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Note: artin Blanding who was with the wagon train of the story we have called "The Lost Trail". My great-grandfather Hill was with this wagon train. (Note by Thelma (Gray) Holmes, recopied by me (Reuben Hill) in 1957).
DISCOVERY OF STARVING SCOUT, BY YOUTH, BRINGS RESCUE OF WILLAMETTE PASS TRAIN
(Dave Mathews, 13, finds Martin Blanding in 1853 at Butte Disappointment, who tells of struggling over Trail, and relief supplies soon go forward to pioneers). (This was written by Randall Stuart Jones).
A worn-out man, almost starved and too weak to walk, lay by a small fire over which he was trying to roast a piece of meat from a cut from the hind quarter of a little colt.
The meal he was trying in his feeble way, to prepare would have been his first for more than a week. He knew that before many days he would come to some settlement, and he was sure the carcass of the little colt would supply him with sufficient food to carry him through. The man was Martin Blanding. The place was at the foot of Butte Disappointment, near which Lowell, Oregon, is now located. The time was an autumn evening in 1853. Blanding was found in this helpless condition by David C. Mathews. At that time Mr. Mathews was a boy only 13 years old. He and a George Penline were working for a cattle man, and the two were camped on the prairie west of Butte Disappointment. Dave Mathews, as he was called, was hunting for a couple of calves that had strayed from the herd. From a commanding position on the Butte he caught sight of a thin column of smoke rising from its southern base.
BOY MEETS WITH SURPRISE
Thinking that the smoke came from an Indian's fire, the boy made his way to it to inquire if the calves had been seen, but to his astonishment a white man, a stranger, Blanding, had kindled the fire. At a glance the boy took in the man's condition and informed him that there was a house, John Bargdell's place and food only a half mile away. When Blanding heard that he cried with joy. There was a half dozen men at the house and they were as surprised to see Blanding as young Mathews had been. It was hard for them to realize that a white man had been starving on their own range, and within sight of their own home.
Blanding was taken inside and given a little food. The taste of it made him ravenous. He asked for more. The men told him that was all he could have for awhile, they had given him all. They said if they gave him more it might kill him. Blanding didn't seem to understand, with tears in his eyes he begged them for something else to eat. They knew the danger of granting his request and refused. Blanding became frantic and almost delirious.
WAGON TRAIN HEARD OF
As Blanding raved and pleaded for food, he made some disconnected references to a party of immigrants who were starving at the head of the middle fork of the Willamette. His references excited the men, and they were anxious to find out what he meant. After Blanding's agitation had subsided a little, and he had regained composure enough to talk intelligently, he told the men a train of immigrants had crossed the mountains near Diamond Peak and were on their way down the river. He said he had left them on the summit two weeks before and at that time they were out of flour and salt, and had been on short rations for quite a while. He told the men that one of the immigrants had loaned him a mare and that he had struck out to see if he could find provisions to send back.
The men at Bargdell's instantly realized the serious plight of the immigrants. Two of them were left to take care of Blanding, and without more ado the others saddled their horses and galloped away to collect provisions and to secure outfits with which to meet the starving people. The men rode all night. Others joined to help spread the news.
The runners notified every settler along the middle fork. Before daylight the message had been carried 25 miles down the river, wagons that had crossed the plains a year or two before were loaded with what scanty provisions were at hand. Oxen were yoked and the march to relieve the caravan was under way.
TRAIN POORLY EQUIPPED
This train of famished immigrants was not a well-organized company such as the cow column that Jesse Applegate had led across the plains a few years before, the train was composed of independent outfits that had met on the road and continued the journey together. By the time they had reached the Malheur River there must have been 100 or more wagons in the train and 2000 head of cattle. The provisions of those near the head of the column were beginning to run low.
All were eager to gain the Willamette Valley as quickly as possible, but so far as they knew there was but one trail to follow, and despite all their attempts to hurry, their speed was slow and laborious. It was a good day that saw 20 miles completed.
From dawn till dark, through the heat of noonday they followed along the road already worn deep by the wheels of other caravans and well marked by bleaching bone and abandoned wagon. They computed the days of travel that lay ahead and began to cut down on their rations.
ELLIOTT APPEARS ON SCENE
This was the state of affairs when one scorching August afternoon the occupants of the leading wagons caught sight of an approaching figure on horseback. The rider was Elijah Elliott. He had come to see if his wife and family were in the train. They were. His wife had driven a prairie schooner all the way from Iowa. He told the immigrants that the state, (then the Territorial Government), had recently completed a trail across the mountains that led directly to the upper end of the Willamette Valley. He said that he had settled in the upper part of the valley and had ridden out over the new trail to meet his wife and family. He told them he was going back over the new trail and that he would lead any of the other outfits that wished to go with him.
The route Elliott spoke of lay almost due west from where he met the train. It was less that 200 miles to their destination over the new trail, while there remained nearly 500 miles to travel if they continued along the road they were on. With food running low it was not hard to persuade a good many to follow Elliott. Others preferred to stay by the beaten path. They went on to the Dalles, and took the Barlow road across the mountains. But it is with those who followed Elliott that we are concerned.
