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 IIFSTORA" 
 
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 ^>l<Til ER N PAC J IK 
 
 RAILROAD 
 
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 NEW ^. f-'v 
 ('. I'. \'V VK A M ■; SONS 
 
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 Wih. 
 
HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC 
 
 RAILROAD 
 
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 5 
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 3 
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 BY 
 
 EUGENE V. SMALL EY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 27 AND 29 West 23d St. 
 
 1883 
 
/) Si' J' 
 
 6357;^ 
 
 Copyright, 1883, 
 Bv G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 When the project of a railroad across the American 
 Continent was first broached, and for many years after- 
 ward, the northern route, by way of the valleys of 
 the Missouri and the Columbia rivers, was the only one 
 thought of. This was the route explored by Lewis and 
 Clarke in the first decade of the century. It was known 
 to be a route through valleys and over plains for nearly 
 its entire distance ; it crossed the Rocky Mountain 
 barriers at low altitudes ; it approached the Pacific by 
 way of the greatest river of the western coast ; at its 
 farthest limit lay the most capacious and beautiful deep- 
 water tidal estuary to be found on the continent. It 
 avoided the deserts lying further south, and was believed 
 to traverse the only continuously habitable belt of coun- 
 try stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific coast. 
 Long before the epoch of rail transportation this route 
 had been explored for military and commercial purposes 
 by the United States Government. Very soon after the 
 railway system was introduced in the United States — in- 
 deed as early as 1 83 5 — it was advocated by Dr. Barlow. 
 Between 1845 ^"<i ^849 it was pressed upon the attention 
 of Congress and State Legislatures by the earnest, per- 
 sistent and self-sacrificing efforts of Asa Whitney. The 
 ideas of Whitney were taken up in 1852 by one of the 
 ablest of the world's great engineers, Edwin F. Johnson, 
 and given practical form and value by the aid of his genius 
 and technical skill. All this happened before any defi- 
 nite business plan had been formed for building the 
 
 
IV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 road, and much of it long before any other route was 
 discussed. 
 
 The acquisition of territory from Mexico, following 
 the war of 1846-8, the gold discoveries in California and 
 the rush of population to that region, and later certain 
 important political considerations resulting from the war 
 of the Rebellion, caused the support of the government 
 to be given to the middle route. Thus the first railroad 
 completed to the Pacific terminated at the Bay of San 
 Francisco, instead of at Puget Sound or the mouth of the 
 Columbia River. The northern route was long neglected. 
 Although a grant of land was made in its behalf two years 
 after the two companies were chartered to build the mid- 
 dle line, one transcontinental highway appeared to be 
 sufficient for the time; and the one which was supported 
 with heavy subsidies of government bonds, and large 
 land grants, and ran to the romantic shores of the 
 Golden State, easily secured and monopolized public 
 interest and confidence. The northern project languished 
 for want of support, and more than once came near 
 being abandoned in despair by its few earnest advo- 
 cates. After capital had finally been secured to begin 
 work upon it, and its advantages had been fairly set 
 before the public, the enterprise had to encounter 
 fresh vicissitiidcs. It was overwhelmed in the financial 
 crash of 1873, and struggled for many years after being 
 rescued from bankruptcy to merely hold the unfinished 
 lines it had built. Before it could regain the confidence 
 of capital and push forward' to a connection in the 
 Rocky Mountains its widely separated "ends of track" 
 a second Pacific road had been opened by the South- 
 ern route, built by California capitalists with wealth 
 acquired from the generosity of the government toward 
 the first line. 
 
 Thus the Northern Pacific Railroad, though the first 
 
 projectc 
 lust to 
 doni ofl 
 lows to I 
 nicrce fj 
 sight of 
 claiming 
 the best 
 A hi. 
 be son^ 
 of adv 
 builders 
 continci 
 history 
 the wes 
 treat tl 
 enlisted 
 widely s 
 for so 1 
 tion ; n( 
 successf 
 other e\ 
 for the 
 destine! 
 
 NewY 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 projected of three great transcontinental lines, i;'. the 
 last to be completed. Yet time has justified the wis- 
 dom of Thomas Jefferson in causing the route it fol- 
 lows to be explored as the best natural highway for com- 
 merce from ocean to ocean, and justified, too, the fore- 
 sight of Whitney and the engineering skill of Johnson in 
 claiming in advance of its actual survey that it offered 
 the best line for railroad construction and traffic. 
 
 A history of the Northern Pacific enterprise should 
 be something more than an account of the ciTorts 
 of adventurous capitalists and energetic railway 
 builders to open a great transportation line across the 
 continent. It should be, in its beginning at least, the 
 history of a national movement to find an outlet to 
 the western sea. In this spirit I have endeavored to 
 treat the subject. No other railroad enterprise ever 
 enlisted among its stockholders so numerous and 
 widely scattered a constituency ; no other ever attracted 
 for so long a period so large a share of public atten- 
 tion ; no other of considerable magnitude ever passed 
 successfully through such vicissitudes and perils ; no 
 other ever developed so vast an area of country adapted 
 for the uses of civilized man, and I believe no other is 
 destined to reap such great and lasting prosperity. 
 
