Applegate Trail III

c. But I was uneasy with the question mark in the transcribed text above. I didn't know if the first trail that Abernethy wanted improved was, in fact, what eventualy became the Applegate trail. As I looked further at his language, it appeared that he wanted a path through the Blue Mountains, which are quite some distance from the California Immigrant Trail, that then led to the Applegate Trail. The CA trail split off from the main OR trail at Fort Hall, ID (near Pocatello) and then headed south, going a good distance along the Humboldt River in Nevada. So, what I really wanted to learn was what was behind the question mark in the Governor's original message to the Legislature on December 2, 1845. That is why I had to go to the Archives. As I said, I was expecting the word "Hall" to be behind the question mark, but I just had to go and find out.

It was amusing in a way--going to the Oregon State Archives. I arrived there at 11:55 a.m. yesterday (2/14/11), the 152nd birthday of Oregon, and Valentine's Day, but neither of these was in evidence as I entered the modern, marbled building. The receptionist looked at me lazily and asked if I was "there for PERS." I chuckled. PERS is the state retirement plan for public employees, and I think the Archives keeps all PERS records and accounts, and people are always coming there to check the status of their retirement benefits. Not a bad idea for people to do that, of course, but I still don't know why the Archives should be serving PERS people. I told the lady I was there actually to do some research and she promptly told me, "We close at noon for lunch." I thought that was pretty unusual, especially since the web site had said the hours were 8:00 a.m.- 4:45 p.m., but I wasn't going to object. I just went in for a second to determine if they had the actual hand-written document, and they said they could find it over the lunch hour.

I returned about 1:20 p.m., and the archivist was ready for me. He stood facing me as I sat at a table, not permitting me to touch the document (he turned the pages), as I read through the neatly calligraphed mid-19th century hand. Obviously the letter had been transcribed by the Governor's secretary. I thought I knew what I would read after the word "Fort" in the text. I expected it to be "Fort Hall"--because my thinking was already in an 1846 mode--imagining the Applegate Trail beginning along the CA Trail from Fort Hall, ID. But I made the mistake of importing my 1846 suspicions into an 1845 text. For, as I read the actual hand-written text, the word after "Fort" became crystal clear: It said

"Boisy..."

My inner eyes opened. Fort Boisy (or Boise) was on the extreme Western end of Idaho, about where the Meek brothers in 1845 had led their disastrous expedition. Abernethy was not at all talking about what would become the Applegate Trail of 1846; he was speaking, as the general context of the letter says, of a northern route through the Blue Mountains.

d. This realization, which only came because I actually was reading the hand-written text, confused me for a minute. The following questions filled my mind. (1) Did the December 1845 legislative session actually take up the issue of a safer route from Fort Boisy through the Blue Mountains? (2) Had Applegate thought through his "southern strategy" at that point and had he mentioned it to anyone? If so, why didn't Abernethy speak to that point? You would think that Applegate was perfectly positioned, as an elected legislator and on important committees, not only to have the Governor's ear but also to secure funding/support for a southern route. (3) Had he thought of a southern route but had he, perhaps, "lost" the political battle between August 1845 and December 1845 to proponents of an improved northern route?

e. Well, all these questions forced me to return to the Oregon Archives, the official legislative records of the Provisional Government (1843-49) to determine what actually happened in December 1845 in the legislature. I discovered the following. First, another route through the Blue Mountains was actually proposed and approved. The expedition would be led by a Thomas McKay, who had long-standing connections in the Oregon country. He was authorized, on December 18, 1845 to "make and operate" a road across the Cascades and Blue Mountains from Fort Boise. Bingo. He was ordered to commence the work no later than June 1, 1846, with improvements to be completed by August 1, 1846. The legislature authorized McKay to charge the healthy fee of $5 per wagon (the 1843 settlers had only to pay $1 per wagon, as I recall), as well as $.10 for cattle and horses. The legislature also approved Barlow to improve his road around Mount Hood. Thus, the twin goals of Abernethy's Dec. 2, 1845 letter were fulfilled. How often does that happen? Legislature dutifully acts within two weeks of Governor's urging?

But what became of Jesse Applegate? Well, before the Dec. 18 vote authorizing McKay to build the road through the Blue Mountains, the legislature debated whether to memorialize Congress for funding for road-building. This ultimately went for nought--perhaps because they realized that it would take months for the memorial to get to Washington DC, much less to be heard, commented on and, possibly, funded. But then I saw a note saying that the road committee, which was authorized to draw up this Congressinal memorial, consisted of Garrison, McCarver and Hendricks. Where, I wondered, had Jesse Applegate gone? Then, there was a one-line note early in the notes for the December session--Jesse Applegate resigned from the legislature.

