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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 24, 1905)
REMNANT OF FAMOUS POST TO BE THE DALLES. Or.. Dec. 23.-(Special Correspondonc.) A reception and houscwnrming was given in this city u short time ago by the members of tho Oregon Historical Society, to-celebrate the formal openlnp, since its restoration, of the only building now remaining of tho once flourishing Army post. Fort Dalles. Two years ago this month a bill was passed by Congress granting this old and almost ruined landmark, together with the lot of The Dalles Military Reserva tion, which immediately surround It. to the Historical Society, for the purpose of Preserving, so far as possible, tho last remnant of a post so celebrated In the history of Oregon. In the pioneer days of Western settle ment, when Immigrant trains dragged their weary lengtlis across the plains atnld the dangers that threatened on every side. The Dalles was looked forward to as tho Mecca of the Immigrant, the gatoway of safety, where the responsibilities and fa tigues of the almost Interminable days spent In piloting, driving and following the teams should give place to restful se curity within the protection of an armed fort. Beyond the Cascades, at Vancou er and. Oregon City, supplies and proven der could be had, horses could be shod, clothing could be bought and tho dimin ishing stores of all sorts could be replen ished, but abovo all this the relief Fort Dalles afforded to tho homeseeker of those days was the blessed knowledge of personal safety reached after long days of danger and Tear. No Settlement in 16 13. No settlement greeted the searching res of the argonauts of 1SI3, who first reached The Dalles in their wagons. They tjff the sandy stretch along the river banks, the grassy plain and sweep of kon cliffs beyond, before tho stockade and buildings of the Methodist Mission, built I" 1K5S. met their view, and It was not until 1S47 that the first company of soldiers occupied these buildings. All honor to that company -whose mem bers responded to the call of Oregon's first Governor, who. when learning the news of the tragedy of Whitman Mission, called for volunteers to go to The Dalles and protect the handful of white men. women and children In the Methodist mission there from death or greater hor rors. History tells how. In 15 hours after Governor Abernethy's call, 50 men, for whose meager equipment of arms and accoutrements and scanty provisions Governor Abcrnethy, A. L. Lovejoy and Jesse Applejjate had given their personal sTurlty to Oregon's provisional govern ment, stood ready to start on the almost Impossible journey up the Columbia, and took Into their keeping the flag made for them by the women of Oregon City. Col ctiel Cornelius Gilliam and Captain Lee " aded the little army, while such names as those of J. W. Nesmlth. Joel Palmer and Jesse Applogatc followed on the roll. Klovcn Days of Hardship. No uniforms or insigna of rank dis t ugushed these citizen-soldiers who. af ter 11 days of infinite hardship on the frozen trail, arrived at the mission at The Da'lles on December 28. 1S47. hoisted their homespun Jlag and named the mis sion in honor of their captain. Fort Lee. By the Indians it was called Waseopum. Through that Winter and the follow ing Spring that gallant army held the little fort, defending, parleying with and punishing, as the requirements might be. the Indians In the surrounding countr where friendship and treachery lay so dose together. That Spring the Catholic mission was established at The Dalles with Father Rousseau In charge. Then In 1S19 came the first regulars, the Rifle Regiment, recruited In Missouri and sent to Oregon under command of Captain W. W. Luring. Ragged, tattered and barefooted, their horses too weak ened by the long Journey and scant feed to carry their burdens, they arrived at The Dalles only to find that Inadequate provisions could be had there. In the company's train were many passengers, among them Mathew P. Deady. later Or egon's eminent Jurist: Justin Chenowith. F. A. Chenowith and Dan O'Neill. Dividing their forces, part of the com pany made rafts out of the fort's stock ade and descended the Columbia to Van couver, the other division crossing the mountains by the Barlow road, suffered untold hardships and lost two-thirds of their train. Early In 1RS0. General Pcrsifor F. Smith, who had been appointed Commander of the Pacific Division of the Army, began placing posts on the Coast, and, probably at the suggestion of Captain B. E. L. Bonneville, who had become familiar with the country through his two Journeys to j urcgon in the "JWs, sent Major S. S. Tucker ,u ramuiiMi a suppir station at The Dalles. With him wont Captain Clayborn, Lieutenants