In the wake of the pathfinders, fur-traders, Indian scouts, missionaries, scientific visitors, and foreign adventurers came the ultimate figure among early Western travellers, the American pioneer settler, the fore-runner of the forces of occupation and civilization. This concluding volume in our series is, therefore, fitly devoted to the record of an actual home-seeker, and founder of new Western communities.

The significant feature of American history has been the transplanting of bodies of colonists from one frontier to a newer frontier. In respect to the Oregon country, our interest therein is enhanced not only by the great distance and the abundant perils of the way, but also by the political result in securing the territory to the United States, and the growth of a prosperous commonwealth in the Far Northwest corner of our broad domain. In several previous volumes of our series we have witnessed the beginnings of Oregon civilization. Two of our travellers, FranchÈre and Ross, have graphically detailed the Astoria episode, giving us, not without some literary skill, the skeleton of facts which Irving's masterful pen clothed with living flesh and healthful color; in Townsend's pages we found an enduring picture of the rÉgime of the all-powerful Hudson's Bay Company; De Smet, with faithful, indeed loving, touches has portrayed the vanishing aborigines, whose sad story has yet fully to be told—eventually, when the last vestige of their race has gone, we shall come to recognize the tale as the sorriest chapter in our annals; Farnham shrewdly narrates the sharp transition to American occupancy; but Palmer tells us of the triumphant progress of the conquering pioneer, and in his pages the destiny of Oregon as an American state is clearly foreshadowed.

"Fifty-four forty, or fight," the belligerent slogan with regard to Oregon, adopted in the presidential campaign of 1844, was after all not so much a notice to the British government that the United States considered the Oregon country her own, beyond recall, as an appeal to the pioneers of the West to secure this vast inheritance by actual occupation. As such it proved a trumpet call to thousands of vigorous American farmers, most of them already possessed of comfortable homes in the growing communities of the Middle West.

"I have an uncle," declared one of the pioneers to Dr. John McLoughlin, Hudson's Bay factor on the Pacific coast, "who is rich enough to buy out your company and all this territory."

"Indeed!" replied the doctor, courteously, "who is he?"

"Uncle Sam," gayly responded the emigrant, with huge enjoyment in his well-worn witticism. It was at the supposed behest of this same "Uncle Sam" that farms were sold, wagons and oxen purchased, outfits prepared, and long caravans of permanent settlers slowly and painfully crossed the vast plains and rugged mountains lying between the comfortable settlements of the "Old Northwest"—the "Middle West" of our day—and the new land of promise in the Far Northwest of the Pacific Slope.

The emigration of 1845 exceeded all that had gone before. That of 1843, eight hundred strong, had startled the Indians, and surprised the staid officials of the Hudson's Bay Company. That of 1844 had occupied the fertile valleys from Puget Sound on the north to Calapooia on the south. That of 1845 determined that the territory should be the home of Americans; it doubled the population already on the ground, reinforced the compact form of government, and laid broad and deep the foundations of new American commonwealths.

Our author, Joel Palmer, a shrewd, genial farmer from Indiana, was a leader among these emigrants of 1845. Born across the Canada line in 1810, he nevertheless was of New York parentage, and American to the core. In early life his family removed to Indiana, where Joel founded a home at Laurel, in northwest Franklin County. By the suffrages of his neighbors Palmer was sent to the state legislature in 1844, but the following year determined to make a tour to Oregon for personal observation, before deciding to remove his family thither and cast his future lot with its pioneer settlers. Arrived on the Missouri frontier, he found that the usual wagon train had gone in advance. However, he overtook the great body of the emigrants in time to assist in the organization of the caravan on Big Soldier's Creek, in Kansas.

Gathered from all parts of the Middle West, with no attempt at organization nor any pre-arrangement whatsoever, the emigrants, who had not yet forgotten the frontier traditions of their fathers, proved to be a homogeneous body of about three thousand alert, capable travellers, provided in general with necessities and even comforts for the hardships of the long journey; indeed, after the manner of their Aryan forbears in the great westerly migrations of the past, they were accompanied by herds of cattle, to form the basis of agricultural life in the new land. Each of the several hundred wagons was a travelling house, provided with tents, beds, and cooking utensils; clothing and food were also carried, sufficient not only for the journey out, but for subsistence through the first year, always the crucial stage of agricultural pioneering. The draught cattle were largely oxen, but many of the men rode horses, and others drove them with their cows and bulls.

Aside from the duties of the nightly encampment and morning "catch-up," life upon the migration progressed much as in settled communities. There were instances of courtship, marriage, illness, and death, and not infrequently births, among the migrating families. These, together with the ever-shifting panorama of sky, plains, and mountains, made the incidents of the long and tedious journey. Occasionally there appeared upon the horizon an Indian gazing silently at these invaders of his tribal domain, and at times he came even to the wagon wheels to beg or trade; the mere numbers of the travellers gave him abundant caution not to attempt hostilities. The wagons were so numerous as to render a compact caravan troublesome to manage and disagreeable to travel with. The great cavalcade soon broke into smaller groups, over one of which, composed of thirty wagons, Palmer was chosen captain.

