Railroad Survey of Northern California and Oregon 1855
TO VIEW VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL1Kwu4auoA5NeRdalFJLf0he9sfDDQxjK&v=5M7qkSZeP-c
SLIDES FROM THE LECTURE
General Report
Route from Benicia, California to The Dalles and Fort Vancouver,
4 Crossings of the Cascade Mountains
to the Willamette Valley
Return south to Fort Reading
Route parties for Railroad Survey
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Benicia, CA to Three Sisters Camp | Camps 1-40 (A) | |
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Topographical Engineers | In command | |
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Topographical Engineers | 2nd In Command | |
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Geologist and Botanist | ||
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Assistant Engineer | ||
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Physician and Naturalist | ||
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Scribe and Computer | ||
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Draftsman | ||
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3rd Artillery | ||
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4th Infantry | (Commissary and Quartermaster) | |
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2nd Calvary | (in charge of 100 men–20 Dragoons, 80 infantry/artillery) | |
| Lt. H.L. Sheridan | 4th Infantry | (replaced Lt. Hood near Ft. Reading) | |
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- Bartee Indian Guide and scout
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- Williamson Detached Party
- 1. South of Klamath Lake Camps 26 (A-D)
- 2. Explorations in Central Cascades Camps 37 (E-J) & 40 (K-S)
- 3. Over Willamette Pass and to Ft. Vancouver Camps S; 40 (W)-54 (W)
- Lt. Williamson; Lt. Sheridan; Lt. Crook; Mr. Fillebrown; Mr. Young; Bartee; 3 packers
- (Lt. Gibson and escort to Fort Lane)
- Abbot party
- 1. Three Sisters Camp north to the Columbia and return Camps 40 (A) to 47 (A)
2. Over Cascades south of Mt. Hood to Oregon City Camps 50 (A) to 64(A)
- 3. Oregon City south to Ft. Reading Camps 64 (A) to 85 (A)
- Lt. Abbot; Mr. Anderson; Mr. Coleman and 14 Packers
Dr. Newberry and Dr. Sterling (left the party at The Dalles)
The cavalry escort on the move
The Dragoons
Benicia ca. 1855
July 10-14, 1855
Quercus Hindsii
July 13-18
Western Sycamore
Red Bluff, Ft. Reading, into the
Mountains
Fort Reading
1852-1856
The garrison was Company D, 3 Artillery commanded by 2d Lieutenant James Van Vost, 51 in aggregate, but 48 present for duty…and Company D, 4h Infantry commanded by 1t Lieutenant Edmund Underwood, also acting commissary of subsistence… 46 in aggregate but 44 present for duty…
Mt. Lassen
August 3-12
Mountain Hemlock
Abies Williamsonii
Mt. Pitt and Upper Klamath Lake
Mt. McLoughlin
Klamath Marsh
J = Sun River I =Sisters
K= McKenzie Pass Q= Elk Lake
P= Folly Ridge
35 = Chemult
36 = Crescent 37 = La Pine
J = Sun River I =Sisters
K= McKenzie Pass Q= Elk Lake
P= Folly Ridge 44W=Willamette Pass
Lodgepole Pine
The Three Sisters above the McKenzies River Canyon
Lt. Williamson’s route down the
Willamette River to Eugene
1W-49 W
9/24-10/9
Emigrant Route Bend to Eugene
Grand Fir (Picea Grandis)
Silver Fir
Douglas Fir
Abies Menziesii Abies Douglassii
Diamond Peak
Lookout Point Resevoir
Lt. Williamson
Eugene City to
Fort Vancouver
Fort Vancouver
Watercolor by Gustave Sohon 1854
Fort Vancouver 1854
James Madison Alden
Abbot Party’s route
to Fort Dalles and beginning of route south of Mt. Hood
43 A = Maupin
47 A = Warm Springs
50 = Black Butte 53 A = Castle Rock
47 A = Warm Springs
50 = Black Butte 53 A = Castle Rock
40 A = Under Lake Billy Chinook
Pinus Ponderosa
Ponderosa Pine
Near present day Sisters
Black Butte and Mt. Jefferson
Mount Jefferson and Black Butte
Castle Rock above the Metolius River
Slope of the Metolius River
Three-fingered Jack to Mt. Adams
Mt. Washington, Three-fingerd Jack, Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Hood
Canyon of Psuc-See-Que Creek
Western Juniper
Juniperus Occidentalis
Mount Hood from Tysch Prairie
Fort Dalles 1850-1856
- Fort Dalles was a small U.S. Army post in 1850 on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River near Wascopam Mission. The encampment originally was named Camp Drum and, later, Fort Drum for Simon H. Drum, an army officer killed during the Mexican American War. It was designated Fort Dalles in 1853 . Its primary connection with civiliztion was by boat, down the Columbia River to Fort Vancouver, and to the east by the Oregon Trail.
- In 1855 at the time the railroad exploratory party visited the fort to resupply, 575 soldiers from the Fourth U.S. Infantry, the Third U.S. Artillery, and the First U.S. Dragoons were stationed at the there.
