Seventy Years of Reminiscences with William Barlow

There was one of my grandfathers I never saw. He was killed or wounded unto death in the Revolutionary War. My mother and grandmother often told me what a great, patriotic grandfather I had; of this I will have more to say hereafter. Of course, all sons of Revolutionary sires have a lasting grudge of King George the Third, and a more bitter grudge against the Tories.

I will first give a history of the Barlow side of the house, as handed down from my great-grandfather Barlow. But I have no exact dates. I only know they come from Scotland long before the Revolution and settled in old Virginia. They always claimed we had Bruce and Wallace blood in our veins.

In those days the crown appointed all the magistrates, who domineered over the people as they saw best. They did not consider the common people had any right that they were bound to respect.

One day my great-grandfather Barlow was going to mill with a heavy load of grain on a sled, snow about a foot deep outside of the traveled tract. The royal magistrate, with a fine cutter, prancing steeds and jingling bells, came dashing up in front of the old farmer. With a wave of his hand to turn out of the beaten track with grandfather failed to recognize, the result was disastrous. The magistrate, cutter and all went over into the gutter. The old gent stopped his big team to assist his royal highness in getting out of his self-made unpleasantness. But instead of thanking the old gent for his kindness, he sprang to his feet, drew his sword and went for the old man just as he got in reach, the butt of the old gent's blacksnake gave him a clip on the lug of the ear which dropped him in the beautiful snow over a foot deep. That and the blacksnake, or both together, seemed to cool the young officer off. So he got up and begged the old gent's pardon. Grandfather helped him get the rig all straightened out, and told him he had got him so he though he could take care of himself, and each one went his own way. To grandfather's surprise, that was the last he ever heard of the affair.

My own grandfather, William Barlow, for whom I was named, followed Daniel Boone to Kentucky, and had to contend with numerous tribes of Indiana. Kentucky was not claimed by any particular tribe of Indians, but held as mutual hunting ground by all the surrounding tribes. The climate and blue grass production of the soil made it a great resort and home for all the carnivorous and herbaceous wild animals of the forest that were found east of the Mississippi River. Among these were bear, panther and wolves, buffalo, elk and deer, besides all of the little fry, such as foxes, coons, opossums, hogs, hedgehogs, squirrels, rabbits and wild turkeys, in unlimited quantities.

So all the first settlers had to do was to get in a little patch of corn for bread. This was pounded in a mortar, burnt out in a big stump, with a big wooden pestle. The pestle swung from a natural spring pole, by bending down a young hickory tree and tying a rawhide made of buffalo skin to the top of the little hickory sapling that was stout enough to raise the big pestle above the mortar so the corn would roll to the center of the big stump whenever the pestle went up. Thus one could have a bushel of cornmeal in a very short time. Of course, it had to be sifted through a rawhide deerskin sieve that was made at home and equally as good as the best wire ones that we use today.

Grandfather said the way they protected themselves from the numerous tribes of Indians, who made desperate efforts to keep the whites off their happy hunting ground, was by building their log houses in straight rows right opposite each other, with a porthole or lookout on one side of the door, that could be closed up at night and opened up in the day to give light in the house. All the inmates had to observe a certain rule of rising in the morning at a stated hour, or as soon as they could see across the street, about sixty feet wide. Thus they could see if there were any redmen at their neighbors' doors. The only way the wild Indians could hope to cope with Kentucky rifles was by placing a watch at the door of each house with a tomahawk in hand to strike down the inmate as soon as he opened the door. But before the door opened each watcher, almost at the same time, fell dead at the door he was watching. There was no truce to bury the dead, but the Kentucky braves gave the red braves a decent burial all in one grave. One such occurrence as this was the last time the noble redman of the forest ever tried that plan.

Of course, the bow and arrow was no match for the Kentucky rifle, many of which the frontiersmen made themselves. My grandfather was a gunsmith and made as good accurate shooting guns as are made in this day and age of the world.

Kentucky now began to settle up in earnest, mostly from Virginia and Tennessee. Cornwallis had surrendered and Tories had to hunt their holes. Peace and quiet now reigned throughout the land. Kentucky was filling up rapidly with the F.F.V's.

My grandfather soon met and married a Miss Sarah Kimbrough, of Welsh descent. Her father moved from Virginia with all his household, including a large family of negroes, many cattle and horses, and an even half-bushel of Spanish milled dollars, the only real land office money we had at that time that amounted to anything. This silver is now considered unsound, dishonest, corrupt fifty-cent dollars. Rag money is good enough for the common people now. I only mention this to show what a wonderful change has taken place since I was a man grown.

In 1812 war again broke out between the United States and Great Britain. I had two uncles who were old enough to shoulder a rifle. One of them made his own gun, he being a gunsmith himself. In fact, both of them were fine mechanics at anything in the iron or steel line. Both of them were strongly solicited not to enter the ranks, but to enter the armory corps as mechanics, to repair and keep guns in order. Uncle Jim said that would suit him better than to be set up as a target for redcoats and he was going to do that or he would go home. So each one got his wishes granted.

But Uncle Jim made the most money, had the easiest time and saw the most fun. He was a great hand to tell jokes and anecdotes, particularly on the Irish. He used to tell one with a great deal of eclat (sic) about a couple of Irish soldiers when they were lying at barracks. They called him master armorer, as he was head mechanic at the armory. The Irish boys came rushing in one evening both out of breath.

"Master armorer, master armorer, me and my comrade here has got a wager of a dollar apiece and a quart of whiskey."

"Well, what is it, my boys?"

"Well my friend and comrade here bets me a dollar that he can drink this quart of whiskey all at one time and live till morning a live man, you give him the two dollars. But if he is not here at six o'clock in the morning the money is mine. Is that stated right, comrade?"

"Just right, just right, and I'll get the money, whiskey and all, and divil a bit will I give ye."

Next morning a little after six o'clock the head spokesman came bounding in.

"Master armorer, give me the money."

"Is your comrade dead?"

"Och, and he is as straight (and stiff, too) as a shingle. Darn fool, I told him so, but he said it was just like finding two dollars and getting whiskey besides."

Uncle John's regiment had gone to New Orleans--

Where Pakenham had made his brags, if he and fight were lucky, He would have his gals in cotton bags, in spite of old Kentucky. But Jackson he was wide awake, and wasn't dazed at trifles.

Pakenham had at least three to our one of regular British soldiers. He came on with all the pomp and dash of a Wellington. Jackson said: "Hold your fire, my boys, until you can see the whites of their eyes."

When the word was given all along the line to "make ready, take aim, fire," Uncle John said it seemed as though the whole British army went down at once.

Jackson again commanded, "Keep cool, my boys, take your time, load your rifles well, so every ball will tell, then give them plenty of time to rally and close up the ranks. We are perfectly safe; no ball will go through these cotton bales."

So the second charge was worse than the first.

Then Pakenham made a third desperate effort at the head of his invincible's, as he called them. But the third time he went down with them with a Kentucky ball through his most vital parts. All was lost; nobody to rally them, and army demoralized.

We lost nothing, comparatively speaking. We had killed more than our whole army numbered, Uncle John said.

Jackson declined to follow them, and said: " Let them go; we have no guns to sink their ships, but we can whip them on land as fast they come ashore."

Uncle John told us that Pakenham was corked up in a cask of whiskey and shipped back to England, but when the vessel arrived in Liverpool the general was there, but the brandy was gone. On investigation, it was found that the cask had a spigot in it or gimlet hole with plug in it that could be drawn any time. The sailors evidently thought that anything that would preserve flesh would have the same effect on their stomachs.

So that ended the war of 1812. In fact, this battle was fought long after peace was declared. Henry Clay, one of our peace commissioners at Ghent, won a thousand guineas from one of the English peace commissioners on that battle. One of the English lords, after the treaty of peace was signed, said, "I will now bet a thousand guineas that New Orleans is in possession of Lord Pakenham." Henry Clay said, "Draw your check for that amount. Here is mine."

Now I will go back and fetch up the mother's side of the house. My grandfather Lee was a thoroughbred Protestant Irishman. Had it not been for the great rivalry between the Catholics and Protestants, Ireland would have been an independent state long before our Revolutionary War.

Great-grandfather Lee fought clear through the Flanders war, sever years for the crown, then rebelled and fought sever years against the crown. At the end, he and many others were overpowered and surrendered as prisoners of war. All the officers of high rank had to lie in a dungeon one hundred feet under ground and live on half an allowance of bread and water for one year. All who lived the time out and could pay 500 pounds sterling to the crown could go free.

Great-grandfather was one that lived the time out and was able to pay the fine. He called his two sons, William and Frank (William was my grandfather) to his bedside, as he was yet too feeble to be out. He said: "My sons, I am getting old and feeble; I am broke down and almost broke up. I will have to stay here, but I want you both to right to America. Some day that will be a free and independent country. It is too large and there are too many independent, free-thinking people there to be corralled by any of the King George tyrants. Scotch, Irish and English Liberals are getting over there as fast as they can, and they are just the material that will fight for freedom."