Why? No reason is given. Shannon Applegate doesn't say; nor does Charles Carey. This question may have a very simple answer, but I don't know what it was. Did Applegate "lose" to the interests of the "northern" road-builders? Was he just "bored" with the legislative process? Had he burned bridges with people, so to speak, so that he had lost his effectiveness? There is some evidence that he ticked off a large minority of legislators when he suggested a resolution earlier in 1845 that the minority interpreted as a slur on the financial honesty of the pre-1845 legislators. So, I don't know what happened, but I do know that the only routes funded and approved by the 1845 legislature were McKay's route through the Blue Mountains and Barlow's route around Mount Hood.

e. Now we are ready for 1846. We know that Applegate and 14 other men, including Levi Scott, set out from the Willamette Valley in the last week of June in order to scout out a southern route. My thought was that they had left far too late and, indeed, as subsequent developments confirmed (dates above), this is true. People ended up getting sick and even dying because the wagon train didn't make it back to the Willamette Valley until November 1846. Applegate also managed to purchase the undying enmity of Quinn Thorton. He had made the trip along the Applegate Trail in 1846 and was incensed because he felt that Applegate and his people had deliberately and carelessly endangered people's lives and had the gall to charge high prices to boot. Apparently one of Applegate's defenders, James Nesmith, challenged Thornton to a duel in 1846 or 1847, even though, ironically, Jesse Applegate, had introduced legislation (did it pass?) in 1845 prohibiting dueling in the Oregon country.

In any case, Thornton, who was appointed by Abernethy to be Supreme Judge in the Oregon Country in February 1847, published a vitriolic broadside in June 1847, reprinted in Shannon Applegate's Skookum, vilifying Applegate with choice language. But this didn't seem to hurt his political prospects--Abernethy chose him to be the delegate from Oregon's Provision Government to present Oregon's bill requesting territorial status to Congress late in 1847 and into 1848. Maybe Jesse Applegate was the big political "loser" in all of this and that his subsequent development of the southern route and moving south to Yoncalla was to get away from the forces that had defeated him. Anyone know?

In any case, Applegate and his people left Salt Creek area in late June 1846. We know a few more things. First, the 1847 legislature appointed Levi Scott to improve the southern route (I don't recall what kind of money was involved), so this route was on the radar screen of the legislature. Then, there are a few words in Bernard Devoto's classic The Year of Decision 1846 in which he notes some things about the 1846 Applegate Trail. He says that a new route was needed from Fort Hall south avoiding the Blue Mountains and Columbia River. He also says that a group was sent out from "the settlements" in May 1846 to get started on the southern route but because it was insufficiently equipped it returned, setting out with 15 men late in June.

I have two comments on Devoto. First, the Legislature didn't seem to think that a southern route was "needed," at least in 1845. Perhaps it would serve the purposes of protection from possible British invasion, as negotiations for ownership of the Oregon Country heated up. But if the southern route was so important in 1845, why wasn't it mentioned either in Abernethy's letter to the legislature or in the legislative decisions and debates of December 1845? The issue seemed to be to secure northern routes, rather than a southern route. Second, I don't understand what Devoto means when he says that a party was "sent out" from the "settlements" in May 1846 and then in June 1846. I can believe that it might have taken them two tries to get going--though I would like to find further confirmation that that is what occurred. But what does he mean when he suggests that the "settlements" sent the Applegates and others to explore the southern route? Does that mean that there was some kind of tax on certain people to support it? The impression I got is that the 15 men on the June 1846 trip had to supply themselves; whatever revenue they would earn would come from charging the users of the route at a later date. Is that the way it was? And, as suggested above, when Applegate and others set out in June, to what extent did someone already know of the route they had planned? Did they just make up things as they went along or was their extensive planning in all of it?

Conclusion

It appears, from my vantage point today, that a good deal of "seat of the pants" or "back of the envelope" calculations drove things. But that is the way things have ever been and will ever be. The only people who talk about "systems" of things are those who are comfortably ensconced well after the discoverers and trail-blazers have hacked their way through the forests. With the luxury of hindsight, the people in later comfort try to organize, systematize, plan and fund. We need them, to be sure, but they are also often the historians of movements--who themselves don't ask detailed enough questions, primarily because they might not want to live, or understand, the "seat of the pants" life... But this takes us to loads of subjects beyond the Applegate Trail--so let's leave it here, with a disgruntled band of travelers in October and November 1846. I now need to go to the Applegate Trail Interpretive Center to fill in lots of gaps. And the questions continue.

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