[or-roots] Barlow Trail ( the begining)

[Steve & Ronda Howard]

Hi Walt,
Who was the Mr. Brewer in the first sentence?  An where was this story from again?
Thanks,
Ronda Howard
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: DAVIESW739 at aol.com 
  To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us 
  Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2004 9:30 PM
  Subject: [or-roots] Barlow Trail ( the begining)


  When we reached The Dalles Mission, Mr. Brewer pointed to the high Cascade Mountains and to the Columbia. The river was swift and dangerous. The mountains were even then almost hidden in clouds and snow could be expected any day, and the snow falls deep and may lie on for months at the top of the range.

    Either way was dangerous, but our provisions were almost gone, so we were left to choose the lesser evil of the two.

    The Indians watched the building of the rude rafts and shook their heads and said: "Sku-kum chuck." (strong water). Most of the Emigration decided upon the river. A few had provisions enough to last till spring and they decided to stay at The Dalles.

    The trail over the mountains would take many days longer than the river. Many had cause to regret their hastes, for few of the frail rafts made it without some accident. Several families lost everything that they possessed and several men and children were drowned, though portage was made around the most dangerous places.

    Father was a riverman. When he saw the frail rafts that men were intrusting their lives and their families' lives and their few belongings to, he said: "No, we will leave our wagons and follow the Indian trail across the mountains." The trail lead over the high Cascade Range and was so poorly defined that we were told at the mission that we would have to take a guide in order to even find it. We were told that a certain Indian knew it and could be trusted. He also tried to make us understand, when he came to us, that his "heart was good." He beat upon his chest with his doubled fist and said: "Klose tum-tum." (good heart.) Because of that, we called him "Heart."

    So Father stored our wagons and the things that we could not take with us, and putting our extra stock in the mission pasture, we started with a few pack animals, to make the last one hundred miles into the Willamette Valley.

    Our provisions were low and we had barely enough to last us, if everything went well, but everything did not go well. When we were a day's travel on the "Lolo Trail" (carry trail) we  found in the morning that our oxen were gone.

    Father sent four of the boys back to look for them, while the rest of us rode on. Winter had come and the old guide kept looking up into the sky and shivering violently and shaking his head. It was his way of telling us that it was soon going to snow and that we must hurry on as fast as we could.

    Father supposed that the oxen had strayed only a short distance and all day long we were looking for the boys to rejoin us, but night came without them, and another. Then in spite of the warnings of the Indian, we laid over a day. The sky was growing dark and threatening and it was bitter cold. The boys had taken no food at all, for they had expected to be gone but a few hours. It was a harrowing situation. Each day, when we broke camp, Mother had divided our scanty store of food and had tied a generous share to a limb over the trail, out of the reach of wolves or other marauding animals. Father realized that he must get out of the mountains as fast as he could, then he could go back to meet the boys. He knew that they must have gone all the way back to The Dalles Mission, or they would have overtaken us. He hoped that they would be wise enough to stay there till he returned to them. One bitter cold night, we made camp up in the very clouds themselves. with the exception of some buffalo suet, our food was entirely gone. Mother found some Elderberries. bitter unpalatable things, and stewed them with the suet. Elderberry soup, she called the seedy, purple mess, and we tried to eat it, for hunger was pinching us and it was all we had.

    Our boys were somewhere out in the wild forbidding mountains, without food or shelter, maybe lost entirely.

    One night our little party sat huddled, damp and hungry around our camp fire. No one cared to talk, no one dared to talk. Mother and Lizabeth cried. I remember that I sat snuggled under Father's cape. I could hear the "wow,wow" of the wind in the pine trees and the trickling splashing of the water in the mountain stream. Night birds were calling. Oh, but it was a dreary, lonely spot and a lonely, cheerless group that occupied it.

    Finally when I had endured the dreadful depressing silence as long as I could, I said: "Father sing, sing 'Good old Noah,' and sing it loud." Father understood. How his heart must have ached. His voice echoed and reached from mountain to mountain.

    In the Morning as we were starting, our guide put his ear to the ground and listened intently. Then he sprang up and said: "ting-ting, ting-ting." One of our oxen wore a bell and he had heard it. in a little while we could all hear it. We heard it coming nearer and nearer.And so our boys were with us again. We were still hungry and so were they, for two boys from the mission were with them. Mother's scanty provisions had been divided between six instead of four.

    We were all hungry, but we were happy and we knew that one of the oxen would be killed before real starvation came to us. We were far from actually starving, for we still had a bag of suet, so killing the ox would be a last resort.

    Brother Adam and Cousin Aaron rode on ahead, for we were within sight of the Willamette Valley. They hurried on to the Hudson Bay Company's post at the falls and returned to us with provisions.

    They had a pillow slip full of funny little hard biscuits. Oh, but they were delightfully filling. When Adam came up to us, he reached into the bag and sewed biscuits over us, as one would sew wheat by hand. Mother said: "Adam, that is a foolish thing for you to do." I was looking at tender hearted Adam and I knew why he threw the biscuits. He wanted to turn attention from himself, and the tears were streaming down his face.

    Late the next evening, we reached the Hudson Bay Company's post, but the rain had fallen on us all day and we were cold and wet. Everything that we had was wet. There was no shelter for us there, every cranny was filled to overflowing with the families who had made the trip successfully by raft. So we pitched our tents and tried as best we could to dry out some of our bedding. There was no dry wood to be had and Mother had reached the limits of her endurance. She cried and cried, and Lizabeth cried, and Mary cried. But my hero was his usual cheerful self and I thought the rest of them was a pretty poor lot to make such a fuss, when they could see as well as I could that everything must be alright.In a day or two Father rented one room from a Mr. Foster and we stayed there till we got a cabin over in the Tualatin Valley and moved into it. It was a pretty poor kind of a cabin, but it had a roof and we surely needed a roof. That winter it rained almost without stopping till the first of the next May.



  Walt Davies
  Cooper Hollow Farm
  Monmouth, OR 97361
  503 623-0460 
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