So when the Declaration of Independence was declared Grandfather Lee was one of the first to volunteer for service during the war. He was lieutenant of a home-made battery in Charleston, South Carolina, and when the British fleet came into the harbor he was ordered to swab and test one of the new castings. Unfortunately it burst all to pieces and shattered one of grandfather's legs, so he was disabled for the balance of the war. He got well enough, however, to raise a hearty and hardy family of sons and daughters. But about the time the family was grown, the old veteran took sick and died, while his wife was hale and hearty. The boys and girls were young and stout, so they all thought while the family was all together they would emigrate to a newer, richer and healthier state. So they sold out and moved to the State of Kentucky. After remaining there two years, they concluded they would try a free state, so crossed over to Indiana, which had recently become a state.

My father, Samuel Kimbrough Barlow, about the same time had left Kentucky and gone over to Indiana to try his fortune in a free state. There he met, wooed and married on of the Lee girls, Miss Susannah Lee, who was my mother. A nobler woman never breathed the breath of life. She lived to raise her family and came to Oregon in 1845. She died on the place that I now live on and was almost worshipped by all who knew her.

It was from her that I got my first idea of gold mines. She was born and raised in the State of South Carolina, and at that time such a thing as gold or silver mines were never heard of west of the Mississippi. But she would tell us children about the great gold mines of South Carolina. She said she knew a man there who had a gold mine on his own land and owned the negroes that worked it. Said his income was one dollar a minute; that is, if the negroes came up to their task. This was to fill a goose quill an inch and a half long every day, and any over that was to be put in the darkey's sack. In case the darkey failed to have dust enough to fill the goose quill, any day, it was filled out of the Negroes' surplus sack; but if the darkey had no dust in this sack to make up the deficiency, he was stripped to the bare back and the overseer was compelled to him him a lick with the rawhide for every troy grain short.

Now, I will take up my own father's life and what brought him to Oregon. In the first place, he was a great admirer of Henry Clay, more particularly on account of Clay's being a strong believer in the emancipation of the negroes. He thought he was the greatest natural statesman that ever lived, but I think no more so than was Lincoln. They were both poor boys and had to struggle for a living. Clay was the son of a poor widow and went to mill with a sack on a mule's back, borrowed books to read by fire, not torchlight. Lincoln did the same thing, only he did not have to support a widowed mother. Clay was elected to Congress when a very young man and was speaker of the house almost all the time. He came very near getting beat by voting for the enormous salary of $1500 per year for Congressmen instead of $5 per day, as they had been getting; but the next election the Democrats brought that against him with powerful effect. This is the way he defended himself: Without trying to justify himself in the least, one of his most substantial friends was selected to notify him of his doom. This old appointee, with rifle in hand and tears in his eyes, approached Clay with almost death silence.

" Well, Henry, I have been appointed to notify you that we can't stand that $1500 salary."

"John," he said, "please let me look at your gun. That looks like a good gun, or has been a good gun."

"Yes, and it is just as good as it ever was."

"Well, John, doesn't it sometimes flash in the pan?"

"Yes, but very seldom."

"Well, what do you do with it then, John?"

"Oh, I just pick the flint and try it again."

"Well, can't you pick the flint and try it again?"

"We will, we will!" sounded a hundred voices.

Well, from that time on Henry Clay held Kentucky in the hollow of his hand. But like all of most all of our most brilliant men, he never could be elected President of the United States. But when his last defeat by James K. Polk, of Tennessee, a man comparatively unknown, came to Clay, this was a little more than the old gen, my father, S.K. Barlow, could stand. He said he would leave the states that did not recognize their great statesman and go to Oregon. By the time Oregon became a state he expected he and Clay would both be dead But Polk made a better president than the old gentleman thought he would. He was really elected as an Oregon man, and "54-40-or-fight" was what made him president. But he did not carry out his "54-40-or-fight," either.

I voted for Clay, myself being 22 years old in 1844, though I never regretted Polk's election as Clay had never committed himself on the boundary question. Father always said, Clay would have had 54-40 and would not have had to fight either. Of course, Canada and British Columbia should belong to the United States by natural boundaries. I have always thought it strange, that we did not exact it at the close of the last war with Great Britain. In fact, we had virtually taken Canada. He whipped England at Plattsburg and on Lake Erie and could have taken Quebec from the rear without any trouble. But the Briton had sued for peace and always were the shrewdest diplomats. We never, never valued the North Pole as much as they did. But now with Alaska, we would have the whole North American continent except Mexico. This acquisition without Mexico would be worth to us more than all Asia and Africa put together; in fact, we do not want those countries, all of them or any of them. Even the Sandwich Islands are detrimental to us and we are going to have trouble about them some day. The delegates selected to our Congress will try to seat the old Kanaka squaw on the throne. Of course that will not be done. But just as we are now, we are the greatest and most powerful nation on the globe. But expansion was Spain's downfall and it will be the fate of England some day and who knows how it will affect America?

Now, I will commence back with father in 1836 at Bridgeport, Indiana, ten miles west of Indianapolis. My father was owner and proprietor of the little town situated in a densely timbered country. There were five boys and two girls of us, all growing up fast. We were making a good backwoods' living, by making at home everything we ate, drank, and wore. But to stay there and wear ourselves out in that white oak timber and on land not very productive, even when it was got in cultivation, was more than the old folks thought they could stand. Hearing there was land already cleared in Illinois, the adjoining state, and having a fair offer as they thought for their Indiana farm, they accepted $1600.00 got the 160 acres less what had been sold off in town lots, probably about 25 or 30 acres.

But now came the sticking point. This money was to be paid in land office script. Jackson had just vetoed the United States National Bank bill, the notes of which had always been land office money; State Bank paper, Father would not look at. There was no gold in the country and very little silver. So they struck out for Indianapolis and had to give 5 per cent premium for Mexican silver dollars, which was best money we had then in the United States, and was land office money at that.

So the old gent thought he would make a sale and sell off all his loose property. I recollect just how he wrote out the notice, and that has been sixty-five years ago.

"Gentlemen, I will say to you, that I will sell at a vendue: "Horses, hogs, sheep and cattle, plows and hoes and chains that rattle, and some fine honey bees, and things as good as these."

The sale came off, which added a few hundred dollars more to our farm money, and had to take that in any kind of money that was in circulation.

But before he started with his family, he thought it best to go on alone on horseback and select a location. The Black Hawk War was over, and no fears were entertained in traveling through Illinois and Iowa; but by two going together for company, it would make it more pleasant. So Uncle John Thompson, a good old Baptist preacher, said he would go along, if father would agree to take in Iowa, as he was very anxious to get out of the woods, and go where he said God had done the clearing. So they started early in the Spring to look at the cleared-land country, which they were delighted with . They said they could put in a hundred acres quicker and cheaper than they could put in ten acres in Indiana. They went clear up to Lake Michigan, where Chicago now stands. It was then an Indian trading post. A man there had jumped a quarter section of land and offered to sell his right to it for $400.00, and the improvements on the place were worth the money. Father said, "I believe I will buy that place. Some day there will be a great town right here."

"Nonsense," said Uncle John. "Do you think any man of common sense would live where it takes two men to hold his hat on?"

Just then a big puff of wind from the Lake lifted my father's hat high in the air. When he had recovered it, he said, "Well, John I don't know but that your are about right. We will go south where there is more timber."

They had already been down about Peoria, Fulton and Knox counties; now they could go back that way and select a place to move the family. Father was well pleased without going any further. Uncle JOhn said he did not care to go over into Iowa then, as he had not sold out and did not know when he could. So father selected Farmington for his rendezvous until he could look up vacant land with timber and prairie land joining.

After being gone just six weeks he came back to Indiana. We were soon on the road, as we had our teams and wagons all read; three yokes of oxen to one wagon and a good span of horses to another. It was at this time that I fist saw a friction match. Father went to Indianapolis to buy a little outfit for the trip; the storekeeper said here is something you should have, as you are going to camp out all the way, and this box will beat your old flintsteel and punk a hundred times. They are something new, but they will all go and never miss fires. They are worth twenty-five cents a box and there are over a hundred in a box. They will start you a hundred fires and so much quicker. So father took them, as they only came to one coon skin anyway.

In a few days we were on the road to Farmington, Illinois. We crossed the Illinois river at Peoria, twenty-five miles from Farmington. We moved into an old log house close to town that cost us nothing for the use of it; bought a cow or two and we herded the horses and cow on the commons.

Father struck out for the land office at Quincy to get field notes of certain townships where he might select the land that he wanted to buy. But he could not find any prairie and timber land joining, but selected three 80-acre lots of smooth prairie and one 80-acre lot of timber two miles off. We moved right on the place, made a sod house, hired a lot of men, all good choppers, and one good hewer. Paid seventy-five cents for the choppers each and one dollar for the hewer per day and board. In a few weeks, we had up a big hewed log house a story and a half high. We had two rooms twenty feet square with a twelve-foot entry between them. It was the finest house in the county and a good house when we left for Oregon in 1845.We broke, fenced and had more land in cultivation in one year than we could have had in Indiana in ten years with the same help. We remained on that place until March 30, 1845. Had been there nine years but only raised eight crops. But never got two good wheat crops during that time. Oats and corn were always good, but prices were poor, ten cents a bushel for oats and twelve and a half for corn, and that in store pay. Pork brought from a dollar and a half to two and a half a hundred pounds, but that always brought case; cash money had to be paid for taxes. We came out about eve every year, though we were never in debt.

