[or-roots] Another description of the trip from Drain to Coos Bay

[Robyn Greenlund]

THROUGH
RAIN AND SAND.  
Rough Experience of Ex-Governor Perkins and Party in Oregon
A Tramp of Twelve Miles In the Teeth of a Gale on a Wild Beach—One
Man Exhausted. 
The San Francisco Post of last evening says that ex-Governor
Perkins, Captain Nelson and C. M. Goodall have returned from a trip
through Southern Oregon, where they encountered some of the roughest experiences of their
lives. They left here shortly before the recent southeast storm and
calculated making their trip before the rains set in. They went
overland by rail as far as Drains [sic], where they took a stage and
traveled thirty-five miles over a road all cut to pieces by the
rains. 
The  passengers, with the lives almost  jolted out of them, were
finally landed at Scotsburg, whence, after only a few hours' rest,
they embarked on a little steamer and sailed down the Umpqua River to
the ocean. At this point there was a two-horse stage waiting to take
the passengers down to Coos Bay along a beach twenty-two miles long.
It had been raining thus far incessantly all along the road, but when
the travelers reached the beach it seemed that it had never rained so
hard. Beside the San Francisco people there was a minister and
another passenger. The wind was blowing from the southeast right in
the faces of those in the wagon at something like sixty miles an hour
and the sand covered them, blowing up from the beach with the force
of a simoon [sic]. At Ten-mile River the jaded animals gave out and could
not proceed any further under the heavy load. The passengers all got
out and attempted to walk on while the team rested. 
The rain and flying sand almost blinded them, and it was
impossible to make headway against the storm. The driver gave his
horses half an hour's rest and then went on. The wearied passengers
sensibly got behind the wagon and this gave them some protection from
the sand and rain. 
It was finally decided to send the driver on ahead to get fresh
horses, and it looked as it the party would have to camp out all
night on the bleak and barren beach. The tide was supposed to be low,
but every other beaker rolled the surf higher up on the sand and
forced the team and the travelers up among the driftwood. 
At times the men were almost up to their waists in the water.
Governor Perkins dropped behind one time, and in attempting to reach
the wagon again, which was only fifty yards ahead, he was well nigh
exhausted. The men took turns in driving, and on and on they went,
never knowing what moment they were going to be hemmed in by the
ocean. 
With the sea on one side and sand on the other the trip must have
been a delightful one. The driver kept on and was soon lost to sight.
His objective point was the cabin on the Coos Bay beach opposite Empire City,
where he lived and kept his horses. He reached the door and fell in a
dead faint. When he had been brought to, fresh horses were given him
and he started back, but 100 yards out he met the party almost dead
from fatigue. 
The trip to Empire was completed in a row boat across Coos Bay. In getting back to
Drains the party had sixty-five miles of staging out of Myrtle Point,
and they spent twenty-four hours in a hardriding mud-wagon. The
gentlemen are very glad to get back to San Francisco.
 Robyn
rgreenlund61 at yahoo.com

Interested in Oregon History? Check out my webpages at
coquillevalley.org or genealogytrails.com (Coos & Curry Counties)



      
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