At Fort Laramie they rested, and feasted the Indians, who, in wonderment and not unnatural consternation, swarmed about them in the guise of beggars. Palmer afterwards harangued the aboriginal visitors, telling them frankly that their entertainers were no traders, they "were going to plough and plant the ground," that their relatives were coming behind them, and these he hoped the red men would treat kindly and allow free passage—a thinly veiled suggestion that the white army of occupation had come to stay and must not be interfered with by the native population, or vengeance would follow.

From Fort Laramie the invaders, for from the standpoint of the Indians such of course were our Western pioneers, followed the usual trail to the newly-established supply depot at Fort Bridger. Thence they went by way of Soda Springs to Fort Hall, where was found awaiting them a delegation from California, seeking, with but slight success, to persuade a portion of the emigrants in that direction. Following Lewis River on its long southern bend, the travellers at last reached Fort Boise, where provisions could be purchased from Hudson's Bay officials, and a final breathing-spell be taken before attempting the most difficult part of the journey—the passage of the Blue and Cascade ranges.

A considerable company of the emigrants, accompanied by the pilot, Stephen H. Meek, left the main party near Fort Hall, to force a new route to the Willamette without following Columbia River. The essay was, however, disastrous. Meek became bewildered, and was obliged to secrete himself to escape the revenge of the exasperated travellers, who reached the Dalles of the Columbia in an exhausted condition, having lost many of their number through hunger and physical hardships.

Palmer himself continued with the main caravan on the customary route through the Grande Ronde, down the Umatilla and the Columbia, arriving at the Dalles by the closing days of September. Here a new difficulty faced the weary pioneers—there was no wagon road beyond the Dalles; boats to transport the intending colonists were few, and had been pre-empted by the early arrivals, while provisions at the Dalles would soon be exhausted. In this situation Palmer determined to join Samuel K. Barlow and his company in an attempt to cross the Cascades south of Mount Hood, and lead the way overland to the Willamette valley. This proved an arduous task, calling for all the skill and fortitude of experienced pathfinders. In its course, Palmer ascended Mount Hood, which he describes as "a sight more nobly grand" than any he had ever looked upon. At last the valley of the Clackamas was reached, and Oregon City, the little capital of the new territory, was attained, where "we were so filled with gratitude that we had reached the settlements of the white man, and with admiration at the appearance of the large sheet of water rolling over the Falls, that we stopped, and in this moment of happiness recounted our toils, in thought, with more rapidity than tongue can express or pen write." The distance that he had travelled from Independence, Missouri, our author estimates at 1,960 miles.

Passing the winter of 1845-46 in Oregon, Palmer made a careful examination of its resources, and in his book describes the country in much detail. The ensuing spring, after a journey to the Lapwai mission for horses, he started on the return route, arriving at his home in Laurel, Indiana, upon the twenty-third of July.

Palmer's experience, although trying, had been sufficiently satisfactory to justify his intention to make a permanent home in Oregon. In 1847 he took his family thither, the emigration of that year being sometimes known as "Palmer's train," he having been elected captain of the entire caravan, also in recognition of his great utility to the expedition. The new caravan had but just arrived in Oregon—now belonging definitely to the United States—when the Whitman massacre aroused the colonists to punish the Indian participants in order to ensure their own safety. In the organization of the militia force, Joel Palmer was chosen quartermaster and commissary general, whence the title of General, by which he was subsequently known.

He was also made one of two commissioners to attempt to treat with the recalcitrant tribes, and win to neutrality as many as possible. Accompanied by Dr. Robert Newell, a former mountain man, and Perrin Whitman, the murdered man's nephew, as interpreter, Palmer risked his life in the land of the hostiles, and succeeded in alienating many Nez PercÉs and Wallawalla from the guilty Cayuse. Thus was laid the foundation of that full knowledge of aboriginal character that availed him in his service as United States superintendent of Indians for Oregon.

To this difficult position General Palmer was appointed by President Pierce in 1853, just on the eve of an outbreak in southern Oregon, and his term of office coincided with the period of Indian wars. After pacifying the southern tribes, Palmer inaugurated the reservation system, removing the remnants of the tribes of the Willamette valley and their southward neighbors to a large tract in Polk and Yamhill counties, known as Grande Ronde Reservation. This ended the Indian difficulties in that quarter until the Modoc War, twenty years later.

Palmer found the tribesmen east of the mountains more difficult to subdue. Scarcely had he and Isaac T. Stevens, governor of Washington Territory, made a series of treaties (1855) with the Nez PercÉs, Cayuse, Wallawalla, and neighboring tribes, when the Yakima War began, and embroiled both territories until 1858. During these difficulties the military authorities complained that Commissioner Palmer was too lenient with former hostiles, and pinned too much faith to their promises. Consequently the Oregon superintendency was merged with that of Washington (1857), and James W. Nesmith appointed to the combined office.