We were all about grown now and make fine outfit; had lost one brother, Eli, the brightest one of the family.

We could now sell out and make fine outfit for Oregon. We could have laid out a thousand dollars for young cattle, which would have made us a fortune in Oregon, but the old gent thought he would better keep his money than take chances by the stock being run off by the Indians.

March 30th, 1845, arrived. Well, now we are off for Oregon, the land of sundown. We had four wagons, four yoke of oxen to one wagon and three to each of the others. They were all young, well-broken cattle, and could trot like horses. With wagons loaded light, they could walk off twenty-five or thirty miles a day easy. People came from far and near to bid us a last farewell, as they said. We had enough for an army of well-drilled soldiers to undertake without helpless women and children. Our outfit had one good effect, for in '47 there were quite a number came from that neighborhood. The Grimes and Geers came first, as they said they would follow us soon.

We rolled on without a hitch, crossed the Mississippi at Quincy, Illinois, and the Missouri river at Utica, Missouri. Went up on the south side all the way to Independence, where the grand start was to be made. There we lost one yoke of oxen, strayed or stolen, we never knew which, but they were the only animals we lost on the whole trip. Bought another yoke of oxen for twenty-two dollars and two or three cows for five dollars a head, to give milk on the road. We wanted father to buy one hundred cows, as he could have got them for five or six dollars apiece, and could get plenty of young men to drive them just for their board. Of course, we would have to furnish them each a horse or mule. Mules were better for the trip, but American mares were more profitable. When we got to Oregon father sold a young American mare, bought in Missouri, and which he had ridden nearly all the time, for $300.00 in Oregon City. I bought a nice yearling filly and traded her for a half a section of land on the Clackamas river, six miles from Oregon City. If we had bought America cows they would have been worth the $75.00 to $100.00 each in Oregon. But we did not do it; if we had it would have changed our whole lives. We would only have had to go up the valley on account of range and could have sold out the first year. But we got a hundred and fifty dollars for what oxen we had to sell. Of course, it was all in Oregon currency, which were orders on any of the stores in Oregon City, from Ermatinger to Abernethy. But these orders would bring flour and money, which we needed.

Now, I will go back to Independence, Missouri, and fix for starting across the great American desert, as a great many thought it was. But now it is the richest part of the United States and it has furnished the gold and silver to make the balance of the country blossom like a rose; and if they had not demonetized silver it could have blossomed like a hundred roses. Of course, this demonetization set the country back at least a hundred years. For without gold and silver at the old parity of 16 to 1, we would have had no use for the worthless rag money which we can heap all together, and touch a match to and in five minutes you would have nothing but an irredeemable and irrecoverable heap of ashes. But if you could put all the gold and silver together and melt it down it would be worth just as much as it ever was, less the mintage. Beside, it would give employment to millions of people, that would give us a better market for our produce than all Europe ever has given us. Whenever a man tells me that there is not just as sound metal and just as good metal in silver as there is in gold to make an honest dollar, I will tell you he is either a knave or a fool, and should be either in the penitentiary or the asylum, according to his intellect, for his a dangerous man in either case.

But you must excuse me for getting off the subject every once in a while, but I have to cross the streams whenever I come to them, and every stream develops something new. So when I wish, if anything looms up before me, I will have to disagree and investigate the new subject.

But now we are at Independence again, five thousand strong or five thousand weak, if women and children could be considered weak. At least, two-thirds of our company were women and children, and we had a thousand wagons at least.

The first thing to do was to organize. We called a representative meeting, elected a big captain over all, and one little captain over every forty or fifty wagons, each company elected its own captain and he appointed his lieutenants, etc. But it soon all became etc. and etc. The guard was kept up for some time, and we stopped and started when the captain ordered. He always went on to look out a camping ground, taking into consideration wood, water and grass.

My father was captain of a company all the way. He very seldom had anybody with him, thought he would sometimes be miles and miles ahead of the company.

Sometimes he would meet or overtake big bands of Indiana and would always stop and talk with them, and give them more or less tobacco. He must have given away several hundred pounds of tobacco, which he had laid in for that purpose before he started. The Indiana got to know him all along the route. He would go to their camps, call for their chief, get down off his horse, take off his saddle and give his horse and lariat to the chief, who would send him out with some young boy to good grass. He would talk, smoke, and eat with the chief, and his horse would be brought up in the morning looking fine. The boy always was given a plug of tobacco and the old chief several plugs. But if the old gent had sneaked off and tried to hide, the Indians would most likely have stolen his horse and maybe killed him. But this did not happen.

After we got the The Dalles, father went on to Tygh Valley to look for a starting point for going through the Cascade mountains with his wagons. We had hired Steve Meek, brother of Joe Meek, to pilot the emigrants clear through to The Dalles, for one dollar a wagon and board.

He said he knew every trail and camping ground from Fort Laramie to Vancouver, west of the Cascade mountains. But he proved himself to be a reckless humbug from start to finish. All he had in view was to get the money and a white woman for a wife before he got through. He got the wife and part of the money. He and his company then went on and made a stand at the mouth of the Malheur river, which empties into the Snake River, where, he said, he could make a cut-off that that would take them to the Dalles before we could get to the Grand Ronde Valley. This route, he said, would give them plenty of wood, water and grass all the way, and there would be no Blue Mountain to cross, which he described as almost impassable. The result was the whole emigration had gone clear through the Dalles six weeks before his company was heard of. He had got lost and did not know where he was. He told those with him he would fetch them through all right and they were afraid to desert him or discharge him, for fear that would all perish. Finally, after they had all lost a portion of their stock, and a large number of the people had perished, they came in sight of the Deschutes river. But the perpendicular basaltic walls prevented them from reaching the water, so they had to follow down the river on top of the bluff for miles before they could get a drink of water to cool their parched lips. One night, Meek took his wife and ponies and disappeared in the darkness; he got across the Deschutes river at the moth of Tygh creek, got dried salmon and other provisions from the Indians (for he was at home when he was with them) and struck out on the Mount Hood trail. That was what saved his life, as vengeance was sworn against him, but I understood from his brother that Stephen Meek settled in Southern Oregon and Joe would have nothing to do with him.

Now I got Steve Meek through and disposed of, I will go back to the big Kaw River, right among the Kaw Indians, where Kansas City now stands. They were the first tribe of Indians on the route that we had to meet, and were a noble, fine-looking Indian, and they treated us fine. They were about to start on a buffalo hunt up the Big Platte River but they were in fearful dread of the Sioux Indians, for they claimed all the buffalo on the Big Platte River.

But the Kaws disputed their right to all the buffalo, but if the two tribes happened to come together there was sure to be bloodshed, unless the Kaws could get back to their own hunting ground. But none of them molested us in the least.

So we rolled on until we struck the North Platte River at Ash Hollow, where, according to arrangements at the start, we were all to go into camp and let the big chief, Captain Welch, take the lead. But there were four or five companies ahead of us, the Barlow company; but by the time we got there, there were no companies to be seen; so from that time on each company was an independent company of its own, and the "Devil take the hindmost," was the saying.

Grass was good and water plenty, but wood was not very plentiful. But we had a good substitute in the way of buffalo chips. We soon came in sight of vast herds of buffalo, and we found they were from five to eight miles away. To further illustrate this illusion, when we came in sight of Chimney Rock, some of the young men took their guns, said they would go around by the rock and get on top of it, then overtake the teams before time to camp. It was then about ten o'clock. We moved on at a good rate for ox teams, and we just got opposite the rock at camping time. Some of the men who went on to it and went up on top did not get in that night. It was at least fifteen miles away.

Buffalo from that time on were in unknown quantities. I am sure we could see five thousand head at once in lots of places, and wolves were very nearly as thick. SOme of the boys mad a terrible slaughter both among the buffalo and wolves. They just shot them down to see them fall, did not even skin them and the hides were worth from four to eight dollars each. Father called a meeting of his company, and admonished the boys in the kindest kind of words, not to kill any more than just enough for meat. For, he said, it was robbing the Indians of their natural food and might arouse the wrath of the great Sioux nation, whose country we were now crossing. He said, as long as we went straight through and did not kill too many of their buffalo, they would not molest us. Up to this time, we had not had a mishap. No sickness, but peace and kindness reigned supreme. Stock had actually improved all the time, but just now (and as I kept no diary I cannot give the date, but it was way up in June) we had quite a mishap. Somebody's untrained, worthless dog (something that should not have been allowed on the road) had gone over the bank of the Big Platte River to cool off. He stayed there until all the teams had passed. The loose stock was just coming up some distance behind, when the big dog made a bound from the water to the top of the bank and gave himself a big shake to throw the water out of his hair. Away went the cows, horses, bulls and all, with such a rattle and jam that it would almost raise the hair on a dead man's head. When the stampede started, the animals were half a mile behind the wagons, which was the distance they were allowed to keep. But on they came with renewed fury at every bound. The old Captain, who happened to be back with his company, took in the situation at a glance, clapped spurs to his noble mare and bounded along the line with a trumpet voice to those in the wagons to halt and drop their wagon tongues. But it was too late for all to accomplish. Some of the hind teams were all ready on hearing the order. Our four family wagons and Gaines' two were ahead that day. James Barlow's big team was in the lead, but failed to stop when he said "whoa." So he dropped his lead ox in his tracks with the butt of his whip he dropped his lead ox in his tracks with the butt of his whip stock J.M. Bacon's team was next. In this wagon, Mother Barlow rode, and it had to stop as it was jammed up against James' wagon. That gave mother time to jump out and run to the bank of the river abut twenty yards off and jump down the bank, only a few feet high. I had been quick enough to get my team loose from the wagon, but J.L. Barlow' and Gaines' two teams got under considerable headway, but fortunately one of the Gaines' oxen fell down, and that was more than the balance of the team could pull. This gave my sister, Mrs. Gaines, good time to get out with the baby, about a year old, and get down the bank of the river. She always said that the oxen-broken neck saved her life, as she was just fixing to jump, and it might have been her neck instead of the ox's. It was her natural disposition to make the best of everything.