May and Ervin and Surgeon C. H. Smith. Selecting a spot about one half mile west of Fort Iee. Major Tucker chose a tall pine tree, which cannot now be identified, and from this center ran the lines of a Government reservation 10 miles square, proceeding therein to build log barracks, commanding officers' quarters, quarters for the men. mess, guardhouse, storehouse, stables and sawmill, and at its completion naming the new post Fort Dalles. Every trace of these buildings is now gone. After completing these barracks In 1SB1. Major Tucker was ordered away, a squad of Hathaway's artillery from Astoria keeping the fort until the Fall of 1K2, when the Fourth Infantry, under Captain Bonneville, was ordered to Vancouver, and Companies J and K, of that regiment, commanded by Captain Alvord, were sent to The Dalles. Upon that officer's pro motion. In 1SS3, Major Rains was made commandant of the fort and in 1SX Colo nel Wright, of 'the Ninth Infantry, was sent to Oregon from New York to build u new Fort Dalles. With him came Cap tain Thomas Jordan, as Quartermaster, to superintend the construction of the new post, also Louis Scholl, a young architect, to plan the same. In 1833 the limits of The Dalles Military Reservation had been reduced to one mile square, the old site affording adequate accommodations for the new fort and Its spreading buildings. About this tlmo the United States Gov ernment, upon suggestion of Major Rains, purchased the mission and its appur tenances from the Methodist Socletv for the sum of $24,000. notwithstanding the fact that it had been bargained in Au gust. 1S47. to Dr. Whitman, who contem plated moving his mission to The Dalles, for JC09. Before the money could be paid and delivers taken, the good doctor was dead at the hands of the tribes whose condition he had tried to better. Out of the military occupation of Fort Dalles and the reduction or the reservation lines arose the litigation between the Methodist' Society and the Government, which spread over so many years, and was not finally settled until !$. Then buuy times ensued at Fort Dalles, and strong, handsome, "well-planned, well bullt quarters rose aVout the yara&e THE SUNT) AX OEEGONIA,. PORTIiAXD, DE0E3EBER 24, 1905. ground, where logs and any makeshift building material had hitherto served. With the stationing of Regular Army troops at the post the transportation and landing of their equipment had" necessita ted the building of a wharf and houses along the river banks, near which a settle ment was steadily growing, although a long, unbroken slope' still divided the gar rison front the river. Captain Jordan, a man of ability and energy, scoured the surrounding country for the best building materials available, sawing out the heavy timbers for the houses at tho two saw mills then cstJkMlshcd near the post on Mill Creek, at Fifteen-Mile and at Mosler; quarrying the stone for foundations and chimneys from a sandstone quarry discov ered on the reservation, and working up the beautiful native alder Into stair rails, mantels, etc., and completing all with the fine hardwood finishing brought for that purpose around Capo Horn. Mr. Scholl. tho architect a native of Carlsruhe. Germany, who had come to America in IMS, bad been educated in tho Lyceum and polytechnic schools of his country, and aside from his knowledge and training as an architect was skilled in the practical work of wood and iron. Among the choicest possessions of the Historical Society are Mr. Scholl's orig inal plans of the Fort Dalles buildings, as ho drafted and signed them in 1R5& One Building Remains. Of the four fine buildings erected then by these energetic men. at a cost of from 00 to d.00) each, every vestige is now gone except this one restored through the efforts of the local committee of the Historical Society. The three largest and most expensive houses were burned, the others falling into decay and meeting their flnal de struction at the hands of squatters on the old reservation, who carried off the doors, window frames and stairways, burning BChat remained for firewood. The four photographs here given were taken in 3S5S. and have been preserved by Mr. Scholl. now a resident of Walla Walla, to gether with hls.plans of the houses. The remaining building was the least expen sive It was designed for the post sur geon's quarters, and was first occupied by Dr. Brown, the surgeon of the Ninth. During the early 'COs the First Oregon Cavalry and Infantry were recruited, their officers as well as the rank and file com ing chiefly from Oregon families. To the bitter disappointment of this regi ment, recruited, as its members had un derstood, for Eastern service, the regulars of the Fourth and Ninth were ordered V" l COMMANDING OFFJCErI I I COL.wfelGHT