camps, and the hotels, and the—"

"Where do they get the money?"

"Why, everybody seems to have money. Some take it there with them. Then men working in the timber camps get $4.00 a day and their board. I saw one place where they paid $4.00 a cord for wood to ship to San Francisco, and one can sell all the shingles he can make at $4.00 a thousand, and I was offered 5 cents a foot for piles. If we had Buck and Dandy over there we could make twenty dollars a day putting in piles."

"Where could you get the piles?"

"Off the government land, of course. All help themselves to all they want. Then there are the fish, and the clams, and the oysters, and—"

"But what about the land for a claim?"

That question was a stumper. The little wife never lost sight of that bargain made before we were married, that we were going to be farmers; and here now I found myself praising a country I could not say much for its agricultural qualities, but other things quite foreign to that interest.

But if we could sell produce higher, might we not well lower our standard of an ideal farm? The claim I had taken was described with a tinge of disappointment, falling so far below in quality of what we had hoped to acquire, but still adhering to the resolution to be farmers, we began the preparations for removal to the Sound.

The wife, baby, bedding, ox yoke, and log chain were sent up the Cowlitz in a canoe, while Buck and Dandy and I renewed our acquaintance by taking to the trail where we had our parting bivouac. We had camped together many a night on the plains, and slept together literally, not figuratively. I used to crowd up close under Buck's back while napping on watch, for the double purpose of warmth and signal—warmth while at rest, signal if the ox moved. On this occasion I was illy prepared for a cool night camp, having neither blanket nor coat, as I had expected to reach "Hard-Bread's" Hotel, where the people in the canoe would stop over night. But I could not make it and so again laid on the trail to renew the journey bright and early the next morning.

Hard Bread's is an odd name for a hotel, you will say; so it is, but the name grew out of the fact that Gardner, the old widower that kept "bachelor's" hall at the mouth of Toutle River, fed his customers on hard tack three times a day, if perchance any one was unfortunate enough to be compelled to take their meals at his place.

I found the little wife had not fared any better than I had on the trail, and, in fact, not so well, for the floor of the cabin was a great deal harder than the sand spit where I had passed the night, with plenty of pure, fresh air, while she, in a closed cabin, in the same room with many others, could neither boast of fresh air nor freedom from creeping things that make life miserable. With her shoes for a pillow, a shawl for covering, small wonder the report came "I did not sleep a wink last night."

Judge Olney and wife were passengers in the same canoe and guests at the same house with the wife, as also Frank Clark, who afterwards played a prominent part at the bar, and in the political affairs of Pierce County in particular, and incidentally of the whole Territory.

We soon arrived at the Cowlitz landing, and at the end of the canoe journey, so, striking the tent that had served us so well on the plains, and with a cheerful camp fire blazing for cooking, speedily forgot the experience of the trail, the cramped passage in the canoe, the hard bread, dirt and all, while enjoying the savory meal, the like of which only the expert hands of the ladies of the plains could prepare.

But now we had fifty miles of land to travel before us, and over such a road! Words cannot describe that road, and so I will not try. One must have traveled it to fully comprehend what it meant. However, we had one consolation, and that was it would be worse in winter than at that time. We had no wagon. Our wagon had been left at The Dalles, and we never saw nor heard of it again. Our cows were gone—given for provender to save the lives of the oxen during the deep December snow, and so when we took account of stock, we had Buck and Dandy, the baby, and a tent, an ox yoke and chain, enough clothing and bedding to keep us comfortable, with but very little food and no money—that had all been expended on the canoe passage.

Shall we pack the oxen and walk, and carry baby, or shall we build a sled and drag our things over to the Sound, or shall I make an effort to get a wagon? This latter proposition was the most attractive, and so next morning, driving Buck and Dandy before me, leaving the wife and baby to take care of the camp, the search for a wagon began.

That great hearted old pioneer, John R. Jackson, did not hesitate a moment, stranger as I was, to say, "Yes, you can have two if you need them." Jackson had settled eight years before, ten miles out from the landing, and had an abundance around him, and like all those earlier pioneers, took a pride in helping others who came later. Retracing the road, night found me again in camp, and all hands happy, but Jackson would not listen to allowing us to proceed the next day any farther than his premises, where he would entertain us in his comfortable cabin, and send us on our way the morning following, rejoicing in plenty.

Without special incident or accident, we in due time arrived at the foot of the falls of the Deschutes (Tumwater), and on the shore of Puget Sound. Here a camp must be established again; the little wife and baby left while I drove the wagon over the tedious road to Jackson's and then returned with the oxen to tide water.