The cleanup of this stampede were a few broken wagon tongues, a few smashed-up wagon wheels, one ox with a broken neck, another with a broken leg and two days' layover for repairs. Fortunately, no human being was even crippled. Some were slightly bruised, but at the end of the second day everybody was ready to move. Cattle were well refreshed and getting restless. We found the best plan was to make a drive every day. Cattle stayed together better and did not try to wander off. I have no recollection of our company's losing a single head on the way, though a few oxen got sore feet and had to be taken out and driven with the loose cattle for a few days. But that was on account of wagons' being too heavily loaded.

We had one old deadbeat whom we called "Noey" and his wagon "Noey's Ark." He had one span of mares and one yoke of cows and both of them gave milk, which was the principal nourishment he had for half a dozen children, himself and wife. His wagon beds were built close out to the wheels, so it took about a half-acre to turn on. The object was to make the bed large enough to hold all the worthless rubbish that he could not sell or give away before he started. He said the things might come in mighty good play when he got through. But he never would have gotten through if it had not been for my old mother. He did not belong to our company. We found him camped by himself, his company had gone off and left him several days before. Mother said, "We must not leave him there to be butchered by the Indians." But father did not think the Indians would molest him, as he had nothing they would have. But if everybody went off and left him, he would starve or freeze to death when winter came on. So the old gent went to see him and told him he could join us, if he would let us overhaul his wagon and throw out every worthless article. His wife began to cry and said they would need everything when they got through. But the old gent said, " You will never get through with that load and old team." So they finally consented to be overhauled. The old gent called two or three of the best men of the company to come and overhaul the wagon; they took everything out that was in it, and a more worthless lot of trash was never seen. They put back what few necessaries they had, such as bed clothes, wearing apparel and all the provisions they had, but that was very light. It lightened up his wagon more than half, so his old cows and mares could waddle along and keep up for awhile. But we could not stop the whole company to wait on him. We had got him across the Big Platte River and up to Fort Laramie, where he could get all the jerked buffalo meat he wanted for almost nothing. There were thousands of Indians coming in then from their big buffalo hunt with tons of jerked meat and hundreds of buffalo robes to trade for Indian goods at the Fort. So mother fitted Noey and his family out with quite a supply of provisions, such as bacon, flour, coffee, sugar, and so forth. She told them they must take their time and try and get through. I don't know whether she told them she would pray for them, but I know she did pray for all the poor and needy, every night, and she certainly could not leave them out, because she knew their circumstances.

Now I have written this simple fact to illustrate what I have always said about the privations and starvation's of the dear old emigrants. I will now say again, for myself and our company, that I never passed a more pleasant, cheerful and happy summer in my whole long life, and see no reason why the others cannot agree with this statement. We never had any sickness nor rear of any, more than we would have had in the oldest state in the Union, until we ran into the Cascade Mountains. Up to that time, we never had an obstacle in the way that we could not easily overcome. We forded every stream from the Big Kaw, where Kansas City now stands, to Oregon City, and we never doubled our teams to get over any hills or mountains that I can recollect. We never lost a horse, cow, nor ox on the entire trip.

When we got to Fort Hall, on the Snake River, we laid by a day or two. Some of our company wanted to go to California and here was where the roads parted. But my father said he was going to drive his team into the Willamette Valley. Superintendent Grant, of Fort Hall, the agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, was present, and remarked, "Well, we have been here many years and we never have taken a pack train over those mountains yet, but if you say you will take your wagons over the mountains, you will do it. The darned Yankees will go anywhere they say they will." So the next morning, a mutual and friendly division took place. About half the wagons took the California road and the remaining twenty wagons continued on the Oregon route. Our family company, consisting of thirteen wagons, traveled down the Snake River on the south side and crossed it the first time at the Great American Falls; thence over to Boise River to its mouth at Fort Boise. We then crossed Snake River again, the deepest river we had forded. We raised our wagon beds about one foot and got nothing wet. We then went down the Snake River to the mouth of the Malheur. There Steve Meek was waiting to get a crowd for his famous cut-off that would save more than half the distance to The Dalles, he thought. There the Geers, Moores and Sweets bid us goodbye and said they would wait for us at the Dalles. BUt we got to the Dalles six weeks before they did, besides they had lost two or three of their family.

At this camp the old gent lost a fine Indian pony that he had bought to rest and recruit his fine American mare, and that was the only animal lost from start to finish.

Nothing transpired from there on to The Dalles that requires special notice, except the peculiar way we had to cross the Deschute River.

We had to drive out into the Columbus River and strike the sandbar made by the Deschutes River and circle around on that to reach the bank of the Columbia River below the mouth of the Deschutes.

We were now nearing The Dalles, where decision had to be made about tackling the supposed impracticable mountains. It was early in the fall, somewhere close to October, and we had plenty of provisions to last us two months and our teams were in good condition, or would be by having a few days rest on good grass. I new the old captain was determined to go through the mountains. He said, "God never made a mountain that He had not made a place for a man to go over it or under it, if he could find the place," and, he said, "I am going to hunt for that place." But he further remarked he did not ask anyone but his own family to go with him, and wanted no one to go who knew what the word "can't" meant. So we drove out to Five-Mile Creek, where there was wood, water and plenty of good grass. He said we could stay there and look after the stock and the women could wash and clean up as much as they wished, until he got back from a little reconnoiter to look out for a starting point. He had his eye on a low sink in the mountains just south of Mt. Hood ever since we had crossed the Blue Mountains. Our company was now reduced down to thirteen wagons, all good teams, and were well provided with provisions and tools. But the old gent said we will divide up so all should share alike who went with him.

We had a young fat cow which he would kill and divide. In a few days the old gent got back from his preliminary survey and reported everything favorable as far as he went. He had been about sixty or seventy miles. By this time, W.H. Rector caught up with him and said he would go, too, if Captain Barlow would let him. "Why, yes, you are just the man I am looking for; young, stout and resolute." Although his wife was a very weakly woman, she was anxious to make the venture.

Well, in two or three days the start was made. All were stout and hearty, both old and young, except Mrs. Rector, and her lack of physical strength was somewhat made up by mental energy.

Our teams were fresh and buoyant and walked right along. We made Tygh Creek the first day, it being twenty five or thirty miles from our camp. Here we laid over one day to let the teams eat and rest, as we had a long steep hill to pull up and would have no water for about fifteen miles. A canyon had to be crossed that would require some pluck to cross it with a wagon. But when we had passed these barriers, we found plenty of wood, water and grass. The old gent said he would cross the canyon so our cattle could not get back. It was a deep bluff canyon and there was no other crossing for miles either way. Father had already examined the location on his first trip out, as a good point to start from.

So the next mooring the old gent said he would take Mr. Rector and go ahead, hunt and blaze out the best place to make the wagon road. The balance of us could follow up and cut out the road. We would leave a man or two in camp to look after the stock and attend to the wants of the women and children. There were about twelve of us who could do a man's work. Mother wanted me to say, and Mrs. Rector wanted one her sons to stay, the only one who was large enough to work.

At this time we killed our heifer, so the men would have plenty of meat. Besides, we had plenty of bacon and flour to last a month or over. The only thing we were deficient in was good tools. Of course, we had saws and axes, but they were in bad condition and we had only a small grindstone and a few worn-out files. But there was very little heavy timber to cut. The timber and brush on the east side of the Cascades is very different from that on the west side. Over a portion of the east side one can drive a team right through the timber.

Days and weeks had now passed and we had no tidings yet of the pathfinders. We had made only one move of ten or twelve miles, in order to be closer to our workers who were cutting the road. The road was now cut to the head or source of the Little Deschutes River close up to Mount Hood. Some of the men had gone down to the river over a very long but not a very steep hill. But we concluded not to go down with our wagons until the blazers returned. For if we had to go back, we did not want to have to climb that hill.