- Shortly later, on November 30, 1855, General John E. Wool, commanding the U.S. Army’s Department of the Pacific, ordered the expansion of the post to include an officers’ quarters, company barracks, a storehouse, a hospital, a guardhouse, and a stable refurbishment. With the arrival of the Ninth U.S. Infantry regiment in January 1856, Wool directed Colonel George Wright to establish a regimental headquarters at Fort Dalles, “where all troops intended for the Indian Country will be concentrated.” Fort Dalles was the primary depot and base of operations for engagements and campaigns against tribes east of the Cascade Mountains between 1856 and 1858, providing supplies and equipment to campaigns in the Yakama and Palouse regions and posts at Fort Walla Walla and Fort Simcoe.
Junction of the Deschutes River and the Columbia River
Watercolor by John Stanley 1854
The Dalles
Watercolor by John Stanley 1854
Emigrant Road from Ft. Dalles to Oregon City
Survey Route across Cascades
South of Mt. Hood
Route of Abbot party south of Mount Hood
Camps # 59 to #64
Oregon City to
Fort Reading
- ‘having heard that Lt. Williamson’s party was at Oregon City, we immediately prepared to rejoin it. …Oregon City is a thriving town on the eastern bank of the Willamette, built on a narrow plateau between the high river bluff and the water. We found Lt. Williamson’s party encamped near it in charge of Lt Crook; Williamson had been compelled to return by water to San Francisco. I was placed in charge of the expedition to return to Fort Reading by way of Fort Lane and Fort Jones. “Major J. Rains, 4th infantry, not withstanding the urgent remonstrant of Lt. Williamson, had decided to detain our escort, now consisting of only 18 dragoons, commanded by Lt. Sheridan.
Oregon City 1850s
John Mix Stanley
1852 1855
Land Office Map Abbot Map
Mid Willamette Valley
Southern Willamette Valley
Eugene to Canyonville
Since Lt. Williamson’s departure, an Indian war had broken out in Rogue River valley, through which our route lay, and all communication between Fort Lane and the Umpqua valley was now cut off except for strong and well armed parties. Ours consisted of Lt. Crook and myself, Messrs. Fillebrown, Anderson, Young, Bartee, Coleman, and Vinton with twenty packers, ten of whom were Mexicans. Several of our number were entirely
unarmed, and others had only pistols. There were, I think, but five rifles in the whole command. (28 men of which 10 are Mexicans; Lt. Crook; 120 animals)
Canyonville to Californian border
Fort Lane and the Rogue Indian Wars
Rogue River War of 1855-1856
The final Rogue River War began early on the morning of October 8, 1855, when self-styled volunteers attacked Native people in the Rogue Valley. It ended in June 1856 with the removal of most of the Natives in southwestern Oregon to the Coast Reservation, which later became the Siletz Reservation. From 235 to 267 Indian people are thought to have been killed in the war, together with fifty soldiers, among them thirty-three volunteers and seventeen regular troops. By one account, Indians killed forty-four white civilians.
Before colonization, an estimated ninety-five hundred Indian people lived in the region where the Rogue River War was fought, including speakers of Takelman and Shastan languages to the east, in the main Rogue Valley of present-day Josephine and Jackson Counties, and speakers of Athapascan languages to the west and along the coast. Fewer than two thousand Indian survivors of the war were counted on the reservation in 1857.
The people of the Rogue Valley had a reputation for violence among non-Indians, although trappers who killed Native people in 1834 were responsible for the first recorded deadly encounters with outsiders. Travel on the trail through the valley to California increased in 1848 due to the Gold Rush, and tensions in the valley increased as well. Jacksonville was established in the Rogue Valley after the discovery of gold on Jackson Creek in late 1851 or early 1852.
Volunteer companies organized in the summer of 1853 after a series of violent exchanges. Two battalions commanded by Joseph Lane, territorial delegate to Congress, pursued Native people into rough country north of the Table Rock. After volunteers made an assault, Indian leaders asked for negotiations; and Lane and Indian Service superintendent Joel Palmer made treaties on September 8 (“a treaty of peace”) and September 10 (for “cession and relinquishment” of land). Native leaders sold roughly two thousand square miles to the Americans and accepted a reservation of about one hundred square miles north of the Rogue River.
Klamath R.
Trinity Mtns Mt. Shasta
80 = Yreka
81 = Ft. James
Back to Fort Reading
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- November 15, 1855
85 pages
California Skunk
Williamson Woodpecker
118 pages
Yellow-breasted Chat
102 pages
John Young– Draftsman
John Young–Artist and Draftsman
Manzanita
Penstomon newberyii
American Destiny—Manifest Destiny
Post script
- Civil War Generals
- Later careers
- Railroad Acts
Civil War Service of the Expedition Team
Robert Williamson fought two battles and became the commanding officer of the Corps of Topographical Engineers of the Army of the Potomac. He returned to California in 1863 and in 1866 became the commanding officer of the Pacific Office of the Corps of Engineers improving SF Bay, the Willamette River and Humboldt Bay. He retired and died at the age of 57 in 1882.