The reader may well imagine my feelings, when, upon my return, my tent, wife, baby, and all were gone. We knew before I started on my return trip that smallpox was raging among the Indians, and that a camp where this disease was prevalent was in sight less than a quarter of a mile away. The present-day reader must remember that dread disease had terrors then that, since universal vaccination, it does not now possess. Could it be possible my folks had been sick and had been removed? The question, however, was soon solved. I had scarcely gotten out of sight upon my trip before one of those royal pioneer matrons came to the camp and pleaded and insisted and finally almost frightened the little wife to go and share her house with her which was near by, and be out of danger from the smallpox.

And that was the way we traveled from the Columbia River to Puget Sound.

God bless those earlier pioneers; they were all good to us, sometimes to the point of embarrassment by their generous hospitality.

I can not dismiss this subject without reverting to one such, in particular, who gave his whole crop during the winter of which I have just written, to start immigrants on the road to prosperity, and, in some instances, to prevent suffering.

In consequence of the large immigration and increased demand, prices of provisions had run sky high, and out of reach of some of the recent immigrants with large families. George Bush had squatted on a claim seven miles south of Olympia, in 1845, and had an abundance of farm produce, but would not sell a pound of anything to a speculator; but to immigrants, for seed or for immediate pressing wants, to all alike, without money and without price—"return it when you can," he would say—and so divided up his whole crop, then worth thousands of dollars. And yet this man's oath could not at that time be taken; neither could he sue in the courts or acquire title to the land upon which he lived, or any land. He had negro blood in his veins, and under the law of this great country, then, was a proscribed outcast. Conditions do change as time passes. The wrong was so flagrant in this particular case that a special act of Congress enabled this old, big-hearted pioneer of 1845 to hold his claim, and his descendants are living on it yet.

I have been so impressed with the altruistic character of this truly great man that I have procured this testimonial from a close acquaintance and neighbor, Prof. Ayres, who has kindly written the history of the life of this truly great pioneer.

A GREAT PIONEER—GEORGE BUSH, THE VOYAGER.

The history of the Northwest settlement cannot be fully written without an account of George Bush, who organized and led the first colony of American settlers to the shores of Puget Sound, whose great humanity, shrewd intelligence, and knowledge of the natives, who then numbered thousands about the headwaters of the Sound, had much to do with carrying the first settlers safely through all of the curses of famine and war while the feeble colony was slowly gaining enough strength to protect itself.

Mr. Bush claimed to have been born about 1791 in what is now Missouri, but was then the French Colony of Louisiana, and in the extreme Far West, and only reached by the most daring hunters. His early manhood was spent in the employ of the great trading companies who reached out into the Rock Mountains each season and gathered furs from the Indians and the occasional white trappers.

Bush first began this work (?) with Rabidean, the Frenchman, who made his headquarters at St. Louis, but later on enlisted with the Hudson's Bay Company, which had been given unrestrained dominion over all Canada outside of the settlements in the East, and, not satisfied with that, sent its trading parties down across the national line, where it was safe to do so. It was during this employment with the Hudson Bay Company that Bush reached the Pacific Coast in the late twenties, and while he did not get as far south as Puget Sound (then occupied by the company and claimed as a part of the British Dominion), he learned of its favorable climate, soil and fitness for settlement.

He then returned to Missouri about 1830, settled in Clay County, married a German-American woman and raised a family of boys.

In 1843, Marcus Whitman made his famous trip from Oregon to the national capital and excited the whole country by his stories of the great possible future of the extreme Northwest and the duty of the Government to insist upon its claim to dominion over the western coast from the Mexican settlement in California up to the Russian possessions in the far north.

Everything got into politics then, even more than now, and the Democratic party, which until then had been the most aggressive in extending the national bounds, took up the cry of "Fifty-four Forty or Fight", to win what they knew would be a close contest for President in 1844.

This meant the taking possession of the whole thousand miles or more of coast by settlement and driving the English out by threats or force.

As I have indicated before, the people of St. Louis and Missouri had become deeply interested in the extreme west through their trading interests, and as the retired voyager was one of the very few who knew about the western coast and had sufficient fitness for leadership he was encouraged by his friends to make up a party and cross the plains to the new Oregon.

This was in the winter of 1843-4 and early in the spring, he, with four other families and three single men, set out with a large outfit of wagons and live stock over what is now known as the "Old Oregon Trail."