A day or two after this, just about dark, the keen crack of the old gent's rifle rang out with joyous hopes of glad tidings. In an instant, the boys sprang to their rifles and answered the salute with a half-dozen shots that made the woods ring for miles around. The air was light and the vibration was beautiful. Then the old pathfinder's rifle rang out again close at hand. "Tallows" were lit and men, women and children went with a rush to meet the stalwarts. I will pass over the meeting of the husbands and wives. The first thing the old gent said was, "Don't give us anything to eat. A little coffee is all we need now. It will be food and stimulant enough." Rector said, "You can speak for yourself, but I am going to eat something. You would not let me eat those big snails and now I am going to eat whatever my wife will cook for me." But his wife was very cautious about what she gave him. Mother gave father only a little coffee and a very little bread. Then he smoked his pipe and that revived him very much. After a little more coffee, mother had a good feather bed for him and he went to bed and slept sound all night, and was almost as fresh as ever in the morning.

Up to that time, there had not been a word said about the trip, but next morning all hands wanted to know the result of the preliminary journey.

"We have found a good route to make a road," my father said.

"Yes," Rector said, "the route we have blazed out is a good practical route, and if Mrs. Rector were as stout and healthy as I am we would go through. But if anything should happen to her I would never forgive myself. We talked it over last night, and I think I will take my wagon and go back to the Dalles."

Father said, "Mr. Rector, you are at perfect liberty to do as you please. If I had any fear of losing even any of my company on account of the road, I would not say go. But we can go on and in one day from right here we can reach within two or three miles of the summit. Then, if you think best, we can build a good house and cache everything in it. We will send the cattle over the trail. Some of the young men will be willing to stay and look after the goods for ten dollars a wagon and I will send back provisions to keep them all winter."

William Berry said that was right to his hand. I said, "I would be another. Besides, I would go in and fetch the winter grub out myself." That is, if we had to, for we did not know but that we might get through.

Now, when we arrived at the selected spot, it was already getting late in the season, away up in November. The days were short and snow was liable to cover us up at any time.

So it was decided to build a house, send the stock over the Indian trail that went over Mt. Hood, high enough to be on perpetual snow. The Indians always made their trails over the highest ground they could find. Though the distance might be twice as far, they preferred the high land, as tomahawks and scalping knives are poor tools to cut out logs and big trees. When they came to a big log that they could not go around or jump their ponies over, they would hack a notch in it just wide enough to let a pony squeeze through. The smallness of these openings made it hard to get some of our big cattle through. Some of the emigrants had a number of head killed or crippled in this way. But our little band got through without a scratch. The bulk of all the cattle and horses went over the Mt. Hood trail that fall and some families rode over on oxen's and cows' backs. Old Mother Hood rode all the way from The Dalles to Oregon City on a cow's back.

But most of the families went down the Columbia River on the Hudson's Bay bateau's. They left their wagons at The Dalles and often found them cut up by the Indians and the spokes of the wheels used for whip handles. Some few got their wagons down that fall on rafts to the Cascades and then hauled them from there down with teams, or got them taken down and up to Portland on bateau's. This cost them about all each wagon was worth.

To return to the summit. The bulk of the men were at work building the mountain cache. I took three of the young men and started over Mt. Hold with all the stock except the horses which was left to carry out the women and children. I had a horse to ride as I was to go back as soon as I got the stock over Mt. Hood. This took only two days. Then I started back to camp, being gone just three days,

The house was pretty well along, considering the tools, and the men who had to do the work. Albert P. Gaines and William Berry were the principal workmen. Both could handle tools well, but the others were mere supernumeraries. The old gent was now almost worn out. Bacon was a good hand with a need and thread, and he was kept busy fixing up clothing for the men. We had eleven or twelve wagons, and it required a large house to hold all the plunder and the three men that were going to stay all winter. But one of the men backed out, so I agreed to go below and come back with provisions and stay at least six months. About the first of December, everything was packed away nice and snug. House as tight as a jug, all the cracks chinked up with moss, a good store of food and mountains of good dry wood. We had a few books, which would serve to while away the time. In fact, enough of everything to make any lazy man feel happy. Up to this time there had been no snow at all. Berry went up to the top of the summit with us. We had left him provisions enough for one month, and with a good gun there were plenty of fine squirrels that he could kill.

All went well with the emigrants until we started down on the Oregon side of the Cascades. We called it Oregon, as that was all the habitable part of Oregon then. Then the real simon-pure hard times commenced. There were huckleberry swamps to wallow through as best we could; women and children had to be carried off of their horse's back to let the horse get out of the mire, if he could, and if he could not we had to pry him out. Of course, these swamps were only in spots. The old gent expected to corduroy all these places before he took the wagons over them. But they were worse than he thought, as he had only crossed them on foot. But when we went to put horses on them, packed with heavy loads, they went down frequently. So we moved very slowly, only from three to five miles a day. It commenced snowing and that covered up the grass and our horses had to browse on the laurel.

We were now at the top of Laurel Hill. We camped for the night and there was about twelve inches of snow on the ground. One of our best horses died from eating laurel. The old gent saved his harness and brought it up to camp. Mother said, "Poor, old Grey is dead, but I hope his meat is good, and we will not starve so long as we can eat horse meat." Mrs. Caplinger broke down at this and commenced crying right out. Mrs. Gaines, my oldest sister, said, " What is the matter?" Mrs. Caplinger replied, "We are all going to freeze and starve to death right here." "Nonsense," said Mrs. Gaines, "We are right in the midst of plenty. Plenty of wood to make fires, plenty of horses to make meat, plenty of snow to make water, so when it comes to starving here is your old dog as fat as butter and he will last us a week." "Would you eat my old dog?" "Yes, if he was the last dog in the world," Mrs. Gaines concluded.

But alarm was in the air and fear prompted William Barlow and J.M. Bacon to push on to Foster's for more supplies. In the morning bright and early we started on ahead for the valley with a little coffee and four small biscuits as our share of the provisions. We took only a dull chopping ax and a pair of blankets as our outfit. We went down Laurel Hill like shot off of a shovel. In less than two hours we had to look back to see any snow. We soon struck the Big Sandy trail where thousands of cattle and horses had passed along. There was no trouble to follow the trail now; at this point the new Barlow road ended. The only trouble was in the crossing the stream that ran like water from a floodgate, and the number of crossings were too numerous to keep any account of. The water was very nearly as cold as ice, but at most of the crossing we found drifts or boulders that we managed to cross on without getting wet. I carried the ax and coffee, Bacon carried the biscuits. But when we got down to the last crossing of the Big Sandy, it was getting late in the evening. The river was wide and still rising; there was no way to cross without swimming or cutting a tree down that stood on the bank about one hundred yards about the ford. There was a rock island right in the middle of the river, and I saw that all the water was running on our side of the stream. It was quite narrow from bank to rock, not over forty feet. I said to Bacon, "If we can get that tree down and lodged on the rock, unless it breaks in two, it will make a good crossing." "Yes," he said, "but we have nothing but that old dull ax and I can't chop." I knew that without his telling me, for he was a sailor by trade. So I went at it, and in about an hour the tree fell, but broke in two and went sailing down the river. All I could say was, "Well, John, we will make a big fire under that cedar tree and make a pot of coffee and our four biscuits will make us a good meal. But in the morning I am going to cross that stream.: John drew a long breath, then said, "Well, I am sorry and ashamed to tell you, but I lost those biscuits in the river, in jumping from one boulder to another. I tripped and fell and away went the bread, and you know no human being could catch them."

"Yes," I said, " I know it would be hard to catch anything after it was in a man's own bread basket." But I never really thought that John had really eaten them.

We made a big fire under a large cedar tree and that would turn the rain as well as the best thatch roof that could be made, wrapped ourselves up in our blankets and lay down and slept as sound as we had ever on the road.

We had slept together all the way across the plains. In the morning, got up and made a good pot of coffee. After breakfast, as we called it, I went out and cut what I called a safety pole about ten feet long. I said, "Now, John, if I should slip and fall I am a goner, and you tell my mother that I lost my life in trying to save hers." She was the nearest and dearest and most helpless of any of the family.

But I made no blunder. I would place the pole firmly on the bottom of the boulders, then would brace against the pole and swing out as far as the pole would let me go on the other side; again I would brace myself against the strong current, lift my pole around on the other side, and place it again in the same manner until I reached the shore. We had no big guns or even firecrackers to celebrate the event, but the big cheers that John gave me from the other side and the consolation that I felt in being victorious over the raging river was enough.

Now we had only eight miles more before we met friends and help. So I hounded away like a mountain buck, and in three hours more, I was at Foster's. James and John L. Barlow (Doc) were there herding the stock. I told them to mount the best horses they could get and hie away to Oregon City, get some men and eight to ten good horses and be back here at ten o'clock tomorrow night. All of which they did in good shape. BUt I had prostrated myself by over-eating, and I thought I had been very cautious. However, I climbed up on one of the horses and started on a lope, and that seemed to help me very much.