Retiring to his home in Dayton, Yamhill County, which town he had laid out in 1850, General Palmer was soon called upon to serve in the state legislature, being speaker of the house of representatives (1862-63), and state senator (1864-66). During the latter incumbency he declined being a candidate for United States senator, because of his belief that a person already holding a public office of emolument should not during his term be elected to another. In 1870 he was Republican candidate for governor of the state, but was defeated by a majority of less than seven hundred votes. From this time forward he lived quietly at Dayton, and there passed away upon the ninth of June, 1881. His excellent portrait given in Lyman's History of Oregon (iii, p. 398) is that of an old man; but the face is still strong and kindly, with a high and broad forehead, and gentle yet piercing eyes.

One of Palmer's fellow pioneers said of him, "he was a man of ardent temperament, strong friendships, and full of hope and confidence in his fellow men." Another calls his greatest characteristic his honesty and integrity. Widely known and respected in the entire North-West, his services in the up-building of the new community were of large import.

Not the least of these services was, in our judgment, the publication of his Journal of Travels over the Rocky Mountains, herein reprinted, which was compiled during the winter of 1846-47, and planned as a guide for intending emigrants. The author hoped to have it in readiness for the train of 1847, but the publishers were dilatory and he only received about a dozen copies before starting. The book proved useful enough, however, to require two later editions, one in 1851, another in 1852, and was much used by emigrants of the sixth decade of the past century.

Palmer makes no pretence of literary finish. He gives us a simple narrative of each day's happenings during his own first journey in 1845, taking especial care to indicate the route, each night's camping places, and all possible cut-offs, springs, grassy oases, and whatever else might conduce to the well-being of the emigrant and his beasts. The great care taken by the author, with this very practical end in view, results in his volume being the most complete description of the Oregon Trail that we now possess. Later, his account of passing around Mount Hood and the initial survey of the Barlow road, produces a marked effect through its simplicity of narrative. His incidents have a quaint individuality, as for instance the reproof from the Cayuse chief for the impiety of card-playing. No better description of the Willamette valley can be found than in these pages, and our author's records of the climate, early prices in Oregon, and the necessities of an emigrant's outfit, complete a graphic picture of pioneering days.

In the annotation of the present volume, we have had valuable suggestions and some material help from Principal William I. Marshall of Chicago, Professor Edmond S. Meany of the University of Washington, Mr. George H. Himes of Portland, Dr. Joseph Schafer of the University of Oregon, and Mr. Edward Huggins, a veteran Hudson's Bay Company official at Fort Nisqually.

With this volume our series of narratives ends, save for the general index reserved for volume xxxi. The Western travels which began in tentative excursions into the Indian country around Pittsburg and Eastern Ohio in 1748, have carried us to the coast of the Pacific. The continent has been spanned. Not without some exhibitions of wanton cruelty on the part of the whites have the aborigines been pushed from their fertile seats and driven to the mountain wall. The American frontier has steadily retreated—at first from the Alleghanies to the Middle West, thence across the Mississippi, and now at the close of our series it is ascending the Missouri and has sent vanguards to the Farthest Northwest. The ruts of caravan routes have been deeply sunk into the plains and deserts, and wheel marks are visible through the length of several mountain passes. The greater part of the continental interior has been threaded and mapped. The era of railroad building and the engineer is at hand. The long journey to the Western ocean has been ridded of much of its peril, and is less a question of mighty endurance than confronted the pathfinders. When Francis Parkman, the historian of New France, going out upon the first stages of the Oregon Trail in 1847—the year following the date of the present volume—saw emigrant wagons fitted with rocking chairs and cooking stoves, he foresaw the advent of the commonplace upon the plains, and the end of the romance of Early Western Travels.

Throughout the entire task of preparing for the press this series of reprints, the Editor has had the assistance of Louise Phelps Kellogg, Ph. D., a member of his staff in the Wisconsin Historical Library. Others have also rendered editorial aid, duly acknowledged in the several volumes as occasion arose; but from beginning to end, particularly in the matter of annotation, Dr. Kellogg has been his principal research colleague, and he takes great pleasure in asking for her a generous share of whatever credit may accrue from the undertaking. Annie Amelia Nunns, A. B., also of his library staff, has rendered most valuable expert aid, chiefly in proofreading and indexing. The Editor cannot close his last word to the Reader without gratefully calling attention, as well, to the admirable mechanical and artistic dress with which his friends the Publishers have generously clothed the series, and to bear witness to their kindly suggestions, active assistance, and unwearied patience, during the several years of preparation and publication.

R. G. T.

Madison, Wis., August, 1906.