 E. V. S. 
 
 New York, August, 1883. 
 
Who Fii 
 Reclis; 
 pin — ( 
 Travel 
 Red r 
 Expl 
 pediti( 
 Succes 
 
 D 
 
 Tradition 
 covery- 
 Discovi 
 River- 
 — The 
 Discovi 
 Named 
 
 Thomas Je 
 Attemp 
 for an 1 
 The Ex 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 t 
 
 "HAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY KXPLORATIONS IN THE NORTHWFST. 
 
 Who First Reached the Mead of Lake Superior — Giosel' and 
 Redisson — Daniel Greysolon Dii Lulh — Meeting with Father ilenne- 
 j)in — Captain Jean Du Luth and his Trading Post — liaron Lahontin's 
 Travels — Opening of the F'ur Trad'^ — Veranderie"' *■ ttlcmeiit on 
 Red River — Jonathan Carver's Expedition — Ale.nnder Mackv-n/ic's 
 Exp! 'IS — Tlie Search for the Sources of the Mibsiss!pp -Ex- 
 peditions of Long and Pike — Attempt of General Cass — . ,,iioi Iciaft's 
 Success 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE C0LI;MIUA RIVER AND PUGET SOUND. 
 
 Tradition of the River of the West — Fictitious Spanish Claim of Dis- 
 covery — Captain Gray and the Ship Columbia — Captain Kendrick's 
 Discovery — Vancouver's Mistake — Gray Sails into the Columbia 
 River— His Logbook Entry — Expedition of the British Brig Chatham 
 — The Tale of the Greek Pilot Juan de Fuca — De Fonte's Pretended 
 Discoveries — Vancouver's Explorations — Puget Sound Mapped and 
 Named — Voyages of Lopez de Haro and Elisa 12 
 
 i: 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE LEWIS AND CLARKE EXPEDITION. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson's Efforts to Open a Route to the Pacific — Ledyard's 
 Attempt Baffled — Captain Lewis' First Project — Congress Provides 
 for an Exploration — Character of Lewis — Captain William Clarke — 
 The Expedition Organized — Its Route, Adventures, and Arrival at 
 
VUl 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 the Koutli of the Columbia -The Return Journey — Great Interest 
 
 in the Results of the Expedition 20 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FUR TRADERS, TRAPPERS ANU MISSIONARIES. 
 
 The Hudson's Bay Company — The Northwest Fur Company — Annual 
 Councils at the Grand Portage — The Mackinac Company — John 
 Jacob Astor's Enterprise — Founding of Astoria — A Perilous March 
 Across the Continent — Hudson's Bay Company Posts and Trails — 
 Captain Bonneville'5 Expedition — Nathaniel J. Wyeth's Undertak- 
 ing — The American Flag again Planted in Oregon — Bonneville's 
 Two Journeys to the Columbia — Rev. Samuel Parker's Travels — 
 His Zeal for Converting the Indians — lii:; Prediction of a Pacific 
 Railroad— Comments of the Knickerbocker Magaiine 33 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MARCUS whitman's HEROIC RIDR, 
 
 Dr. Whitman's and Rev. H. H, Spalding go to Oregon with their 
 Wives — Schemes of the Hudson's Bay Company to Secure Oregon 
 for Great Britain — Whitman's Daring Resolution — He Starts with 
 A. L. Lovejoy for Washington — Perilous Winter Journey across 
 the Mountains and Plains — Whitman's Appearance at the State 
 Department — Oregon .Saved to the United States — Whitman Leads 
 the Missouri Emigration — His Tragic Death 46 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE FIRST PACIFIC RAILROAD ADVOCATE. 
 
 Early Arguments in Favor of a railroad to the Pacific Coast — Dr. 
 Samuel Bancroft Barlow's Newspaper Articles — A Scheme for a 
 Railroad from New York to the Mouth of the Columbia — Estimated 
 Cost — The (jovernment Urged to Undertake the Work — Effect on 
 East India Trade 5t 
 
CONTENTS. 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IX 
 
 ASA WHITNEY S TROJECT. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Whitney's Early Career — He Ascends tlie Missouri — Study of a Short 
 Route to China — His Scheme for a Railroad from Lake Michigan 
 to the Mouth of the Columbia — Efforts in Washington — Favorable 
 Resolutions Secured from State Legislatures — Whitney Mobbed 
 in New York — A Friendly Reception in Philadelphia — Whitney's 
 Bill Defeated — Another Unsuccessful Effort in 1849 — Whitney dies 
 Poor — The Chicago and St. Louis Conventions of 1S49 — George 
 Wilkes' Project — Plans of J. Loughborough and Dr. Hartwell 
 Carver 57 
 
 33 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 EDWIN' F. Johnson's efforts. 
 