We met our hungry emigrant party that evening just at dark. They had been making short moves every day. The main thing now was to keep them from over-eating; they had had something to eat all the time, but their rations had been short and not choice either. The next day we arrived at Philip Foster's, where we laid over one day, rested and ate cautiously but heartily. The next day, December 25, 1845, we arrived in Oregon City. A few of the party stayed at Foster's for rest. Albert Gaines' afterward took up a claim there and stayed a year or two. It was Christmas night when we landed in Oregon City, just eight months and twenty four days from Fulton Co Illinois.

At this time, Oregon had a Provisional legislature of its own, and Governor Abernethy was governor. The old pathfinder went to the assembly and asked for a charter to build and make a wagon road over the Cascade Mountains south of Mt. Hood. The request was immediately granted. And it was not long before he accomplished what he said he could and would do.

He never was a man that hunted after notoriety. He only wanted to benefit mankind in building this road and wherever he could. All he asked in the venture was to get his money back in doing it. To show that was all he wanted, when he got all the cost of the road, or what he thought was all the cost, he threw open the road to the public. He had five or six hundred dollars in notes that he had taken for toll in lieu of cash. But to his surprise, he never got the half of it, though the parties said the first money they could get would go to him, but when they got out of reach they forgot all that. The worst thing he did do was throwing up the charter, and it was the worst thing for the emigrants that could have been done, for there is no road that will keep itself up, and it soon became almost impassable. Poor jaded teams would mire down and emigrants lost sometimes more than three times what the toll would have been, besides the delay and time lost. Soon after Foster and Young re-chartered the road and made some money on the investment, besides making it prove a great accommodation to emigrants. This road was kept in pretty fair condition until the railroad was built down the Columbia River. Even now it seems to be the best route across the Cascade Mountain that has been found.

Samuel Kimbrough Barlow was born in Nicholas County, Kentucky, in the year 1795. He died at Canemah, Oregon in 1867. If he were alive today (1904) he would be 105 years old, but he did live long enough to accomplish all he set out to do. Though he never got rich, he always had a competence. He was one of the most strictly conscientious honest men I ever knew and one of the most strictly temperate, though he never belonged to any temperance organization in his life. He used to say that if he found a drunken man lying on the road, he would get him up, take him home, feed him, give him a good bed to sleep on and breakfast in the morning. The next time he found him drunk he would roll him out of the road to keep the wagons from running over him. The third time, he would not move him out of danger in any way, for the quicker he got crushed to death, the better.

I will now say in conclusion of this brief sketch of the old pioneer's life, that he was one of the most beneficial men to Oregon and the emigrants who came with wagon and team. He prepared the way so they could roll right in to the Willamette with all of their effects of every kind. They thereby saved time and much risk of losing their lives in running the Cascade rapids, for all admit that that was a great hazard. Well-trained Hudson's Bay men did lose a great quantity of fur and quite a number of men. Old Doctor McLoughlin used to tell it in this way: "Dangerous place, dangerous place! We have lost thousands and thousands of pounds of beads and many boats in running the Cascades."

I said, "What becomes of the men, doctor?"

"Oh, well, they did not cost us any money."

But the old doctor was good to his men and very sympathetic. He was a study old Scotchman and a strict disciplinarian. But as I am not writing a history of the doctor's life, I will say that this was just put in to show the hazard of going down the Columbia River at that time with women and children in rather frail boats; it also further proves the benefit to the people that the old gent's road had over all other routes, and that it was not made for selfish gain in any way as he proved by throwing it open to the public as soon as he got his money back. It had cost about two thousand dollars and was sixty-five miles long. This ends the old pioneer's part of this history.

Now I will go back seventy years and tell as briefly as possible what I know of my own knowledge of the changes, habits, and style of that period. I was born on the 26th day of October, 1822, in Marion County, Indiana, twelve miles southwest of Indianapolis, on Little Whitclick River, right in the midst of a Quaker settlement. SO my early training had to be of the strictest kind. I never saw a drunken man or heard an oath sworn or profane language of any kind until I was ten years old; never heard the words, "Yes, sir," or "No, sir," but instead "Yes, man," and "No, man." If one would say "Madam" to a woman she would say "Thou is mistaken, friend, I am neither mad nor dumb." Their ways were very peculiar ways, but I must say, they were very peculiarly good ways. They had no use for lawyers, as all difficulties were settled by the Church. They had no use for drones, all had to work alike. A lazy man they disposed of. If they could not get rid of him any other way they would just hate him out of the hive. Bees kill their drones, but the Quakers were averse to taking blood under any circumstances, so they first turned their drone out of the church, and afterwards hated him out of the neighborhood. You might think strange that they let him into the church, but in that respect they are just like the Catholics, if the parents are Quakers their children are also Quakers so long as they conform to the rules of their religion. These rules were honesty, industry, strict morality and teetotal temperance. This is all the religion they had, and when summed up it is, " Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Any slight deviation from any of the rules would turn them out of the church, or would have done it when I was a boy.

I will now give their style of matrimony sixty years ago. No priest or preacher of any kind, judge or justice of the peace or any kind of law officer had anything to say about it. The contracting parties simply married themselves and it took them just three months to do it. Their churches were all built with two departments, one for the women and one for the men, but arranged so they could be thrown into one room. The first month, each of the contracting parties rose in his or her own department where neither could hear what the other said. We will take the woman first. She rise and says: "My beloved sisters, John--- and myself have concluded to become man and wife; if there is no objection, and we do not change our minds within the time allotted for the ceremony." John Killom gets up in his department and repeats the same thing, only calling the girl's name instead of his own. The next monthly meeting they both get up in the respective departments and state that they have had no cause or wish to change their minds and if nobody else has any objections, they will continue in the good work for the time allotted. The third month the gentleman gets up and walks into the ladies department and takes his seat beside his affianced, but she can have a bridesmaid and he can take a groom in with him if he likes. Then, at a signal from the ladies' department, the doors are thrown wide open and the two contracting parties with the groom and maid rise in their seats and declare themselves man and wife in the presence of the whole audience.

Then the congregation and shaking of hands finish the ceremony, and it is just as good and lawful and legal a marriage as ever was performed by any priest or magistrate of the United States. I am not sure whether they keep up this ancient custom or not. I see they have discarded the old broad brim hat and shad-belly coat, and eat with their hats off. They are shrewd and witty in business as the most accomplished broker you can find in any state, the only difference in their system of doing business and ours is in the modus operandi. Under their system of government one Superior Court and one term a year would be all Oregon or any state would ever need. I have only written this little history of what I call a model class of people to show the changes that have taken place since I was a boy seventy years ago.

I will now take up the schools to show the differences between now and then. I am decidedly in favor of the new system, because the poorest child in the country can get a better education now than the richest man's child could then, at least in the Western states. Such a thing as school tax was never thought of and would have been unanimously hooted down if it had been though of. Of course, there were no very poor people in the West in those days; the poor people had to stay back East. All the men in the West owned their own farms, built their own schoolhouses, hired their own teachers and sent their children to school during the winter season. This gave them what they thought was a fair education. Reading, writing and ciphering were the main branches. Geography and a little English grammar were indulged in occasionally, providing the teacher could get that high up himself. He did not have to have a certificate, as there was no superintendent to examine him, and no school directors to hire him. If he were a new man, he would generally have a recommendation from where he taught before. The main things he had to have were nerve and muscle, as he was required to keep good order. The first thing he stocked up with was a good supply of good hickory gad. He might not have to use all of them, but he had obligated himself to keep good order, and most of the employers said, "If you spare the rod, you'll spile the child." To think about a woman teacher in those days would have been perfectly preposterous. In fact, no woman would have though of undertaking it. But now they handle all kinds of scholars much better than men and use no corporal punishment, or next to none. The man who wanted to teach school would find by going through the county where there was a log schoolhouse because there were no other kinds to be found. I never saw a frame schoolhouse in the country until I came to Oregon. These log house in the Middle West, however, were comfortable, large and well built -- logs smoothed down and closely chinked, and all had substantial puncheon floors. There was always a huge fireplace that would take in at least a six-foot back log.

I never saw a stove in a schoolhouse in that country. In fact, there was not one farmer in ten that had even a cooking stove. My father bought a cooking stove and a Franklin heating stove when we went to Illinois, to save wood and hauling, as we had to haul our firewood about three miles. The cook stove has a three-hole concern with the bakeoven in the middle. People came from miles around to see it. It cost $50.00. It would be worth now just nothing at all.

But I must now finish up our school teacher business. He would come around with his subscriptions to see if he could make enough money to make him $15.00 to $18.00 per month and his board.

He would board around with his scholars if required, but much preferred to be boarded at one place if the subscribers would agree to it. But many would not agree to that arrangement, as they said they had plenty of hog and hominy which did not cost them anything and they could just as soon board the teacher as not and save their three dollars a week, as that was the ordinary price of board then. Poultry and eggs were so low that it was considered a disgrace for a boy to be seen carrying them to market. These trifles belonged to the old ladies and the girls in the family, and they had to take something out of the store in payment for their chicken and eggs.

