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Updated: May 18, 2025
The broad and fertile Willamette Valley was but an arm of the sea, somewhat like Puget Sound to-day. The body of water which once filled this valley has been called Willamette Sound. The ocean overspread the low Oregon coast, and reached far up the valleys of the Umpqua and Rogue rivers.
From this place the emigrants followed the Columbia River to The Dalles, whence they proceeded either by boat or raft until Fort Vancouver and the mouth of the Willamette were finally gained. Wagons were taken through on this route, and it was not dangerous, although accidents sometimes happened at the Cascades, where locks were built at a later day.
One of the petty tribes of eastern Oregon had recently risen up against the Willamette supremacy; and after a short but bloody struggle, the insurrection had been put down and the rebels almost exterminated by the victorious Willamettes.
Here, on September 23, the party divided, Williamson and I crossing through the crater of the Three Sisters and along the western slope of the Cascade Range, until we struck the trail on McKenzie River, which led us into the Willamette Valley not far from Eugene City. We then marched down the Willamette Valley to Portland, Oregon, where we arrived October 9, 1855
Nevertheless, bearing in mind the great pine he had heard of, and the seeds of which he had seen, he made haste to set out on an excursion to the headwaters of the Willamette in search of it; and how he fared on this excursion and what dangers and hardships he endured is best told in his own journal, part of which I quote as follows: October 26th, 1826. Weather dull. Cold and cloudy.
The chief leaned closer over her; he called her name aloud, something that the Willamette Indians rarely did, for they believed that if the names of the dead were spoken, even in conversation, it would bring them back; so they alluded to their lost ones only indirectly, and always reluctantly and with fear. "Come back!" said he, repeating the name he had not spoken for six years.
By and by the Willamette raised the flap that hung over the entrance and crawled out, hot, steaming, perspiring at every pore. He rushed with unsteady footsteps down to the river, only a few yards away, and plunged into the cold water. After repeatedly immersing himself, he waded back to the shore and lay down to dry in the sun.
The chiefs were assembled in secret council, and only those of pure Willamette blood were present, for the question to be considered was not one to be known by even the most trusted ally. All the confederated tribes beyond the Cascade Range were in a ferment of rebellion.
Jason Lee, who had come up the Columbia in the interests of the mission in the Willamette Valley. Woods; the musical German girl, with memories of the Rhine; and the Indian chief and his family. The Columbia rolled below the tall palisades, the opposite bank was full of cool shadows of overhanging rocks, sunless retreats, and dripping cascades of glacier-water.
Now and then when a Willamette passed a group who were talking and gesticulating animatedly they would become silent all at once till the representative of the dreaded race was out of hearing, when a storm of indignant gutterals would burst forth; but there were no other indications of hostility.
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