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Wilson P. Hunt January 8-14, 1812 Campsite

Historic Campsite

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place:4043106

place:4043038

Wilson Hunt arrived at the confluence of McKay Creek and the Umatilla River with 32 men, one woman, her two children, and three Shoshone Indian guides. There they thankfully discovered near present day Pendleton, OR a large village of Cayuse and Tushepaw Indians with their large horse herd.

The Astorians spent 7 days in the area trading with the Indians, gathering geographical information to reach the Columbia River, eating, and resting.

Hunt made many observations about the Cayuse and Tushepaw Indians regarding their clothing, cooking methods, and tools.

During this time Michael Carriere a Canadian Astorian disappeared to an unknown fate. Also the three Shoshone guides who led Hunt over the Blue Mountains were given two horses and returned to their people. (Hunt 1821; Irving 1836; Rollins 1935, 302-03, 325-26 notes 252-255; Ronda 1990, 192-93)

Hunt added in his diary:

The little stream joins another much larger one, and near their confluence on the 8th we found a village of Sciatogas [Cayuse] and Tushepahs [Tushepaw] made up of thirty-four tepees. They had at least two thousand horses. Their tepees are made of matting. They are clothed in good robes of buffalo or deerskin; they have deerskin shirts and leggings and in every respect their clothing is as good as any of the best-provided Indian peoples. In their homes they have kettles and copper pots, as well as other things that suggest some intercourse with the inhabitants along the seacoast. They have some axes, too, and a skillfully wrought stone hammer that they use to pound roots, cherries, and other fruits, as well as fish. Pointed pieces of elkhorn serve in lieu of wedges to split wood. Women have willow-twig hats very neatly made and decorated. Their water containers are also made of willow, and in these they cook their meat by putting red-hot stones from the fire into them. However, copper kettles are preferred, three or four of them usually hanging in their tepees. (15 miles west)

— Hunt

These Indians pleased me greatly when they told me that some white men had reached the Columbia, a two-day trek from this spot. It appears that grass grows here all winter long, for the mountain slopes are green.

— Hunt

All my men rejoined me except the Canadian Michael Carriere. Someone had seen him on the previous afternoon sitting on horseback behind a Snake Indian. They were in front of a lodge that we had passed a few miles from our camp of the night before.

— Hunt

I cannot thank Providence enough for our having reached this point, for we were excessively tired and weak. We had only two horses left, both no more than skin and bones. That night we dined on some rather poor deer meat and some roots.

— Hunt

We remained six days in this place. I bought eight horses and two colts. We ate two of the horses and I gave two to our guides in payment for their services. Some of my men also bought horses. Several men were ill, some from overeating, others apparently from eating roots. Still others were lame. On our last day here, each one made moccasins for himself and prepared to continue the journey. I dispatched two men to look for Carriere but they did not find him. This unfortunate fellow had probably followed an Indian hunting trail and become lost. The Snakes had moved their lodges elsewhere, and my men could get no information about him. The Sciatogas [Cayuse] also moved their tepees a day’s journey downstream. (Hunt 1821)

— Hunt

Irving retold the times as:

The march was resumed early the next morning, without waiting for the stragglers. The stream which they had followed throughout the preceding day was now swollen by the influx of another river; the declivities of the hills were green and the valleys were clothed with grass. At length the jovial cry was given of “an Indian camp!” It was yet in the distance, In the bosom of the green valley, but they could perceive that it consisted of numerous lodges, and that hundreds of horses were grazing the grassy meadows around it. The prospect of abundance of horse flesh diffused universal joy, for by this time the whole stock of travelling provisions was reduced to the skeleton steed of Pierre Dorion, and another wretched animal, equally emaciated, that had been repeatedly reprieved during the journey.

— Irving

A forced march soon brought the weary and hungry travellers to the camp. It proved to be a strong party of Sciatogas [Cayuse] and Tusche-pas [Tushepaw]. There were thirty-four lodges, comfortably constructed of mats; the Indians, too, were better clothed than any of the wandering bands they had hitherto met on this side of the Rocky Mountains. Indeed, they were as well clad as the generality of the wild hunter tribes. Each had a good buffalo or deer skin robe; and a deer skin hunting shirt and leggins. Upwards of two thousand horses were ranging the pastures around their encampment; but what delighted Mr. Hunt was, on entering the lodges, to behold brass kettles, axes, copper tea-kettles, and various other articles of civilized manufacture, which showed that these Indians had an indirect communication with the people of the sea-coast who traded with the whites. He made eager inquiries of the Sciatogas [Cayuse], and gathered from them that the great river (the Columbia) was but two days’ march distant, and that several white people had recently descended it; who he hoped might prove to be [Robert] M’Lellan, [Donald] M’Kenzie, and their companions.