To show what contempt a high-minded boy had for carrying eggs to market, I will illustrate it by relating a circumstance that took place in our neighborhood. An old lady wanted a quarter's worth of tea, as she was expecting some lady company, and it was customary on such occasions to draw a good cup of Young Hyson tea. So the old lady gathered up ten dozen eggs and they were worth three cents a dozen, that would more than pay for the tea, which was worth twenty-five cents a pound. But she must take it all out in tea, and that amount would last them a whole year, as they only made tea on rare occasions. The boy protested all he could, said he would pay for the tea with his own money, but all to no use. His mother said the eggs did not cost anything and would soon spoil and the money would keep any length of time. SO off he went, but kept out of sight of everybody he saw on the road until ge got to the store. He then set his basket down on a platform outside of the store and slipped in to see if there was anybody in the store that would laugh at him. Just then, a man came running in and said that there was an old sow outside with her head in someone's basket of eggs. The boys first thought was that he would neither claim basket nor eggs. But his second though was that he dare not go home without the basket, so he stepped to the door and saw the eggs were all smashed to jelly. "Well," he said, "I guess that basket is mine, but the eggs seem to belong to that old sow." But he got the tea and threw the bright quarter down on the counter with pompous satisfaction and walked out. He washed the basket clean and went home joyous that he had escaped the disgrace of selling eggs. His mother praised him for a fine boy and he had saved his money besides. The boy thought that he had done well himself in satisfying his mother and himself and to get her praise he did not deserve.

But now the hen and the product of the hen bring more money to the farmer than all the wheat he sells, and there is not half as much hard labor about it. Besides, this is something that can be done and is done mostly by women and children and merely amusement and recreation for them. I think this is enough to illustrate the difference between then and now.

As I have already crossed the plains or great American desert as it was called, scaled the Rocky Mountains, and helped build a new road over the Cascade Mountains; this was Mr. Berry afterwards son-in-law of Stephen COffin, one of the proprietors of the now great city of Portland, of which I will have a good word to say before I get through these memoirs.

I started across the Cascades with one man and three horses on January 01, 1846. They were loaded with sugar, coffee, flour and bacon to supply two of us until June. I had agreed to stay with Berry for the company and to help guard the property cached away until the road could be made through for teams and wagons to pass through. The man who went with me was to return with the horses. It was thought by some that we could not cross the mountains with a load at that time of the year, but it was a groundhog case and had to be done. Though the new snow was from three to five feet deep we could see the blazes on the trees which the old gent had marked, so there was no danger of getting lost. But our horses would occasionally break through the crust of snow that had formed about two feet below the surface by rain and then freezing. Then we would have to take our shovels and dig the horse out and get him on top again, but that only happened a few times. When night came we would tie our horses to a tree, feed them oats we had with us, make a fire and cook supper. Then we would dig a hole in the snow, wrap ourselves in our Hudson's Bay blankets and jump down in our snow houses and sleep sound and warm. We were only three days from Foster's to the Cascade cache, where we found Berry as happy as a clam at high water. The Indians had been to see him, brought him plenty of dried salmon and huckleberries. Besides, there was a man by name of Foster who had followed our trail in from the east side and wanted to winter with Berry. He had plenty of money and would pay for everything he used if we would let him stay. He did not want to go through the mountains any further, and he never did. In the spring he got up his horses that he had kept down on the creek on good grass all winter and went back to The Dalles. We accepted his proposition and sold him part of the grub that I had taken in for his winter supply. One morning Berry said, "Now, Barlow, if you want to go back to the valley I am perfectly willing to stay." I said, "All right," pretty gleefully, "and I will allow you all the income from the wagons and will keep out only the expense of this trip." To this he readily agreed. The next morning Eaton and myself started back. Eaton was the man's name that went with me over the mountains. We had a harder trip going back than we did going over heavily loaded. There came a blinding snowstorm and our matches got wet so we had to resort to an old flintlock gun and that flashed in the pan several times; but finally we got a fire started, set an old dead tree on fire that lit up the mountains in fine shape, so we could find our horses, as they had wandered off in the dark. We never could have found them if we had failed to get a fire, and I really believe we would have frozen to death, as we had left our best blankets back with Berry. So much for that trip.

In dead of winter we got back to Oregon City. The next thing to do was to find something to do, as I never could be idle. I bought a squatter's right to a section of land up on the Clackamas River. It cost me a young American filly valued at $250.00. I went right on the place, hired a man, and went to work, preparing a place to plant out a peck of apple seeds that I had brought over the plains and packed out on horseback from our mountain cache whence I had just returned. And right here I will state that I let an independent fortune slip through my hands.

I had started from Illinois with a complete assortment of the best grafted fruit trees that Illinois could produce, and they were all growing and doing well. I could have got them through in good shape, but I met a lot of men from Oregon who were good intelligent men. I think Jason Lee was one of them. I showed him my young trees that were in a box that weighed about 300 pounds, dirt and all.

"What are you going to do with them when you get them there?" one said.

"I am going into the nursery business," I replied.

"My dear sir," they said, "there is as good fruit in Oregon as anywhere in the world. There are old bearing orchards at Vancouver and in the French prairie, and you have the hardest part of the road ahead of you, besides you cannot get your wagons to the Willamette Valley without taking them to pieces in order to lad them on the bateau's going down the Columbia River."

"Well, if that is the case, I might as well lighten up my load right here." So I dumped on the ground close up to Independence Rock, at least $50,000.00. For, as it turned out, the box with all its contents could have set right in the wagon until it reached Oregon City. Of course, we never dreamed of crossing the Cascade Mountains then. As it was, the watchman left with the wagons could and would have attended to them with perfect safety. But this opportunity was all gone now, so I turned my attention to preparing my apple seed for planting in the spring. Good luck attended me, as almost every seed came up, and I had at least 15,000 young seedling apple trees that sold readily in the fall at fifteen cents apiece.

When I say I lost $50,000.00, I mean just what I say. There were no grafted apple trees in the territory and I could have mad a full monopoly of all the grafted apples and pears on the coast, as California had nothing but seedlings. Of course, you will once in a thousand times get a fine apple from the seed. In fact, that is the way all our fine apples and pears originate. But you might plant a bushel of seed all from the same tree and you would not get one apple of the same kind. But you can graft all the fine fruit into the seedling root and you will get just the kind of fruit that the graft is. Or even a bud put into seedling stock will have the same effect, but you must cut of the seedling stalk above the bud. To substantiate what I have said about the value of the fruit scions or grafts that I dumped on the ground at Sweetwater close to the summit of the Rocky Mountains in 1845, I will just refer to Mr. Henderson Luelling*, who crossed the plains in 1847, two years later than I did, with substantially the same kind of fruit trees that I had, and he supplied the country as fast as he could grow the trees at one dollar apiece for one year old trees. I paid him in 1853, $100.00 for one hundred grafted trees. I was talking with his son* a few days ago about the profits to themselves and the benefits of their importation to the country, estimating it at a million dollars. I think their own profits ran up to hundreds of thousands, though Seth could not say how much money was made, as he was not in partnership with the old gentleman at that time. But Meek, his brother-in-law, was in with his father and built the Standard flour mill at Milwaukee out of his profits of the nursery. I think the nursery was the foundation for Meek's and Eddy's large fortunes. I would have been two year in advance of them, and I knew all about the nursery business back in Illinois. Eddy and Meek, I think, were both sons-in-law of Mr. Luelling and were interested with him in all successful business ventures. I only write this to substantiate what I lost by listening to men that I thought knew what they were talking about.

But I thought then and believe now that they thought they were telling me the truth.

Well, it is now the winter of '46, and it was as fine a winter as I have ever seen in Oregon. I hired a man and went on the place I had traded for. We could work every day in our shirt sleeves. If it rained at all it rained at night. Wages were very low. Could get a man for little more than his board. No money in the country, so had to take his pay in truck and "turnover," as we called it. Most of the business was done by and through merchants of whom there were four in Oregon City, and they were rated about like the Irishman's whiskey. He said he had never seen any poor whiskey in his life, but he had seen some a great deal better than others and all would make drunk come. All the merchants floated more or less paper money, which was only redeemable at their own store, and you had to take just what they had to sell or take nothing. That was what made some a great deal better than others. Abernethy's was considered the poorest paper, though you could get flour and lumber at his mills, gunflints and remnants as this store. Ermatinger, or the Hudson's Bay store, was gilt-edged. You could get all kinds of substantial goods at that store if you had their paper. The way this paper was floated was through the agency of Dr. McLoughlin. He had a large flour mill, three run of fine French burrs and they made as good flour there then as any mill does in Oregon today. He bought the bulk of all the wheat that was raised in Oregon at that time, paid the farmer or whoever had the wheat with paper on Ermatinger or the Hudson's Bay store. They in turn would pass it to the credit of the wheat man, then he would draw orders in favor of any person or persons to the full amount due him and those orders were good until they were taken in. It made no difference how many hands they had passed through or when it was presented, it would be put to your credit; and you could draw on it a dollar at a time or take it all up then if you wished which they would really prefer. I just state this to show how business was done before there was any money in the country and the people got along just as well as they do now and in some respects better. For they could no run their hands into their pockets then and call up all hands to take a drink. They could get a bottle of good Hudson's Bay brandy and then call up all hands to drink it, but there was virtually no drinking done in Oregon. There is more whiskey and beer drunk now in Portland in ten minutes than was consumed in Oregon from 1845 to 1848.