 An Eminent Engineer Takes up the Pacific Railway Project — Edwin 
 F. Johnson's Career — Early Advocacy of Railroad Transportation — 
 Plan for Railroad from the Hudson to the Mississippi — Chief 
 Engineer of the Erie Railway — At Work in Wisconsin— Articles 
 in the Railroad Journal — Arguments in Favor of the Northern 
 Route — Robert J. Walker and Jefferson Davis — Schemes of South- 
 ern Politicians — Johnson's Letters Republished — His Map and 
 Profile 69 
 
 46 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IHE GOVERNMENT SURVEYS. 
 
 51 
 
 Condition of Public Sentiment — Sectional Jealousy — Effect of the 
 California Gold Discoveries — General Agreement that a Railway 
 to the Pacific Coast Must Be Built — The Question of Routes — 
 Five Lines Surveyed — Jefferson Davis Favors the Most Southern — 
 Governor Stevens' Survey of the Northern Route — Thoroughness 
 of his Work — Advantages of the Northern Route Fully Demon- 
 strated — Stevens' Report — His Writings and Public Addresses in 
 Favor of the Northern Pacific Raiiro.id Project — His Death on the 
 Battle-field 77 
 
X 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FUTILE MOVEMENTS IN CONGRESS. 
 
 Last of Asa Whitney's Project — California's Demand — The Northern 
 Route almost Lost Sight of — VVm. H. Seward's Bill — Henry S. Foote's 
 Southern Pacific Bill — Sectional Strife over the Question of Routes — 
 The Bill of 1855 for Three Lines to the Pacific — Weller's Subsidy 
 and Land Grant Bill of 1856 — President Buchanan's Advocacy — A 
 New Bill for a Single Central Line Changed to one for Three Lines, 
 and Defeated in 1859 — Curtis's Single Route Bill of i860 — The pro- 
 totype of the Union and Central Pacific Railroad Legislation — The 
 Northern Pacific Railroad named and Recognized by Congress in 
 1861 — A Northern Pacific Company Organized in Washington 
 Territory 
 
 88 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 JOSIAH PERHAM'S people's PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Perham's Business Career — The " Father" of the Cheap Excursion Sys- 
 tem — Visions of a Railroad to the Pacific — A Current Misapprehen- 
 sion Corrected — Perham Not Originally in Favor of the Northern 
 Route — The People's Pacific Railroad Company — Failure to Get a 
 Charter in Massachusetts — Perham's Speech to a Boston Meeting — 
 The Company Chartered by the Maine Legislature — Perham's Ap- 
 peals to Congress for Aid — His Impracticable Plan of Raising Money 
 by Small Stock Subscriptions 97 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 THE UNION AND CENTRAL PACIFIC CHARTER. 
 
 Five Practicable Routes to the Pacific — Congress Prefers the Middle 
 Route — Political Considerations — Threats of the Southern Element 
 in California — The Union and Central Pacific Railroad Bill — Per- 
 ham's Project left out — Fruitless E^ffort in the Senate for the North- 
 ern Route — Passage of tl.o Bill — Its Generous Conditions — Profits of 
 Construction — The Route Adopted Follows the Emigrant Trail — 
 Amendment of the Charter in 1864 — Condition of the Northern 
 Belt in i86a lofi 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XI 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 passai;e of the charter act. 
 
 PACE 
 
 I'erham Transfers his Efforts to the Northern Project — Thaddeus Stevens 
 Supports the People's Pacific Scheme — Defeat of the Bill in the 
 Mouse — A New Bill framed Creating the Northern Pacific Com- 
 pany — It Passes the House and Senate, and is Approved by Presi- 
 dent Lincoln — Its Principal Provisions — Perham's Impracticable 
 Stock Subscription Plan — The Company Prohibited to Issue Bonds 
 or Mortgage the Road — A Double Land Grant, but no other Gov- 
 ernment Aid 113 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ORCANIZINC. THE COMPANY. 
 
 A Board of Commissioners — The Company a New England Concern — 
 P'irst Meeting of the Board — Perham's Speech — His Estimate of the 
 Cost of the Northern Pacific Road — Exaggerated Notions as to the 
 Value of the Land Grant — Subscription Books Opened — The Origi- 
 nal Stockholders — First Board of Directors — Officers Elected 119 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A TRANSFER OF THE FRANCHISE. 
 
 Mission of Colonel W. S. Rowland and Governor Frank Fuller to Bos- 
 ton — Fuller's Speech Before the Board of Trade — Hamilton A, 
 Hill's Interest — Report of a Committee Indorsing the Northern 
 Pacific Enterprise — An International Line Proposed — Co-operation 
 of the Railroads from Boston to Canada Secured — Perham at llie 
 End of His Resources — Transfer of the Charter — A New Organiza- 
 tion Formed — Congress Looked to for Means to Build the Road. , , 
 
 125 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 APPEALS TO CONGRESS. 
 