r East leaving the Oregon regiment as homo guard, quartered, at The Dalles. Much duty they saw guarding the fron tiers from Indian outbreaks and depreda tions, although their ardent ambition to fight for'the North in the Civil "War was never realized. For many years the old house has stood solitary and tumble-down, sole watcher over the old site where history was made. The town crept up the long slope, reached and went beyond the ruined garrison, and OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES Goldwin Smith, on the Modern Historical Interpretations. GOLDWIN SMITH has been writing some striking articles on the Bible and on the changed views of recent times towards It In the New York Sun. Of course, theso articles, from so eminent a writer, have bad wide attention. To a critic. Professor Smith. In a recent num ber of the Sun. makes this answer: Kind Orthodoxy, taking pity on one gone astray, sends him a passage from the Old Testament striking enough, as Orthodoxy thinks, to have the effect of a miraculous resurrection from the dead. Of the changes that I have seen in a long life not one Is more momentous than the change In the position of the Bible. As the collection of a national literature. Intensely Interesting and sometimes spir itually grand, tho Old Testament will live forever. As a supposed course of divine revelation. It has yielded to critical In quiry. The reputed authorship of much of it has been disproved, and it has been shown to be a human mixture not only of that which Is sublime with that which Is the reverse of sublime, but of good with evIL Vain, surely. Is the attempt to re store Its unity and divinity by any appll catipn to its ethics of the Darwinian the ory of evolution. Would deity in reveal ing Itself to man stoop to personate the primitive delusions of the human mind and the lower stages of human morality? In what does the evolution end? In the tribalism of Ezra commanding his fellow countrymen In the name of God to put away their foreign wives and children. It might be difficult to say what the effect on. the whole of belief in the In spiration of the, Old Testament on char acter and progress lias been. Thi opening of Genesis Is uHlmc ax Lornd-sus felt It HCi, en wre with what XoUewx. SAVED yet no friendly hand was stretched out to save the old landmark until tho mem bers of the Historical Society awoke to the realization that one of the very few evi dences of pioneer settlement at The Dalles was all but gone. It Is now rehabilitated. Its drooping frame has been straightened, windows replaced, plaster patched, and a new roof put over alt A fence now In closes It. and a lawn In which many trees have been planted surrounds ft. Inside the transformation Is even greater. The the work of a superior mind. But devout belief In It has barred, nearly down to our own day. rational inquiry Into the history of the planet and the origin of man. Two generations ago a lecturer on geology might be heard pitiably struggling to force science into conformity with faith. Ten. from the grand "Let there be light!" we drop to the God who makes man of dust woman of man's rib and manufactures coats of skin for them. We have God walking in the garden in the cool of the evening: We have the. tree of knowledge and the talking serpent The patriarchs living nine centuries, the glants. the deluge with Its Infantine delu sions and Impossibilities, the loves of the angels and the tower 'of Babel, arc all on the level of tb roramonest mythologies. Yet they have clouded the mind of the most advanced members of the race In the higher passages of the Prophets, such as that cited by my orthodox well wisher, we have grand manifestoes of faith In the God of righteousness, though we hardly find aspirations after spiritual self-culture, or. saving perhaps In pass ages of the Psalms, anything like the ten derness of Christian ethics. There are glimpses, though only glimpses, of a uni versal religion. There is no glimpse any where of a life beyond the present, though there are allusions to a shadowy world of the dead. We have In the Book of Job a deeply interesting effort to solve a mys tery of the moral world, albeit with- an abortive conclusion. We have the beauty of pastoral life and character in the Book of Ruth; we have chivalrous affection in the friendship of David and Jonathan. In the Mosaic law.