A History of Oregon, 1792-1849: Drawn From Personal Observation and Authentic InformationGray, W. H. (William Henry)
History
A History of Oregon, 1792-1849: Drawn From Personal Observation and Authentic Information
Gray, W. H. (William Henry)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Oregon; Oregon Territory -- History
We will let the provisional government rest till the 2d of May, 1843,
while we take a look over the whole country, and at the actors in it,
first stopping to drop a tear at the grave of our friends as we proceed.
On the 2d of February our best and most esteemed friend, Cornelius
Rogers, with whom we had spent years of the kindest confidence and
friendship, left our house for Oregon City, as his future residence and
home, with his young wife, the eldest daughter of Rev. David Leslie, and
her youngest sister. They took passage down the river with W. W.
Raymond, a man who came to the country with the re-enforcement of the
mission of 1839-40. He was at that time a member of the Methodist
Mission, in good standing. Dr. Elijah White and Esquire Crocker, of
Lansingville, Tompkins County, New York, were also in the canoe, one of
the largest of Chinook manufacturing. They arrived all safe at Canemah.
It was let down stern first by a line, around a point of rocks just
above the falls on the Oregon City side, since blasted away for a canal
and boat channel. In the eddy formed by the point of rock a large tree
had lodged, forming a convenient landing, and occupying a large portion
of the eddy water, so that it was necessary for the canoe to remain
close to the log for safety from the swift current. There were two
Indians to guide the canoe into this landing, one in the bow and one in
the stern. The one in the stern escaped by jumping from the canoe and
catching upon a piece of drift-wood on a rock just above the fall.
White, as the canoe came alongside of the log upon which all were to
land, being near the bow of the canoe, and not thinking, or perhaps
caring, for any one but himself, jumped upon the side of the canoe, and
with a spring, upon the log, before there was time for any one to secure
the bow of the canoe, to prevent it from swinging into the current. The
force of White's spring upon the canoe to reach the log threw it into
the current, which was too strong for Raymond and his Indians to hold,
and in a moment it darted into the middle of the channel, and the next
moment was plunged broadside over the falls, some twenty-five feet
perpendicular. The force of the current threw the canoe to the bottom of
the fall, right side up, but the under-swell threw it back to the sheet
of falling water, which filled and upset the canoe in an instant. All
that went over were lost. Raymond, who had attempted to hold the canoe,
came over the point of rocks (a difficult place) and found White upon
the log, and that he had made no effort to relieve the drowning party.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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