 J. Gregory Smith's Early Career — His Plan for Co-operation with tlie 
 Canada Pacific Company — Movement for an Extension of Time — 
 Opposition in Congress to all Land Grant Railroads — Thaddeus 
 Stevens' Assistance — Two More Years Allowed for Beginning Work 
 — Effort to Secure Government Aid — A Discouraging Outlook — A 
 
Xit 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACE 
 
 Guaranty of Interest on Stock Asked — Defeat of the Guaranty Bill in 
 the House — Attempt to Revive the Bill in the Senate — An Indirect 
 Defeat by a Majority of One — A Blessing in Disguise 133 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE ORIGtNAL INTERESTS AGREEMENT. 
 
 Weakness of the Northern Pacific as a purely New England Enterprise 
 — Governor Smith's Plan to Nationalize the Company — A Railroad 
 Syndicate Proposed — William B. Ogden Agrees to Join it — The 
 Original Interests Agreement Formed — Twelve Shares Provided for 
 — Edwin F, Johnson Appointed Chief Engineer — Surveys Ordered. 141 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 SURVEVINC. THE LINE. 
 
 Chief Engineer Johnson's First Report — A Preliminary Location Made 
 in 1867 — First Estimates of Cost — Two Surveys Across Minnesota — 
 Choice of a Lake Harbor — Routes Across the Cascade Mountains 
 Examined — W. Milnor Roberts' Reconnoissance in 1869 — Gov. Mar- 
 shall's Expedition to the Upper Missouri — The Rocky Mountain 
 Passes — Advantages of the Pend d'Oreille Route over the Clearwater 
 Route — A Final Survey of the Bitter Root Mountains 148 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 AMENDMENTS TO THE CHARTER. 
 
 Weary Waiting upon Congress — Various Schemes for Obtaining Govern- 
 ment Aid — Opposition to the Land Grant and Subsidy System — The 
 Northern Pacific Company goes to Sleep for Two Years — No Board 
 Meetings from i863 to iSyo^Congress Extends the Time for Begin- 
 ning Work on the Road, and for Completing it — A Wise Change of 
 Policy — Congress Authorizes the Issue of Bonds — Branch from Port- 
 land to Puget Sound Authorized 159 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE JAY COOKE CONTRACT. 
 
 The lianking House of Jay Cooke & Co. — Mr. Cooke's Character as a 
 Financier — His Contract with the Northern Pacific Company — A 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Xill 
 
 lin 
 
 rect 
 
 133 
 
 rise 
 3a d 
 rhe 
 for 
 :d. 141 
 
 .de 
 
 Hard Bargain — Five Millions Furnished to Begin Construction in 
 1870 — A Town Site Company Formed— A New Bill Passes Con- 
 ;;ress Authorizing the Mortgaging of the Road and Land Grant — The 
 Columbia River Line Made the Main Line to Puget Sound — A 
 ISrisk Contest in both Houses — Jay Cooke's Plan for a P'oreign Loan 
 — The Bonds Finally Offered to the American Public — Defects of 
 the Financial Scheme i(')3 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 SALE OK THE 7-30 nONDS. 
 
 Jay Cooke & Co.'s Efforts to Popularize the 7-30 Loan — Extensive and 
 Liljeral Advertising — Favorable Opinions from Prominent Public 
 Men — Favorable Conditions for Selling the Bonds — Cooke's Branch 
 House in London — Tl»e Bonds Largely Bought by People of Mod- 
 erate Means — Truthfulness of Jay Cooke's Published Statements 
 About the Northern Pacific Bell — Extracts from his Pamphlets 171 
 
 ms 
 ir- 
 lin 
 er 
 
 148 
 
 CHAPTER XXIL 
 
 CONDITION OF THE NORTHWEST IN 1S7O. . 
 
 Northern Minnesota a Wilderness — No Farms in the Red River Valley 
 — The Country of the Savage Sioux — The Mining Settlements in 
 Central Montana — Another Uninhabited Region Beyond — The Vig- 
 orous Settlements of Oregon and Puget Sound — Their Aid to the 
 Railroad Enterprise — The Obstacles to be Surmounted — 2,000 Miles 
 of Railway to be Built through a Wilderness 178; 
 
 bf 
 
 t- 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIL 
 
 BUILDING THE KOAD. 
 
 Construction Work begun in 1870 — Surveys in Minnesota — A Com- 
 mittee sent to the Pacific Coast — Purchase of St. Paul and Pacific 
 Stock — Dululh and Superior — Completion of the Minnesota Division 
 — Work begun on the Line from the Columbia River to Puget 
 Sound — Controlling Interest in Oregon Steam Navigation Company 
 Bought— Scarcity of Funds in 1872— President Smith Resigns — A 
 Review of his Administration 185 
 
XIV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 PRESIDENCY OF GENERAL CASS, 
 
 PAGB 
 
 A Parenthesis in the Affairs of the Company — General Cass's Education 
 and Career in the Army, and in Business — He IJuilds the First Iron 
 Bridge in the Country — Establishes the Adams Express Company — 
 President of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago Railroad — 
 Joins the Smitli Syndicate to Acquire the Northern Pacific Franchise 
 — Selecting a Site for a Terminal City on Pugel Sound — Why 
 Tacoma was Preferred — A Commission Ajipointef'. to Settle the 
 Question — The Tacoma Land Company — General Cass's Speech to 
 the Board — Ilis Investment of Stock in Red River Valley Lands — 
 The Cass-Cheney Farms — Features of his Administration lyo 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE TANIC OK 1873. 
 
