1 GENERAL TAYLOR'S RECEPTION. 731 LII. country. Gen. Taylor, of whom so little had been known CHAP LIII. CHAPTER LIII. POLK'S ADMINISTRATION-CONTINUED. Emigration to Oregon.-John C. Fremont; his Explorations; his diff CHAP. THE importance of securing Oregon by settlement had descriptions given in the newspapers of that distant region, These emigrants were followed the next year by COLONY ON THE COLUMBIA-FREMONT. 733 another company, consisting of two thousand, who passed CHAP over the same route. LIII. These enterprising settlers, with the few who had pre- 1843. ceded them, labored under many difficulties, as the United States government did not exercise the jurisdiction which it claimed over the territory. A bill introduced into the Senate, granted lands to actual settlers, and made provision to maintain their rights as citizens by extending over them the laws of the territory of Iowa. Though this bill passed only the Senate, it gave encouragement to those persons who desired to emigrate to the banks of the Columbia. A colony thus planted by private enterprise, and thus slightly encouraged by the government, became the germ of another State, (Oregon) now added to the 1859. Union. It was in connection with this awakened spirit of emigration that Colonel John C. Fremont, then a lieutenant, made his first exploring expedition. He was a young man, once friendless and unknown, but had risen by his own talents and industry, and on the recommendation of Poinsett, then Secretary of War, had been appointed in the Topographical Engineers by President Jackson. Fremont solicited and obtained permission from the government to explore the Rocky Mountains and their passes, but at this time with special reference to the South Pass and its vicinity. In six months he returned; he had accurately determined the location of that Pass, which now became a fixed point in the path of emigration to Oregon. Soon after his return, Fremont again asked for orders to prosecute still further explorations in that distant region. They were given; but after his preparations were made, and he and his party had reached the frontiers of Missouri, the government countermanded his orders, on LIII. CHAP. the singular plea that he had armed his party, in addition to their rifles, with a small mountain howitzer. But for1813. tunately for science and the country, the letter containing the order came to Mrs. Fremont, whom he had requested to examine his letters and forward only those he ought to receive. She deemed the government countermand one that he ought not to receive, and Fremont knew nothing of its existence until he returned from his eventful tour. On his return he was received with honor, his conduct ap proved, and on the recommendation of the Secretary of War, William Wilkins, the brevet of captain was con ferred upon him by President Tyler. He had received special orders to survey the route of travel from the frontiers of Missouri to the tide-waters of the Columbia. This was accomplished by the first of November, after six months' labor, though often he diverged from the main route to make useful observations. He now resolved to return immediately, and when on the way to ex plore the vast territory which must lie between the route he had passed over and the Pacific. To pass through this region in midwinter was no easy matter. Soon deep snows appeared on the highlands, and the party descended into the valley, now known as the Great Basin, out of which flows no stream. On the west, the mountains loomed up with their snowy tops; every thing was strange; the Indians, terrified at the approach of white men, fled: a desert appeared, and with it the vision of starvation and death. No place could they find, as they had hoped, where they might winter and derive their sustenance from hunting the animals of the forest. They passed down to the latitude of San Francisco, as found by astronomical observations; but between them and that place, the nearest point where they could obtain aid from civilized man, rose mountains, their snowy tops piercing the clouds ; their sides frowning precipices thousands of feet high. No Indian would act as a guide through their passes. The THE RESULTS OF THE EXPLORATION. 735 LIII. whole party, by excessive toil and want of food, were re- CHAP. duced to skeletons, both men and horses. Finally they "crawled over the Sierra Nevada," and arrived at the 1843. head-waters of the Sacramento. "In this eventful exploration, all the great features of the western slope of our continent were brought to light-the Great Salt Lake, the Utah Lake, the Little Salt Lake-at all which places, then desert, the Mormons now are; the Sierra Nevada, then solitary in the snow, now crowded with Americans, digging gold from its banks; the beautiful valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, then alive with wild horses, elk, deer, and wild fowls, now smiling with American cultivation. The Great Basin itself, and its contents; the Three Parks; the approximation of the great rivers which, rising together in the central region of the Rocky Mountains, go off east and west towards the rising and the setting sun,-all these, and other strange features of a new region, more Asiatic than American, were brought to light, and revealed to public view in the results of this exploration." 1 In May, Fremont set out on his third expedition to 1845. explore still further the Great West. There were now indications that war would soon result between Mexico and the United States. But to avoid exciting the suspicions of the Mexicans, he obtained permission from General De Castro, commandant at Monterey on the Pacific, to pass the following winter in the uninhabitable portion of the valley of the San Joaquin. But before long, De Castro professed to believe that his object was not scientific exploration, but to excite a rebellion among the American settlers, and he undertook to either drive him out of the country or capture the whole party. A messenger, secretly sent by the United States consul at Benton's Thirty Years' View, Vol. ii. Chap. 134. |