Memoirs of Orange Jacobs. Orange Jacobs

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СКАЧАТЬ provided he would pay the doctor's bill. This he willingly consented to do. I soon found three other young men who had the Oregon fever in its incipient stages. It soon became fixed and constitutional, and they determined to go. A wagon was soon constructed under my father's direction—light but strong, with a bed water-tight and removable, so that it could be used as a boat for ferrying purposes; a strong cover for the wagon, and a tent which in case of storm could be fastened to the wagon to supplement the effectiveness of the cover. Each furnished a span of light, tough and dark-colored horses. White was not allowed on account of their alleged want of toughness and durability. Each was allowed two full suits of clothes and no more, and two pair of double blankets and no more. The object was to prevent overloading. Each was to have a rifle or shotgun, or both, and a pistol and sheath-knife. I am thus particular, because in this day of railroads and Pullman cars, these things are fast passing from memory.

      On the first of March, 1852, we left Sturgis, Michigan. Our first point of destination was Cainesville on the Missouri River. We did our own cooking and slept in our wagon when the weather was clement; at hotels and farm houses when it was inclement. None of us had ever tried our hand at cooking before, and our development along that line had a good deal of solid fact, and but little poetry in it. We could put more specific gravity into a given bulk of bread than any scientific cook on earth. Taken in quantity, it would test the digestive energies of an ostrich; but we took it in homeopathic doses. We lived in the open air and survived, as our knowledge of the culinary art rapidly increased. The moral of this mournful tale is:—mothers, teach your sons to do at least ordinary cooking; they may many times bless you in the ever-shifting, and strenuous conflict of life.

      I was born and reared in a cold climate; but when the mercury fell, the atmosphere lost its moisture; and while the wind was fierce and biting, it was dry. You can protect yourself against such cold; but when you come to face the cold, damp, fierce and penetrating winds that sweep over the prairies of Illinois and Iowa when winter is departing, they find you, and chill you through any kind or reasonable quantity of clothing.

      On account of snow-storms we stopped for a week, in the latter part of March, at a farm-house in the outer settlements of Iowa. The people were intelligent and refined. Our hostess had two lovely daughters, and we young men were at home. Prairie chickens were very abundant in the vicinity, and with my shotgun I more than kept the family supplied while there. Our hostess was a good cook and we lived high. A short distance away was a log school-house also used for a church, and we accompanied the family to church on Sunday. The minister was a Methodist circuit-rider; and while he was not an eloquent man and did not, like Wirt's blind preacher, in the wilds of Virginia, tell us with streaming eyes that "Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God," yet with force and emphasis he preached Christ and Him crucified for a sinful world. This was the first church service we had attended since leaving home, and it gave us all a touch of homesickness.

      As soon as the storm abated and the weather gave indications of more sunshine and less downpour, we bade adieu to our hostess and her fair daughters, and journeyed slowly onward over horrid roads towards Cainesville. We arrived at this bustling outfitting town on the 23rd of April. We found there a large number of persons and prairie schooners, but most of them were on a voyage to the gold-fields of California. By diligent inquiry I found seventeen wagons, with an average of four persons to the wagon, whose destination was Oregon. We agreed to cross the Missouri River on the 2nd day of May, and on the afternoon of that day we were all safely landed on the western shore. We were now beyond the realm of social constraint, conventional usage, and the reign of the law. It was interesting to me to note the effect of this condition upon a few men in our party. They seemed to exult in their so-called freedom. They spoke of the restraining influence of organized society as tyranny, and of the government of law as government by force. A meeting for organization was called for that evening. I was elected chairman, and in response to a request for my views, I said, that we on the morrow were to start on a journey of over two thousand miles through an Indian country; and while it was reported that the tribes through whose country we were to pass were at peace with the whites, yet it was a sound maxim, in the time of peace to be prepared for war; and that our safety, and that of our property, depended upon our strictness, watchfulness and unity of action, and these beneficial results could only be secured by organization; hence I proposed that, without being myself a candidate for any position and not desiring any, we organize ourselves into a semi-military company by the election of a captain and a first and second lieutenant. A motion was made in accordance with the views expressed by me, and seconded; I declared it open for discussion. One of the persons mentioned above, who thought he had just enhaled the air of perfect freedom, arose and said that he was opposed to the motion; he did not propose to be lorded over by any one; he would be governed by his own judgment and wishes. I replied that we did not propose to lord it over any one, but to govern in all ordinary matters by common consent, and in all matters by the laws of safety and decent morals. The motion was put and it was carried with only five dissenting votes. A vote was taken by ballot for Captain, and to my astonishment I received all the votes but two—one of which was cast by myself for a gentleman who had crossed the plains and who had returned to the States to get married, and, having accomplished that purpose, was returning with his wife and an unmarried sister of hers to his home in Oregon City; the other vote, presumptively, was cast by a gentleman that, on account of his military appearance and the arsenal of weapons which he carried on his person, and his alleged thirst for Indian blood, we styled Colonel. As the Colonel was an open candidate for the office, the opinion prevailed that he had voted for himself. The first and second lieutenants were soon elected and a quasi-military organization was soon formed. The first lieutenant was unpopular with the men. He was a good man, but possessed no fitness for the position; he had much of the fortiter in re, but none of the suaviter in modo. The second lieutenant was a doctor by profession and was eminently fitted for the position; he was calm, cool in danger, discreet in words and action, and courageous in conduct. Thus equipped, the next morning at eight o'clock we rolled out and made about twenty miles; we camped on a plateau covered with grass and by a brooklet of pure, cold spring water. The second and third days were but repetitions of the first. The fourth day we reached the Loup Fork, a large tributary of the Platte. We ferried over it successfully and resumed our journey across the valley of rather low but rich land, still covered in places with a mass of tall dry grass, the fading glory of last year's beneficence. We were in the Pawnee country. When we were about two and one-half or three miles from the river, from seventy-five to a hundred Indians arose suddenly out of the grass, stopped our teams, and by their unearthly yelling came near stampeding our horses. We were caught unprepared. We did not expect to meet hostiles, or even troublesome Indians within an hundred miles of the Missouri River. Many of the guns were not loaded. A lame chief, pretty well dressed in buck-skin, with a sword by his side, a pistol in his belt, a fine rifle in his hand, and a photograph of ex-President Fillmore, in a metallic frame, on his breast, was in command of the Indians. He, and three subordinate chiefs were standing near the head of the train, and I sent the doctor—the second lieutenant—and another discreet person to confer with them and ascertain what this meant. The other Indians in open order extended the full length of the train, and were about five rods away. All had bows and arrows or firearms. They used the weapons in their movements, with incessant yelling, in a menacing manner. All things being in readiness, I went to where the doctor and his companions and the chiefs were, near the head of the train. I asked the doctor what they wanted. He answered that they wanted one cow brute, a large quantity of sugar, tobacco and corn, for the privilege of crossing their country. They were in a squatting position, marking on the ground the boundaries of the country claimed by them. I told the doctor that we had no cow brute and could not give one; that we had but little sugar and tobacco, and could spare none; that if they wanted corn to plant, we would give them a sack of shelled corn, and no more. They understood what I said, and quickly sprang to their feet and covered the doctor and myself with their guns. I had a double-barreled shotgun by my side. I seized it; but before I could get it into position, the muzzles of the guns were lowered, the yelling ceased, and the sack of corn was accepted as toll. This was to me a new and rather startling application of the doctrine of posse comitatus for the enforcement of an unadjudicated demand; but I have since learned that civilized nations use battleships and cannon for that purpose.

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