 
 An Unexpected Disaster — Suspension of the House of Jay Cooke & Co. — 
 The Panic and its Results — Closingof the Stock Exchange^ — -Suspen- 
 sion of Banks, Railroads, and Manufacturir.i; Companies — Numerous 
 Failures in all Parts of the Country — Prolonged Effects of the Panic 
 — Serious Shrinkage in Value — Many Branches of Industry Par- 
 alyzed—The Northern Pacific Railroad not the Cause of the Failure 
 of Jay Cooke & Co. — Mr. Cooke Loses One Fortune and Makes 
 Another 
 
 198 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 REORGANIZATION CI'- THE NORTHERN I'ACIFIC COMPANY. 
 
 A Period of Doubt and Despondency in the Affairs of the Company — 
 Mileage Completed at the Time of the Panic — A Road Through 
 V.acant Spaces — Falling off of Western Immigration — The Company 
 in Desperate Straits — Its Rescue by a Sagacious Plan of Reorganiza- 
 tion — The Bonds Converted into Preferred Stock — Bankruptcy Pro- 
 ceedings Begun by the Directors — Judge Shipman's Valuable Assist- 
 ance — The Road and Franchise Sold to a Purchasing Committee of 
 the Bondholders 204 
 
 iliii 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XV 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 CHARLES n. Wright's administration. 
 
 FA(,B 
 
 Charles B. Wright Elected Pre -ident in 1874 — His Early Career in Busi- 
 ness and Kailrond Management — Chosen a Director of the Northern 
 Pacific in 1870 — Chairman of the I'inance Committee in 1872, and 
 Vice-President in 1873 — Financial Straits of the Company after the 
 Ke-irganizalion — Making the Road Pay Expenses — Construction 
 Work Recommenced in 1875, on the Pacific Coast — A Connection 
 with St. Paul Secured — Renewed Activity in tlie Company's Affairs 
 — The Missouri Division Loan — Construction Begun West of the 
 Missouri River in 1879 — Mr. Wright's Resignation — Complimentary 
 Resolutions 2ir 
 
 CHAP'IER XXVIII. 
 
 RENEVVKD APPEALS TO CONGRESS. 
 
 Unwillingness of Capitalists to P'urnish Money for Completing the 
 Northern Pacific Road — Preferred Stock Sells for 25 to 30^The 
 Directors make a Fresh Appeal to Congress in 1874 — Benj. F. Wane's 
 Services — A Bill Guaranteeing Interest on the Company's Bonds — 
 A Hopeless Effort from the Start — Public Opinion Strongly Opposed 
 to Further Aid to Railroads — Failure of the Bill — Bills for an Exten- 
 sion of Time Pass the Senate but Fail in the House — The Company 
 Determines to Rest on its Charter Rights — Validity of the Entire 
 Land Grant Affirmed by Attorney-General Devens 2lq 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 PRESIDENCY OF FREDERICK HILLINGS. 
 
 Mr. Billings' Birth and Education — He Becomes a California Pioneer of 
 1S49 — A Lawyer in San Francisco — His Early Interest in the North- 
 ern Pacific Project — Declines a Nomination for Congress — Returns 
 to the East — Chosen a Northern Pacific Director in 1870— Organ- 
 izes the Land Department — < hairman of the Executive Committee — 
 Elected President in 1879 — ^ General First Mortgage Executed — 
 Agreement with a Syndicate of Bankers — The Bismarck Bridge — St. 
 Paul Terminal Facilities — General Offices and Brainerd Shops — Mr. 
 Billings' Resignation — Improved Condition of the Company 226 
 
XVI 
 
 CONTEiWTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 TEMPORARY I'RESIDENCY OK A. II. HARNEY, 
 
 PACK 
 
 Mr. Barney's Birth and Education — Visit to Michigan — Early Interest in 
 Transportation Problems — Deputy Collector of the Port of Sacketts 
 Harbor — The Patriot War — Engages in the Commission and Ship- 
 ping Business at Cleveland and Buffalo — Organues the United States 
 Express Company — A Member of Several Railroad Purchasing Syn- 
 dicates — Director and Treasurer of the Northern Pacific Railroad — 
 His Connection with the Original Interests Agreement — Elected 
 President in 1881 to Fill a Temporary Vacancy — The Agreement 
 with the Crow Indians 239 
 
 si 
 
 n 
 
 ^y 
 
 CHAPTER XXXL 
 
 HENRY VILLARD AS JOURNALIST AND RAILWAY MANAGER. 
 