— Irving

It was with the utmost joy and the most profound gratitude to heaven, that Mr. Hunt found himself and his band of weary and famishing wanderers thus safely extricated from the most perilous part of their long journey, and within the prospect of a termination of their tolls. All the stragglers who had lagged behind arrived, one after another, excepting the poor Canadian voyageur, Carriere. He had been seen late in the preceding afternoon, riding behind a Snake [Shoshone] Indian, near some lodges of that nation, a few miles distant from the last night’s encampment; and it was expected that he would soon make his appearance. The first object of Mr. Hunt was to obtain provisions for his men. A little venison, of an indifferent quality, and some roots were all that could be procured that evening; but the next day he succeeded in purchasing a mare and colt, which were immediately killed, and the cravings of the half-starved people in some degree appeased.

— Irving

For several days they remained in the neighborhood of these Indians, reposing after all their hardships, and feasting upon horse flesh and roots, obtained in subsequent traffic. Many of the people ate to such excess as to render themselves sick, others were lame from their past journey; but all gradually recruited in the repose and abundance of the valley. Horses were obtained here much more readily, and at a cheaper rate, than among the Snakes [Shoshone]. A blanket, a knife, or a half pound of blue beads would purchase a steed, and at this rate many of the men bought horses for their individual use.

— Irving

This tribe of Indians, who are represented as a proud-spirited race, and uncommonly cleanly, never eat horses or dogs, nor would they permit the raw flesh of either to be brought into their huts. They had a small quantity of venison in each lodge, but set so high a price upon it that the white men, in their impoverished state could not afford to purchase it. They hunted the deer on horseback, “ringing,” or surrounding them, and running them down in a circle. They were admirable horsemen, and their weapons were bows and arrows, which they managed with great dexterity. They were altogether primitive in their habits, and seemed to cling to the usages of savage life, even when possessed of the aids of civilization. They had axes among them, yet they generally made use of a stone mallet wrought into the shape of a bottle, and wedges of elk horn, in splitting their wood. Though they might have two or three brass kettles hanging, in their lodges, yet they would frequently use vessels made of willow, for carrying water, and would even boll their meat in them, by means of hot stones. Their women wore caps of willow neatly worked and figured.

— Irving

As Carriere, the Canadian straggler, did not make his appearance for two or three days after the encampment in the valley two men were sent out on horseback in search of him. They returned, however, without success. The lodges of the Snake [Shoshone] Indians near which he had been seen were removed, and the could find no trace of him. Several days more elapsed, yet nothing was seen or heard of him, or the Snake [Shoshone] horseman, behind whom he had been last observed. It was feared, therefore, that he had either perished through hunger and fatigue; had been murdered by the Indians; or, being left to himself, had mistaken some hunting tracks for the trail of the party, and been led astray and lost. (1836, 2: 62-65)

— Irving

Attribution of Source Material

The preceding summary for the approximated January 8-14, 1812 Wilson P. Hunt Campsite location is used with thanks for the public domain sources of Hunt 1821 and Irving 1836. Additionally, appropriate parenthetical citations are used with thanks and credit in specific summary passages and quotes for sources that are not in the public domain Rollins 1935 and Ronda 1990. Errors regarding unintended and improper copyright usage will be corrected immediately following notification.

Primary Sources

Hunt, Wilson P., and V.A. Malte-Brun. Nouvelles annales des voyages. v. 10. Paris: Bertrand, 1821. English translation available at Mountain Men and the Fur Trade AMM Virtual Research Center Project http://www.mtmen.org/mtman/html/wphunt/index.html.

Irving, Washington. Astoria, Or Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains. Vol. 2. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, 1836. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Astoria_Or_Anecdotes_of_an_Enterprise_Be/t6k-AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.

Rollins, Phillip A., ed. 1935. The Discovery of the Oregon Trail: Robert Stuart’s Narrative of His Overland Trip Eastward from Astoria in 1812-1813: Appendix A: Wilson Price Hunt’s Diary. Bison Book Edition reprinted from the original 1935 edition by Edward Eberstadt and Sons. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

Secondary Sources

Ronda, James P. Astoria and Empire. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.

Further Research and Reading

Irving, Washington. Astoria, Or Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, 1836. https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/oKk-AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.

Illustrations and Maps

Chittenden, Hiram Martin. “Map of the Trans-Mississippi of the United States during the Period of the American Fur Trade as Conducted from St. Louis between the Years 1807 and 1843.” Image. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, 1902. https://lccn.loc.gov/99446195 (accessed February 25, 2022).

Kmusser. “Columbia River Watershed with the Columbia River Highlighted.” April 7, 2008. self-made, based on USGS and Digital Chart of the World data. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Columbiarivermap.png. (accessed March 31, 2022)

Taxonomy

Classified As

Historic Campsite