Kate Mulhall A romance of the Oregon Trail
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[Frontispiece: PRESIDENT AND OLD PIONEER]
Signature of President Coolidge
from the White House,
March 25, 1926.
PRESIDENT AND OLD PIONEER
Calvin Coolidge and Ezra Meeker, two stalwart Americans--the
President a New Englander, and Mr. Meeker a native of Ohio, though
for nearly all his adult life a resident of the Pacific Northwest.
Mr. Meeker was a youth past fourteen when the late John C. Coolidge,
father of the President, was born. Photograph taken on the White
House grounds, near the Executive Offices, in October 1924, just
after Mr. Meeker had flown in an aeroplane from Washington State to
the City of Washington: and the old gentleman took advantage of the
opportunity to say to the President--as he had to President Theodore
Roosevelt near the same spot on November 29, 1907--that the memory of
the Pioneers should be preserved, and the route of the Oregon Trail
suitably and permanently marked.
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[Frontispiece: EZRA MEEKER]
EZRA MEEKER
Born December 29, 1830. Only survivor (1926) among the adults who
passed over the Oregon Trail in their own outfits at the height of
the migration of 1852. Founder and President of the Oregon Trail
Memorial Association, Inc.
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KATE MULHALL
A Romance of the
OREGON TRAIL
By
EZRA MEEKER
Author of: Ox-Team Days, Pioneer Reminiscences,
The Busy Life of 85 Years, Pioneer Stories for
Children, Story of the Lost Trail to Oregon
Drawings by Margaret Landers Sanford, Rudolf A. Kauach
and Oscar W. Lyons
Map of the Oregon Trail, and photographs
Published by
EZRA MEEKER
18 OLD SLIP, NEW YORK CITY
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED AS A TRIBUTE OF DEVOTION TO
THE MEMORIES OF
PHOEBE BAKER MEEKER
MY MOTHER
ELIZA SUMNER MEEKER
MY WIFE
WHO CROSSED THE OREGON TRAIL AS A YOUNG MOTHER IN 1852,
AND WAS AFTERWARD THE COMPANION OF MANY YEARS OF MY LIFE
THE HEROINES OF THE PLAINS
AND 20,000 PIONEERS
MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN--BURIED IN UNMARKED GRAVES,
ALONG THAT GREAT HIGHWAY OF HISTORY TO THE FAR NORTHWEST
Copyrighted 1926
By EZRA MEEKER
All rights reserved
CONTENTS
FOREWORD: Ezra Meeker, the Author
By Robert Bruce.
CHAPTER I
Early Life in Missouri; A Farewell Party; Kate's Suitors
CHAPTER II
Off for Oregon; Crossing the Missouri; Encountering the Buffalo;
Troubles with the Indians
CHAPTER III
Trials of the Long Trail; Dangerous River Crossings; the Death of
Catherine; West of the Rockies; Separation of the Party; New Homes in
the Oregon Country
CHAPTER IV
A Massacre and a War; Kate Mulhall, Deputy Sheriff; A Race for a
Wife; The Wedding and Charvaree; A Delayed and Adventurous Honeymoon
on Puget Sound
CHAPTER V
An Encounter with Pirates, and a Fortunate Deliverance; Ben Found;
His prompt start for Missouri and unexpected arrival; a Son born to
the Peltons
CHAPTER VI
The Wedding of Ben and Linda; A second Overland Trip; Massacre of
nearly all the Company; Binding up the Wounds; The Trip resumed;
Survivors reach the Oregon Country
CHAPTER VII
Linda's hope never realized; Death of David Mulhall; Craig's promise
remembered; Lessons from a Trail-marking Outfit; Decision to make the
trip
CHAPTER VIII
The Start for the Rockies; Re-discovery of the Old Trail;
Recollections of Burnt River; All signs of Ben's grave obliterated; A
granite Monument erected near the Lone Pine and wagon tire at the
grave of Catherine Mulhall: Closing Scenes
APPENDIX
The Missionary's Story--The Lewis and Clark Expedition; Outline
History of the Oregon Missions; Jason Lee's great sermon; Massacre of
Marcus and Narcissa Whitman; Destruction of the Mission, &c
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
President and Old Pioneer ...... Frontispiece
Ezra Meeker, the author ...... Frontispiece
Condensed map of the Oregon Trail and National Road
Farewell Party at the Mulhall Homestead in Missouri
A near catastrophe in crossing the Missouri
Typical emigrant outfit on the Oregon Trail
Using a wagon-box as a "boat"
Under the Yoke for the first time
A Corral at an overnight stop on the Trail through the Indian Country
Almost "Down and Out"
Monument along the Clover Creek Highway, near Tacoma, Washington
Reduced to a Hand Cart
The honeymoon party on Puget Sound
"Help Yourself
"Babe in the Woods"
Scene after the Massacre
Tracks on the Oregon Trail made nearly a century ago
The lone pine
Jason Lee's great sermon
Dr. John McLoughlin welcoming Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding to Fort
Vancouver
Arrival of the Sager orphans at the Whitman Mission
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The front cover design combines a distant view of the majestic
mountain of the Pacific Northwest with a pictorial representation of
one of the great falls on the western slope of the Rocky
Mountains--both landmarks enshrined in the memories of the few
surviving Pioneers over the Oregon Trail.