 Mr. Villard's Birth and Education in Germany — He Emigrates to the 
 United Slates at the Age of 18 — Studies Law and Writes for the 
 German Papers — Masters the English Language and Becomes a 
 Journalist — Goes to the Pike's Peak Gold Mines — His Career as a 
 War Correspondent from 1861 to 1864 — Secretary of the American 
 Social Science Association — Visits to Eurojic — Returns to America 
 to Represent German Bondholders of Defaulting Railroads — Re- 
 ceiver of the Kansas Pacific Railroad — President of llie Oregon and 
 California Railroad — Acquires Control of the Oregon Steamship 
 Company and the Oregon Steam Navigation Company — Proposition to 
 the Union Pacific Company — Organization of the Oregon Railway 
 and Navigation Company — Prosecution of Mr. Villard's General 
 Transportation Plan 245 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIL 
 
 PRESIDENCY OK HENRY VILLARD. 
 
 Rela'io'is of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company with the 
 Northern Pacific — A Threatened Conflict of Interests — Traffic Con- 
 tract Agreed Upon — Villard's Plan to Acquire Control of the North- 
 ern Pacific — History of the Blind Pool — A Romance of Wall Street 
 — Formation of the Oregon and Transcontinental Company — Its Ob- 
 jects — A Legal Controversy over an Issue of Northern Pacific Com- 
 mon Stock — Henry Villard Elected President of the Northern Pacific 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XVII 
 
 — Thomaf? F. Oakes Elected \'icePiesi(lent — Important Financial 
 Aid Afforded by llie Oregon and Transcontinental — IJuilding of 
 JJranch Lines 261 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIIl. 
 
 lilOGRArillCAI, SKETCHES. 
 
 23y 
 
 \V. Milnor RobcrLs' Career as an Engineer — His Early Connection with 
 Railroads in the United States — Building a Railroad in Brazil — 
 .Chief Engineer of the Northern Pacific — His Death in Brazil — 
 Samuel Wdkeson — His Career as a Journalist — His Connection with 
 the Government War Loans — Elected Secretary of the Northern 
 Pacific Company — The Senior Officer of the Company in Length of 
 Service — Col. (jcorge Gray — Birth and Education in Ireland — Col- 
 onel of a Cavalry Regiment in the War for the Union — Becomes At- 
 torney and General Counsel of the Northern Pacific Company — His 
 Valuable Services — Thomas F. Oakes — A Practical Railroad Man 
 from his Youtli — His Connection with Railroads in Kansas — Man- 
 ager of the Oregon Railway and Navijration Company — Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the Northern Pacific — Active Operations in Building the 
 Road 277 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 RELATIONS OF THK NORTHERN I'ACIFIC WITH OTHER COMPANIES. 
 
 The Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad— Purchase ofa Half Inter- 
 est in the Line from Uululh to Thomson Junction — Lease of the 
 Entire Road, with its Leased Lines — Lease Surrendered — The St. 
 Paul and Pacific Cc ipany and the St. Paul and Pacific First Divis- 
 ion — A Controlling Stock Interest Acquired by the Northern Pacific 
 — Retransfer of the First Division — Foreclosure and Sale of the St. 
 Paul and Pacific — The St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Com- 
 pany Formed — The Western Railroad Company of Minnesota — The 
 Northern Pacific, Fergus Falls and Black Hills Railroad Company — 
 Its Stock Purchased by the Northern Pacific Company — The Cassel- 
 ton Branch — The Little Falls and Dakota Railroad Company — 
 Other Branches — Arrangement with the Oregon and Transconti- 
 nental Company for the Building of Brunch Lines. , , , 293 
 
fmm 
 
 
 xvm 
 
 COIVTENTS, 
 PART II. 
 
 .!;! 
 
 THK NOKTHERN PACIFIC COUNTRY. 
 
 1" 
 
 llliii 
 
 I'i! 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 EASTERN CITIES AND LAKE TORTS. 
 
 PACE 
 
 A Defect in the Northern Pacific Charter — Lake Superior not the Proper 
 Eastern Terminus — A Description of tlie Twin Cities of Minnesota — 
 St. Paul the Older Place — Remarkable Recent Growth of Minneap- 
 olis — Business of the Two Cities — Picturesque Appearance of St. 
 Paul — Minneapolis and the Falls of St. Anthony — Northern Pacific 
 Offices and 'I'erminal Facilities — The Bay of Superior — Ambition 
 of Both Wisconsin and Minnesota to Possess a Commercial City 
 at the Head of l.akc Superior — Superior and Duluth — Why Duluth 
 was Made the First Lake Terminus of the Northern Pacific — The 
 Strife About the Duluth Canal and Dike — Growth of Duluth — Pros- 
 pects of Superior — Ashland a Third Northern Pacific Port 309 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVr. 
 
 NORTHERN MINNESOTA. 
 