The names of this company were as follows:

George Bush, his wife and sons (Wm. Owen, Joseph, R. B., Sanford—now living—and Jackson);

Col. M. T. Simmons, wife and seven children;

David Kindred, wife and one son;

Gabriel Jones, wife and three children;

Wm. McAllister, wife and several children, and the three young bachelors, Samuel Crockett, Reuben Crowder, and Jesse Ferguson.

Of these families, the Jones and Kindreds are now extinct, and of the original party only two sons of Col. Simmons and Sanford Bush are now living. Semis Bush, the youngest son of George Bush, was born after their arrival, in 1847, on Bush Prairie and, by the way, is perhaps the oldest living white American born in the Puget Sound basin.

The Bush party suffered the usual hardships of the overland journey but met no great disaster, and reached The Dalles late in the fall of 1844. There they camped for the winter and decided their future plans.

At that time the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, the sole official representative of the British Government, was on the Columbia River with its chief settlements at Vancouver and The Dalles.

It was the policy of the company to prevent all settlement north of the Columbia River and confine its use to the fur-bearing industry and depend upon the Indians for the necessary hunting and trapping. The employes of the company consisted of the necessary factors and clerks, some English, but more Scotch, while the rest, boatmen, etc., were nearly all Canadian French.

The great chief factor for the whole west was Dr. McLoughlin, a benevolent despot, well fitted to govern his savage dominion so long as the Yankees kept away, but at the period in question he found himself in a painful conflict between the interests of humanity and the demands of his superiors.

The governing board in London was composed of members of the government and aristocracy who were extremely resentful of the demands and claims of the American politicians and gave most imperative orders to Governor McLoughlin and the other factors and agents on the Coast to discourage all settlement by the Americans north of the Columbia River and to furnish no supplies or other assistance to the American travelers or settlers. This prohibition also extended, though less rigidly, to the Oregon settlements south of the Columbia, for the company saw clearly that unless the emigration could be checked the vast profits of their fast growing trade in the west would soon be lost.

Sanford Bush, though a small boy at the time, remembers the trip well, and tells me that the main dependence of his father's party and the other early settlers was the friendliness of the French Canadians, who had much more sympathy for the poor settlers than with the English stockholders, and did not hesitate to smuggle all sorts of supplies, especially of food, from their farms into the hands of the Americans, and it was in this emergency that the former experience and intimate acquaintance of George Bush with the French and their desire to assist him turned his attention to the Puget Sound country and made it possible for him to smuggle his party up into territory that was yet claimed by the British, without its becoming officially known to the chief factor. At that time the road from the Columbia River, or rather from the landing on the Cowlitz River, to the head of the Sound was only a single trail through dense forests, and that was always more or less blocked by falling timber. No vehicle could get through and, while Sanford says that the party did get some of the twenty wagons with which they left Missouri through to The Dalles, they only reached the Sound with what they could pack on their animals or drag on rude sleds.

In this condition the little party reached the extreme head of the Sound at Tumwater early in the spring of 1845 and proceeded to take possession of such tracts of land as took their fancy, covering what is now the town of Tumwater and back along the west side of the little Des Chutes River, and out on the prairie, which begins about a mile south of the landing and extends down about three miles to a rise of ground not far from the river. Upon this commanding site George Bush pitched his last camp and there his family descendants have lived to the present time, and the prairie of some five square miles extent has always been known as Bush Prairie.

Mr. Bush was a farmer, and having brought as much live stock as possible he at once broke up some of the best of the open prairie. He was so successful that in a very few years his farm was the main resource for grain, vegetables and fruit for supplying the newcomers in that region.

Let me say in passing that his memory is honored to this day among the early families for the fact that while he was at times the only man in the country with food for sale he would never take advantage by raising the price nor allow anyone to buy more than his own needs during an emergency.

In 1845 there were no mills on the Sound for grinding grain nor sawing lumber and as quick as the necessary outfit could be secured, which was about three years later, all of the Bush party, with Mr. Simmons as manager, joined in constructing a combined saw and grist mill at the foot of the lower Tumwater Fall, and where the small streams and rafts of timber could reach it at high tide.

For the grist mill, the main question was a pair of grinding stones and these were secured from a granite boulder on the shore of Mud Bay, the western branch of Budd's Inlet, at the head of which Tumwater and (two miles north) Olympia are situated. A man named Hamm, a stonecutter by trade, worked out and dressed the stones for use. I have tried to find these but am told that one was allowed to sink into the mud near the old mill site, while the other was taken out to the Bush farm, but it cracked to pieces many years ago and is now all gone.

It may be of interest to add that in the late seventies a man by the name of Horton originated the patent wood pipe industry in a mill on the site of the first mill.