The Williamson River is named after him.
Henry Abbott During the Civil War he was an Officer of the Topographical Engineers of several military commands and participated in the Battles of Manassas and Bull Run, the Army of the Potomac, the sieges of Richmond , the James and of Yorktown. At the end of the Civil War, Abbott was in command of the Brigade in Defense of Washington. In 1874-75, he was a commisioner to devise plans for reclaiming the alluvial basin of the Mississippi River. He retired as a brigadier general in 1895 but continued active in several scientific societies, was a consultant on the Panama Canal, taught at George Washington University and received an honorary doctorate from Harvard. He died in 1927 at age 96.
Horatio Gibson participated in many battles during the Civil Was. In 1863 he became the Chief of Artillery or the Army of Ohio. He served in many posts becoming an expert in coastal artillery defenses. Gibson also died in 1927, at age 97.
Philip Sheridan was a favorite of General Grant, who promoted him to brigadier general in 1862. Grant put him in charge of several major operations, among which was the destruction of the Shenandoah Valley, the source of much of the Confederate army’s supplies. Sheridan blocked the escape of Lee’s forces at Appomattox. After the war, Sheridan was military governor of Texas and Louisiana, where his brutal administration was so severe that President Andrew Johnson declared him to be a tyrant and had him removed. He forceably moved Indians in the Plains onto reservations, killing many in their winter quarters and slaughtering their main food, buffalos. A favorite of now President Grant, Sheridan was made Commanding General of the United States Army in 1883 and General of the Army of the United States, a rank that had been held by Grant and Sherman. He later prevented the sale of the land now Yellowstone Park. He died in 1888.
George Crook became head of the Army of West Virginia and was at Appomattox at the surrender of Lee’s army. He served in the Great Plains and the West in subduing Indians who resisted settlers using tactics he had learned during the Civil War. In Oregon he battled the Paiute. Latter, after Custer’s Last Stand, he subdued the Sioux ,as well as Geronimo and the Apaches in Arizona. Crook County, Oregon is named after him.
Hood joined the Confederate Army in 1861. As a general, Hood resisted Sherman’s march on Atlanta. He died at 48. Ft. Hood, Texas was named after him.
Charles Anderson also joined the Confederate cause. As a brigadier general, he was in charge of Fort Gaines in Mobile Bay where he was defeated in 1865. He later built a lighthouse in Galveston, where he died in 1901.
John Newberry was the naturalist on a Colorado River exploration 1857-58. In 1859 he explored the Four-corner area of the Southwest. He may have been the first geologist to visit the Grand Canyon. He was a professor of geology at the George Washington University in 1859. In 1861 he was on the US Sanitary Commission and became Secretary to the Western Sanitary Commission, which was concerned with servicing military hospitals and the health of soldiers and displaced persons in the Mississippi River basin during the Civil War. In 1866, Newberry was appointed chair of Geology and Paleontology at Columbia College (University) which he occupied until 1890. He was a member of most of the major scientific organizations in the United States. He died in 1892. Newberry Crater and National Volcanic Park are named after him.
Henry Clay Fillebrown was a captain and the adjutant of Ohio volunteers. Later an hospital inspector in Michigan. He died at 41 in 1871.
John J. Young made lithographs and watercolors of scenes of the West. He continued to be employed as an artist by the War Department until his death at age 49, in 1879
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- The Pacific Railroad Act provided the federal government support for the building of the first
transcontinental railroad.
- The Senate passed the Pacific Railway Act on June, 20, 1862, by a vote of 35 to 5.
- The House of Representatives passed the Pacific Railway Act on June 24, 1862, by a vote of 104 to 21.
- The Pacific Railway Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 1, 1862.the
- The first transcontinental railroad was completed on May
10, 1869.
Railroads in Western Oregon in 1918
The railroad between Portland and the Bay Area was completed in1887
As part of the U.S. government’s desire to foster settlement and economic development in the western states, in July 1866, Congress passed the Oregon and California Railroad Act. This act made 3,700,000 acres (1,500,000 ha) of land available for any company that built a railroad from Portland to San Francisco. The land was to be distributed by the state of Oregon in 12,800-acre (5,200 ha) land grants for each mile of track completed. Two companies, both of which named themselves the Oregon Central Railroad, began a competition to build the railroad, one on the west side of the Willamette River and one on the east side. The two lines would eventually merge and reorganize as the Oregon and California Railroad. In 1869, Congress changed how the grants were to be distributed, requiring the railroads to sell land along the line to settlers in 160-acre (65 ha) parcels at $2.50 per acre.
In 1915 The Southern Pacific Railroad was found guilty of fraudulently disposing of land and the ungranted land reverted to the US (now the O & C lands of the BLM.
This report gives some perspective on Western Oregon 167 years ago.
A brief period in America’s Manifest Destiny
Please look at John Youngs’ original lithographs which are hung on the walls of the auditorium.