 Extensive Areas of Forest Land — Towns North of St. Paul — The Coun- 
 try Between Lake Superior and Brainerd — A Wide Stretch of 
 Wilderness — Great Value of the Minnesota Timber Belt — The Lake 
 and Park Region — Innumerable Lakes and Beautiful Groves — De- 
 troit — Fergus Falls and its Water-power — The Great Valley of the 
 Red River of the North — The Land of No. i Hard Wheat — Towns 
 in the Valley — Breckenridge and Wahpeton — Fargo and Moorhead — 
 The Natural Grain Belt of the Continent — Settlement of Northern 
 Minnesota 321 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 NORTH DAKOTA. 
 
 Portion of Dakota lying North of the 46th Parallel — North Dakota a 
 Vast, Rich, Alluvial Plain— The Red River Valley— The James, 
 Sheyenne and Mouse Rivers — Devil's Lake — The Missouri and its 
 Tributaries — The Coteaux — Fertile Regions West of the Missouri — 
 Dakota's Railroad System— Chief Towns of North Dakota— Origin 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XIX 
 
 of Bismarck and Mandan — Climatic Peculiarities — A Dakota Win- 
 ter — Prairie Landscapes — The Charm of Vast Spaces and Wide 
 Sweeps of Vision — Lignite Coal Fields — Singular Scenery of the Had 
 Lands — An Admirable Grazing Country 330 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVin. 
 
 MONTANA. 
 
 Extent of Montana — A Larger Area than that of Great Britain and 
 Leland — Two Distinct Regions — The Plains and the Mountains — 
 Vast Stretches of Treeless Country Covered with Bunch-Grass — 
 Rich Irrigable Lands along the Rivers — Chief Towns of Eastern 
 Montana — Indian Reservations — Western Montana, its Mountain 
 Ranges and Fertile Valleys — Heavy Crops of Small Grains — Min- 
 ing for Precious Metals still the Chief Industry — Coal and Iron 
 Deposits — The Lumber Business — Principal Mountain Towns — 
 Montana's Climate — Influence of the "Chinook Wind" — Some 
 Peculiarities of Climate — Beautiful and Varied Scenery — A Land 
 of Wonders and Surprises 341 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 NORTHERN IDAHO AND WASHINGTON. 
 
 Form of Idaho Territory — Lake Pend d'Oreille and its Forest — The 
 Grain and Pasture Region of Northern Idaho and Eastern Wash- 
 ington — Other Arable Belts — The Big Bend and Yakima Country — 
 Principal Towns — Western Washington — A Region of High Mount- 
 ains, Dense F'orests, and Deep Inlets of the Sea — Magnificent Snow 
 Peaks — The Lumber Industry — Farming Districts in Narrow Val- 
 leys — Extensive Beds of Coal — Paget Sound Towns — The Columbia 
 K.iver Valley — Climatic Conditions 351 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 OREfiON. 
 
 Oregon not a New Community — A Large Part of Its Surface still Unoc- 
 cupied — The Donation Law — Beauty and Fertility of the Willr.mctte 
 Valley — An Agricultural Paradise— The Umpqua and Rogue River 
 Valleys — Character of the Sea Coast Region — Coos and Vaquina 
 Bays — Eastern Oregon— A High, Treeless, Bunch-Grass Plain — The 
 
XX 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Lake Country of Southern Oregon — The Umatilla Wheat Region — 
 <jran(ie Ronde and Wallowa Valleys — Other Arable Valleys — Wool 
 Growing and Cattle Raising — Climatic Peculiarities — Valley of the 
 Columbia — The Salmon Fishing and Canning Industries — Lumber- 
 ing and Mining — Chief Towns — Oregon Scenery 361 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 PORTLAND AND THE ITGET SOUND PORTS. 
 
 The Metropolis of the Pacific Northwest — Portland's Advantageous Lo- 
 cation — Its Enterprise in Establishing Transportation Lines — The 
 Railway System Centring in Portland — A Weil-Built, Rich, and 
 Beautiful City — Its (Ireat Staple Export of Wheat — The Columbia 
 River Bar — Predictions of a Greater City on Paget Sound — 
 Tacoma the Legal Terminus of the Northern Pacific Radroad — Its 
 Tributary Coal-Fields and Lumber Interests— Wheat Shipments 
 from Eastern Washington — Seattle's Activity and Growth — Its Im- 
 portant Trade with the Smaller Towns on Puget Sound 370 
 
 iliiJ 
 
 I 
 
 PART III. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE MAIN LINE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 THE MINNESOTA, WISCONSIN AND ST, PAUL DIVISIONS. 
 
 The East: Minnesota Division — First Breaking of Ground on the North- 
 ern Pacific Line — A Celebration of the Event — Wheeling the First 
 Load of Earth — Completion of the Road to Brainerd in 1870 — Char- 
 acter of the Country Traversed— The St. Paul Division — The Wis- 
 consin Division — The Brainerd Shops — The West Minnesota Divi- 
 sion — Difficulties and Cost of Co.istruclion — The Red River Crossing. 381 
 
 iii 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 THE DAKOIA AND MISSOURI DIVISIONS. 
 