In the same year of the first mill, in 1848, was loaded the first cargo of freight for export from the Upper Sound. This was on the brig Orbit, which had just come from the east around the Horn, and for this also Bush and his party made up a cargo of piles and hand-sawed shingles, etc. The vessel had brought quite a quantity of supplies and these made the first respectable stock of goods for the little store which the party had started in connection with the mill.

THE FANNING MILL.

The Bush family still possess and use an interesting relic of that first vessel. The Orbit brought out from the east two families named Rider and Moulton, and in their outfit were two fanning mills. So far as known, these were the first ever brought to the Sound and were certainly the first outside of Nisqually, the Hudson Bay station for the Sound.

As Bush was the greatest grain raiser and the new grist mill could not well get along without it, Mr. Bush secured one of these fanning mills and for some time all of the settlers who attempted to raise grain were permitted to use it.

It is singular that this old hand mill, which was such an important and hard worked factor in the first settlement, should, sixty-five years later, still be as efficient as ever and still be a necessity for the grandchildren of the old pioneer.

The other mill was secured by John R. Jackson, who was the first American settler on Cowlitz Prairie, and was also a former employe of the Hudson's Bay Company.

As I have said before, George Bush was not only remarkable, for his time, in the virtues of humanity, sympathy and wise justice, which virtues have been well kept by his descendants, but he had a rare power over the natives and, while the different tribes often fought out their quarrels in the neighborhood, none of the Bush family was ever molested so long as they kept west of the Des Chutes River. Sanford tells of one occasion when two tribes, numbering many hundreds, fought all day on the Bush farm but both sides promised not to injure the whites.

As, however, the natives had only a few very poor guns and little ammunition, only a few were hurt and the battle consisted mostly of yells and insults.

I asked Sanford and Lewis about Chief Leschi. They say he often came to their place up to the time of the war, and as his mother belonged to the more fierce Klickitats of the trans-mountain tribes, so Leschi was more of a positive and aggressive character than his clam-digging brothers, but was always friendly and respectful to those who treated him fairly.

THE FIRST COUGAR.

It was during one of Leschi's visits to their place, about 1850, that one of the ponies was killed by some wild animal. The same thing had happened several times about the Cowlitz but none of the Indians nor any of the French trappers had, up to that time, ever seen any around that was capable of the mischief. Mr. Bush set a large bear trap that he had brought from Missouri near the remains of the pony and was fortunate enough to capture what proved to be a remarkably long bodied and long tailed cougar, the first, so far as the Bush brothers could learn, that had ever been seen on the Sound. In honor of the event, Leschi was allowed to take charge of removing and preparing the skin of the new kind of game.

Asked about the cause of the Indian war which was started by Leschi on the ground that his people had been deceived and robbed in the outlining of their reservation on the Nisqually, Sanford and Lewis assert positively that all of the whites of the Tumwater and Bush Prairie section were agreed that the Indians were badly wronged and there was much sympathy with the Leschi party.

When the war opened, Leschi sent word to Bush promising that none of the whites on the west side of the Des Chutes would be molested and this proved to be true, though all of the natives were in a restless condition over the trouble for many months.

The most critical experience that the Bush company had with the Indians was a few years before, in May, 1849, when Pat Kamm, chief of the Snoqualmies, landed nearby on the bay (Budd Inlet) with a great fleet of war canoes, and made it known that they were going to destroy all of the whites. In this emergency, a squad went down and told them that Chief Bush had a terrible great gun that would sink all of the canoes as soon as they should come around what is now known as Capitol Point. This alarmed the natives so much that they finally gave up their purpose and returned down Sound. It is to be added that the "terrible gun" was a very heavy rifle that Bush had brought from the East and which kicked so badly that nobody dared fire it twice.

Mr. Bush carried on his farm with great success and kept the high respect and good will of all the settlement until his death in 1867 at the age of 76. His eldest son, William Owen, who succeeded his father as the recognized head of the family, was born in 1832 and was twelve years old when he crossed the plains. He had the same gentle virtues of his father and was always consulted in the affairs and politics of Thurston County. During the first state legislature of '89-90, he was an active and influential member. While he carried on both a logging and farming business, he was also greatly interested in the world fairs, and at Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis took several notable prizes for his remarkable exhibits of Puget Sound productions, all raised on his own farm. At the Centennial Fair, in 1876, he took the world's prize for wheat; and from the Chicago Fair he brought back over two hundred kinds of grain, which he raised in separate rows in one field.

Wm. Owen died in 1906 and his brother Sanford, with two sons of Col. Simmons were all that are left of the first American colony of Puget Sound.