There was a man by the name of Dick McCary who started a large distillery in the woods down the river between Portland and Oregon City. It consisted of one big kettle and a few coils and some kind of piping. He made what was called Dick McCary's Best. It was made out of Sandwich Island black strap molasses and it "would make drunk come mighty quick," as the Irishman said. But it was soon found out by the Indians. So a posse of law-and-order men went down from Oregon City and pitched the whole thing into the river and would have pitched Dick in, too, but he was not to be found. There were rigid Oregon laws against selling any kind of intoxicating drinks to the Indians, which of course was right, for at times they owned the country and outnumbered the whites two to one, and a drunken heathen is the worst heathen in the world.

But after the government had organized a territorial government in Oregon, appointed a governor and supreme judge, plenty of whiskey soon followed the flag. But the Oregon law was very severe on persons selling whiskey to Indians and O.C. Pratt, first U.S. Judge, was very strict in enforcing the law but lenient(?) in fines and punishments. The least fine was a thousand dollars for each offense or imprisonment for one year or both at the discretion of the court.

Sidney W. Moss was keeping a hotel in Oregon City and of course kept all kinds of liquors to sell to white customers, but whether he ever sold any whiskey direct to Indians was always a question in my mind. But he was indicted and convicted under two indictments. The judge ousted one indictment as it was the first offense and just fined him $1,000.00 on the second indictment. He thought that would be a lesson for him and others and it was, too, for there were no more indictments.

Moss promptly walked up to the clerk and paid the thousand dollars, demanded a receipt and started to walk out. The judge said, "Mr. Moss, I hope this will be a lesson not only to you but others," and was going on to make a long talk but Moss had his ire up and said, "Never mind, your honor, that is not interest on the Willamette water I have sold," and walked out.

Now I will go back to the place that I bought on the Clackamas. I stayed there until May '46, making rails and improving the place. The winter was the finest I have ever seen in Oregon, stock got rolling fat on range by the first of May. Old Uncle Arthur, who lived on the same prairie about one mile away, had new peas for Christmas dinner. I was invited to dine with his family, but did not go as I wished to take dinner with my mother that day in Oregon City. Uncle Arthur had come out in "44. Those peas were volunteer that had come up from the spring planting of '45. I have seen that several times since in Oregon and I think we could have had them last Christmas (1903) if they had been planted at the right time.

In the summer of 1846 I went with my father to make the road back to the wagons. Everything was safe and in good order, household goods and all. Our teams soon arrived and we started with the first wagon over the mountain. I wanted to drive the lead team so I could say I had driven the team that drew the first wagon over the Cascade Mountains. But I am not sure whether I did it or not. There was a rush and as Gaines, my brother-in-law, and we had six wagons in our family we all wanted to stay together and there might have been one wagon got over the summit first. Mr. Savage of Yamhill told me a few years ago that there was one wagon got ahead of me and he was with us all the time. That wagon was driven by Reuben Gant, now a resident of Philomath, Oregon.

At any rate, we made the road and got all our wagons and household goods out in perfect order and then went back and helped finish the road clear across the mountains. We established a tool-gate about ten miles this side of Tygh Valley where there was fine bunch grass, wood, and water. Here all the emigrants laid over one or two days for recruit before starting through the mountains. I staid (sic) with my father until all emigrants got through in the winter of '46. We then started out and made the trip clear through to Oregon City in two days.

The old gent gave me $400.00 for my summer's work. I laid that out for a house and lot on Main street in Oregon City, the first real estate I had owned. The claim I had bought was only a squatter's right held by a record.

By this time, emigrants were getting pretty thick around Oregon City. I soon had an offer of $600.00 for my right to the Clackamas place. I reserved all my young seedling apple trees, about 10,000 from one to tow feet height, worth ten to fifteen cents apiece in anything you could get. I then went out to the big Molalla prairie and bought a section of land with no timber on it for $400.00. Now this was in the spring of '47. I hired rails made to fence in 100 acres and broke up fifty acres for wheat in the Fall. Of course, I did not do all the work myself. In fact, I did not do any of it. I had all I could do to cook and look after my stock. Hands were cheap and would work for little more than their board. Many were trying to get enough to get back "to the States" as we said then.

But when gold was discovered in California, they changed their outfits and went in that direction. Three or four very fine young carpenters heard that I wanted a fine barn built and would trade horses for work. They came out to see me and I told them just what kind of barn I wanted to build. It was to be 74X40 feet 18 feet high, but they must take it from the stump. I would deliver everything on the ground, lumber and all, but they must make the shingles. The lumber I would get sawed, as there was a sawmill started about a mile off. That suited them exactly.

"Well, how much wages are you going to want," I asked. They thought they ought to have one dollar a day and board.

"Well, if you can put up with bachelor cooking you can take the job," I said. THey had some tools and I bought some more. I had to get a broadax and a chopping as or two. They went right to work with a will. I saw they meant business right from the start. They drew a draft of the barn so they would know just how to get out the timber, to which they had to walk about a mile. It was Uncle Sam's timber and free for all. They thought they would better take their dinner with them. I had several fine cows and we made up all our bread with pure cream. So every morning they would start with cream bread, a jug of milk, a pot of coffee and often Chinook salmon that needed no lard to cook it in. In those days, could get a salmon that weighed twenty or thirty pounds for ten or fifteen cents. I had also plenty of salt beef and pork. The men said they never lived better in their lives and that it beat city grub out of sight. So they finished the barn in time for me to store my crop of wheat in August. I fitted them out for the mines and they went off the best pleased set of fellows I ever saw. But I never heard of them afterwards.

Pretty soon the emigrants began to pour in. This was now 1848. One evening, about the middle of September, I saw three or four emigrant wagons steering for the house. I went out to meet them. When lo! and behold, up drove old Mathias Swiggle and all his family. He was our old neighbor right from Illinois. He halloed so loudly you could hear him a half a mile away. He wanted to know if here was where old Samuel K. Barlow's son William lived. I told him it was. He said, "Your father told me to come right here and stay all winter. Will has plenty of everything and I see for myself that you have got the best place in the county, for you came here three years ago when you could get pick and choice." "But, Mr. Swiggle, I did not take up this place myself. I had to buy it to get it, and all it cost the man I bought it of was a dollar to get it recorded and a little expense in building that log cabin. I paid him $400.00 just to get off and I had it recorded just as he had it staked out."

"Well, I knew you would have the best place if you did have to buy it," he said, after looking over the level prairie and my improvements. That was just what I wanted to hear him say, for I wanted to sell the place, and I knew he had the gold and plenty of it. As yet there was little gold coming from California. So I told him to unload everything in the big new barn and rest a while and I would show him plenty of land to take up for nothing. In a few day, we took a ride all round that part of the country. There was plenty of land, but no clean, smooth prairie like mine. He said he was to old to grub out a farm but wanted a farm already made. One day he said, "Will, I don't suppose you would sell your squatter's right to this place at all?"

"Never had anything in my life but what I would sell except my wife, and I have only had her for a few weeks and don't want to dispose of her for a while, at any rate."

"Well, what will you take for the place all gold right down in your fist?"

"Well, for all gold right down, I will take two thousand dollars."

"I won't give it, I won't give it."

"Well, there is no harm done, Mr. Swiggle."

"But," he added, "I will tell you just what I will give you. I have been talking with my old shell (he always called his wife an old shell), I will just give you $1600.00 in gold and pay you 50 cents per bushel for all the wheat in the barn and thrash it out myself. That will make you $2000.00."

"Well, I will talk with my young 'shell'," I replied, "and let you know in the morning."

I intended to take it, as I knew ready cash was the stuff for the times. Everybody was fixing for the mines next spring and they would pay anything to get money to pay their passage on the old brig Henry.

So I sold and went right down to Oregon City and went into anything and everything. Double invested sometimes in one day.

Among other things, I bought 7000 bushels of wheat at 50 cents a bushel delivered in Abernethy's mill on the island. I had it ground at the Island mill, put it in wooden barrels, stored it away and let it wait for development. I was satisfied that flour was bound to have a boom sooner or later. Oregonians were running off and leaving their families and people were pouring into California from all parts of the world. Flour had to come around the Horn to supply the demand in California. I had 600 barrels and Uncle Walter Pomeroy had about the same amount. We had it stored together in one of his buildings. I said to the old gent one day, "We would better look after our flour as wooden barrels need re-coopering occasionally."

"Well, Billy, I will tell you what I have been thinking about. One of us had better own all of that flour."

I replied, "I have no money to buy your flour and I don't wish to sell at the price it is going at now."

"We need no money in this deal, as I will take your note without interest for six months or I will give you mine on the same terms Say what you will give or take, and I will take you up one way or the other."

"Well," he said "Put it at $7.00."

"Draw up the note," I said, "And I will sign it as soon as we find out how many barrel there are of it."

The next day we got a cooper and a man to help him overhaul it all; my own and what I had bought of him. I all came out right. Besides he had about 50 barrels of middling's, that I gave him $4.00 a barrel for, making in all $4,400.00. In less than thirty days, it went up to $9.0