Some say that there were at least 75 wagons and almost 1000 head of cattle in the group that followed the leadership of Mr. Elliott. They headed straight for the mountains and crossed the summit between Summit Lake, and Diamond Peak. It was not hard climbing up through the yellow pine on the eastern slope, but when they began the descent, a feeling of despair seized the whole party. The route they had thought would bring them so quickly to the Willamette Valley was proving to be a barrier between them and their destination.
In order to induce more settlers into the upper end of the valley the Territorial Government had paid a company of men, including John Diamond $5000 to cut a trail across the mountains following the Middle Fork of the Willamette, perhaps the $5000 was not enough. At any rate about all the company did was to blaze the way. The immigrants could not average much over two or three miles a day. Thomas Clark was one of those who came with Elliott. He said that about all the blazers did was to zigzag back and forth across the river. He told of fording his wagon and wading the stream as many as 15 times in a single day. Where the way did follow along the river bank, great windfalls often lay in such a position that it was impossible to drive around them. When such windfalls blocked the way, only two courses were open to the immigrants. They could either cut out a section large enough to enable the wagons to pass, or they could boost the wagons over. If the latter course was chosen, two deep notches were cut in the top side of the windfall a distance from each other equal to the distance between the wheels, then bark was piled against either side of the windfall in such a was as to form an approach, or runway, to give the wheels a start. When all was in readiness, extra oxen, perhaps taken from a wagon farther back, would be hitched onto the one which was to cross. Men would put their shoulders to the wheels and the wagons would be hauled and shoved across. No matter which course was decided upon a windfall in the road always meant a delay of from 30 minutes to half a day, and sometimes as many as a half a dozen windfalls would be encountered in a single mile. The immigrants became very incensed over the predicament they were in, and placed the blame on Elliott. On at least one occasion they threatened to hang him. Whether or not he knew a good road when he saw it he was no coward. He drew his six-shooter and said, "Come on and hang, But before there is any hanging done around here some of you will be getting hurt. I said that I was going back over this road because I thought it was a good one and I still think so."
BLANDING STARTS FOR RELIEF Before the immigrants had been many days with Elijah Elliott, and before they had gotten far from the summit, their flour ran out and their salt was gone. It was at about this stage of the journey when Martin Blanding set out ahead. It was two weeks after Blanding had left before he was discovered by Dave Mathews. Another week had passed before the provisions sent by the settlers reached the immigrants.
In the meantime the train had got as far down the middle fork as Big Prairie, where Oakridge, Oregon is now located. The first unit of the relief party consisted of one man, Robert Tandy, one pack pony and 100 pounds of flour. Tandy reached the Big Prairie late in the afternoon and when he arrived the first wagon in the immigrant train was just going into camp. He unpacked his pony, built a fire under a tree and began cooking cakes of bread in a frying pan. By the time the next wagon in the train had arrived he had baked a little pile of cakes about a foot high. The hungry men wanted to rush in and help themselves. Tandy said, "Stand back, wait until all the wagons in your train get here." Strong men in their famished condition, cried like children when they were kept from the food. By the time the last of the immigrants arrived the little pile of cakes had grown to many piles. The food was equally divided.
In an old manuscript prepared by Thomas H. Hunsaker of Lowell, Oregon, Thomas Clark, who already has been referred to is credited with having told Mr. Hunsaker that "No bread ever tasted sweeter." Mr. Clark said that his family and many others were in a condition bordering on starvation, that for six weeks they had been without a bit of flour and that they lived on beef cattle which they had driven across the plains.
The beef cattle, he said were so poor that they were almost unfit to eat, and to have to be eaten without salt would have been impossible to any one but a starving man.
FLOOD STORY SCARES THEM
The following day more provisions arrived and the immigrants became hopeful. Happiness shone on the faces of those who for weeks previous had known only fear and hunger.
From Big Prairie on down the river for 30 miles the road was not less difficult. Two or three miles was still counted a good days travel, but after the food came it did not seem so hard.
In order to try and hurry the train along some of the men who brought the food in said that at that time of the year the river sometimes rose over-night. This succeeded in frightening the immigrants a good deal, whether or not it hurried them as it had been calculated to do. Some of the immigrants abandoned their wagons along the road, others left their heaviest wagons at Big Prairie and returned for them in the spring.
Still others came on through with all they had and made it good. Some wagons had even been abandoned before the train reached Oakridge. Eighteen or 20 years ago four such wagons were found just west of Oakridge. About the same time another one and an old flint lock rifle were discovered at Swift Creek and a sixth wagon rotted to pieces at Tire Creek.
PIONEERS COULD NOT HUNT
It is often asked why the immigrants did not kill deer and grouse and other wild game if they were in need of food. The answer applies, of course also to the case of Martin Blanding. The old timers say that these men did not know how to hunt, they were from the east, and they were not acquainted with the art of picking up a living in a wild country. They had guns, but unable to use them. They hesitated even to fish for they thought that each hour taken from travel would prolong their suffering just that much more. Martin Blanding was, so far as known, the first immigrant to cross the Cascade Mountains at Diamond Peak on the Willamette Pass as the place where he crossed is now called. Alexander Griffen, also a member of the train, was the first to reach the settled part of the upper Willamette Valley in a wagon. He arrived at Bargdell's ranch October 21, 1853, five months to a day after he left the east. This journey while no doubt harder than many, can be safely cited as a fair example of the hardships and privation borne by the old pioneers.
Note: (This story was in a paper of 1926, and among some of my mother's things. It is a story of M
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