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FOREWORD
EZRA MEEKER, THE AUTHOR
A LIFE SPAN OF MORE THAN NINETY-FIVE YEARS FROM THE
ADMINISTRATION OF ANDREW JACKSON TO THE
PRESIDENCY OF CALVIN COOLIDGE
By ROBERT BRUCE
Ezra Meeker was born December 29, 1830, about ten miles east of
Hamilton, Butler County, Ohio, while Andrew Jackson was President of
the United States, John C. Calhoun, Vice President, and Martin Van
Buren, Secretary of State. There had been only six
Presidents--Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and
John Quincy Adams; and the last three were still living.
Considerable numbers could remember listening to the Declaration of
Independence at Philadelphia or elsewhere; a trifle less than half a
century had elapsed since the decisive victory at Yorktown, and
survivors among men who served in the armies of the Revolution were
younger than the average of Civil War veterans in 1926.
Although we are accustomed to think, read and speak of the Oregon
Trail as "old," the route to which that name has since been given did
not come into existence until several years after Mr. Meeker was
born. So the shadow thrown upon the screen of time by the living
figure of this remarkable man is longer than we may say figuratively
is cast by the highway itself; and while the latter has been
gradually passing into the background of history and romance, he is
still carrying forward with singleness of purpose and unabated energy
what will probably be left to posterity as the most important work of
his whole busy life.
Prior to 1830, neither the people east of the Mississippi nor the
Government at Washington had adequate conceptions of the
geographical, political or future commercial importance of the
Pacific Northwest; and the wonderful developments there in the last
seven decades have grown out of the overland migration of the 40s and
50s, or at least owe much to it, historically and practically.
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A most appropriate symbol of the "Course of Empire" from the valleys
of the Mississippi and Missouri to the Columbia River and Puget Sound
country would be a miniature wagon--sometimes idealized as a "prairie
schooner"--carrying many thousands of home seekers into what now
comprises all of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, with contiguous parts
of Wyoming and Montana. Except for that great human movement, of
which the author of this Romance is the only survivor among the men
who went over the Trail with their own outfits in 1852, that region
would have continued primarily a fur-hunting territory for many years
later than was actually the case, and then in all probability have
become a part of the British Dominions in America.
As a youth, Ezra Meeker saw recruits somewhat older than himself
leave for the Mexican War; he was intensely interested in reports
about the far-away and then almost legendary Oregon Country before
there was any established travel to it, and heard echoes of the
discovery of gold in California--though he was not, as frequently
stated, a "Forty-Niner." Accounts of opening the Panama Railroad in
1855, with its considerable effect upon the subsequent emigration to
the Pacific Coast, and of the Crimean War, reached the family cabin
built with his own hands in "Old" Oregon. Mr. Meeker is now the only
one left from the adults residing in Washington Territory when it was
created in 1853.
For more than fifty years he was a farmer and hop grower in the Puget
Sound region, meanwhile spending four winters introducing hops from
Washington and Oregon in the European market; and was also at one
time a prospector and miner in the Yukon. Within the span of his
life the population of the United States has increased from less than
Thirteen Millions, then living mostly along the Atlantic seaboard, to
about a Hundred and Fifteen Millions occupying the whole country to
the western ocean. So far as we have been able to ascertain, Mr.
Meeker is the only person who ever undertook an important work of
fiction in his 95th year; and this has been done to revive and
preserve the experiences and memories of his youth, in connection
with the efforts of two decades to mark the Trail and honor the
Pioneers.
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PREFACE
Having thrice crossed the Oregon Trail by ox-team, first during the
year 1852 accompanied by a courageous young wife, the second and
third times during the years 1906-10, erecting monuments to mark the
Trail and perpetuate the memory of the pioneers who traversed it,
again in an automobile in 1915, and finally over 1,300 miles of it in
an aeroplane in October, 1924, presumably none will question that the
author can write from his own experiences.
One hundred and seventy-one granite monuments have already been
erected on or near-by the general route of the Oregon Trail, along
which twenty thousand died. An effort is now being made to portray
the scenes and experiences of these pioneers in moving pictures with
fidelity to historical accuracy, that present and future generations
may know what happened in the winning of the great Farther West.
The names of the actors in this romance are fictitious; but the
characters are as the writer knew them. The incidents are based on
occurrences in real pioneer life, many of which the author saw, some
of which he experienced, and all he knows to be in accordance with
the truth.
[Signature of Ezra Meeker]
New York City, January 1926.
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CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE IN MISSOURI; A FAREWELL PARTY;
KATE'S SUITORS
Kate Mulhall was just twenty when her father crossed the Missouri
River and the Great Plains on their way to the "Oregon Country."
Prior to the day of their departure for that far-away region of
mystery and romance, she had never been outside the restricted
neighborhood where she was born--in La Fayette County, Missouri,
whose every third inhabitant was a slave; had never seen a railroad,
and until a short time before, not even a cook-stove. All of her
life had been in a real pioneer environment; but she grew up strong,
hearty and self-reliant upon the plain and wholesome food, the pure
air and active outdoor life of what was then the frontier.