- compared with the codes of the most civilized nations of antiquity, notable advances may be traced. Such arc the law which guards kuM lile hy. One Last Building- of Old Fort Dalles Is to Be Preserved by the Oregon Historical Society. dingy wall3 have been patched and pa pered, tlm woodwork and fireplaces re paired and a resident caretaker Installed. On the walls are pictures recalling pioneer days of The Dalles, and In the llvlng room are many historical treasures on ex hibition, donated by friends of the pio neers and lovers of their hlstory- To the efforts of a few Interested women of The Dalles Is the credit of preserving the Fort Dalles building due. They first conceived the Idea of saving It from the making homicide a public crime to be punished. Instead of, a private injury, to be compounded: the right of asylum to bar hasty revenge: the limitation of pater nal despotism by requiring the participa tion of the mother In the condemnation of the disobedient son; the restraint, lim ited yet real, put on the evils of polyg amy; the mitigation of war by the injunc tion regularly to summon a besieged city, to show some pity for the feelings of captive women and to refrain from de stroying the fruit trees, as the Greeks regularly did. Peace, not war, is blessed and exalted. "Wars of conquest are made almost Impossible by the repudiation of forced service. Nor Is there a more, blessed Institution than the. Sabbath, the day of rest Let humanity give the Old Testa ment full credit for ail this and for Its effect on the general sentiment and legis lative tendencies of the Blble-readlng world. Orj the other hand we have the picture of a Deity covenanting to. advance the Interests of one tribe above those of the rest of mankind on the condition of the performance of tribal rite, and thus stamping tribalism as perpetual. We have a Deity prospering the craft of Jacob, hardening the heart of Pharaoh so that he will not let Israel go. and then slay Ins all tho guiltless firstborn of the Egyptians; sanctioning the robber In vastan of Canaan and the extermination of Its people, making the sun to stand still In heaven that the slaughter may be complete: approving the treason of Rahab. the nrurder of Slsera. and the hewing of Agag in pieces before the Lord: not condemning David when he puts to a death of torture the people of a captured city: prompting the butchery of all the prophets of Baal; sending forth a living spirit to betray King- Ahab to his ruin: causing 40 children, for mocking a prophet to be torn to pieces by bears, jt can hardly be doubted that these pre sentations of Deity and the divine gov ernment have had their effect ore the character of men. that they are partly rcoyaanltlo Joe ifc-e darker features f wreck of the old garrison, and it was. at their request that the Oregon delegation then In Congress brought about the grant to tho Oregon Historical Society. Work ing first as a committee of the local Soro sls. four of these history-loving women began the task, later being appointed per manent custodians of the building and its premises. The members of this commit tee are Mre. William Shackelford, Mrs. J. M. Marden, Mrs. C. J. Crandall and Mrs. "W. Lord. H. L. LANG. Puritanism and for the use of persecuting force In the supposed Interest of re ligion. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." What, crimes and horrors followed In the train of the dark superstition which haJ its warrant in those words! -r The idea of a chosen people still lingers and leads to aberrations. Perhaps the tribalism of which It Is the Hebrew ver sion may not have been without its effeel in maintaining too sharp a distinction be tween Christendom and the rest of hu manity. It may be difficult to strike the balance. What Is certain Is that free Inquiry has at length prevailed over tradition and empowered us to choose the good, ol which there Is rich store, such as the passage tendered for my conversion. In the Old Testament and eschew the evil. What Is the relation of the Old Testa ment to the New? The Sanhedrim, for its part gave that question a decisive an swer. Devotees of Judaism have spoken of Christianity as Its supplement. The relation Is difficult to define. But to the pupil of Gamaliel the religion of Jesus was evidently a new dawn and a new life. We have Judaism still before us perpetuating Its lingering tribalism by the tribal rite; refusing-to blend with the races amons which it dwells: to Inter marry with them: to break bread. If it can help, with them: treating that which Is unclean for itself as clean for them: celebrating the feast qt Purim in mem ory of its ancient feud. I speak, of course, of the strict and Talmudlc Jew as he is found in Russia or Poland, not of those whom the Sun describes as hav ing undergone, American influence and become practically citizens of the Ameri can republic, or rather, perhaps of the world, and not Talmudlsts. but simply thelsts. GOLDWIN SMITH. "Buttercups and. daisies, folkw railroads the world over." raid an engineer. "In India. In Central Asia, in Brazil, the parallel rails run continually twtwee ea4ows -wMte aad Jtli lew with ssaw ftwera."