 Work Begun on the Dakota Division in 1S72 — The Track Completed to 
 Jamestown in 1872 and to Bismarck in 1873 — Building Across an Un- 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXI 
 
 PAGB 
 
 inhabited Region — The Road Reaches the Missouri River heforethe 
 Panic of 1873 — ^ Description of the Hismarclt Uridge — The Missouri 
 Division — Its iiighest Summit 2,800 feet above the Sea— A Tracl< 
 Laid Across the Missouri River on the Ice — Character of the Work 
 on tiie Division — The Uad Lands 388 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 THE YELLOWSTONE AND MONTANA DIVISIONS. 
 
 Up the Yellowstone Valley — A Difficult Line to Build — Tlie Unstable, 
 Crumbling Bluffs Undermined by the Action of the River — Dikes 
 and Wing Dams Constructed — 34 Miles of Rock -cutting — Long 
 Tangents an ! EasyGrades — Completion of the Yellowstone Division 
 in 1S82 — Tl: Montana Division— The Yellowstone Bridges — Crossing 
 the Belt Mountains — The Bozeman Pass and Tunnel — Difficulties 
 Overcome in Constructing the Tunnel — Sluicing out the Eastern Ap- 
 proach — Early Surveys — Johnson's and Roberts' Routes — The De- 
 scent of the Pass — The Gallatin Valley and the Upper Cailon of the 
 Missouri — Progress and Completion of the Division — The National 
 Park Branch 398 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN AND TEND D OREILLE DIVISIONS. 
 
 Across the Main Divide — Fifteen Passes Surveyed — Why the Mullan 
 Pass was Selected — A Description of the Mullan Tunnel — Unex- 
 pected Difficulties Encountered — Only Six Miles of Heavy Grades — 
 Contrast between the Eastern and Western Slopes — Pend d'Oreilie 
 Division — Easy Graties and Long Tangents — The Snake River Bridge 
 and the long Pile Bridges across Lake Pend d'Oreilie — The Line 
 along the Clark's Fork River — Serious Obstacles to Construction — 
 Dense Forests, Precipitous Mountains, Deep Cafions, and Clay 
 Slides — A Wild and Rugged Region — Enormous Powder Blasts — A 
 Phenomenal Slide of Forty Acres — The Coriacan Defile — The 
 O'Keefe and Marent Gulch Trestles— Valley of the Hell Gate River. 408 
 
H 
 
 XXll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 THE COLUMBIA RIVER LINE AND PACIFIC AND CASCADE DIVISIONS. 
 
 < fi;;i; 
 
 s • 
 
 i" 
 
 
 The Columbia River Line of the Oregon Railway and Navigation 
 Company — Its Relations to the Northern Pacific System — A Roadbed 
 Blasted from the Face of Precipices — Fifty Thousand Pounds of 
 Powder used in a Single Blast — Other Lines of the Oregon Rail- 
 way and Navigation System — The Pacific Division of the North- 
 ern Pacific Company — From Portland to Puget Sound — First Con- 
 struction Operations on the Pacific Coast — The Cascade Division — 
 An Important Coal Road — W, Milnor Roberts' Report on Building 
 across the Cascade Mountains — Tiie Seattle Extension 422 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIL 
 
 AID RENDERED BY THE ARMY. 
 
 Hostility of the Indians along the Northern Pacific Line — Warlike 
 Character of the Sioux — Their Struggle for the Yellowstone Val- 
 ley — General Sherman's Opinion of the Railroad Enterprise — Valu- 
 able Assistance rendered by him and his Subordinate Officers — Im- 
 portant MiUtary Movements — Protection given Surveying Parties 
 and Construction Forces — Expeditions of 1871 and 1872 — Major 
 Baker's Battle in the Yellowstone Valley — Major Forsythe's Expedi- 
 tion — The Campaigns of 1876 and 1877 against the Sioux — Final 
 Subjection oi the Indians — The Pathway Cleared for the Railroad.. 431 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PACE 
 
 Mount Tacoma from Commencement Bay Frontispiece 
 
 Northern Pacific Offices, St. Pall 6 
 
 St. Paul, Minn 13 
 
 Minneapolis, Minn 20 
 
 Dulutii, Minn 33 
 
 Bonanza Wheat Farming — Plowing 46 
 
 Bonanza Wheat Farming — Seeding 51 
 
 Bonanza Wheat Farming — Harrowing 57 
 
 Bonanza W' heat Farming — Harvesting 69 
 
 Bismarck Bridge over the Missouri River 77 
 
 Buttes in Pyramid Park 85 
 
 Pyramid Park Scenery 88 
 
 Fagle Cliff, near Glendive, Mont 97 
 
 Buffalo Hunting in Eastern Montana 106 
 
 Current Ferry Over the Yellowstone River 1 19 
 
 Big Horn River, Bridge and Tunnel 125 
 
 Indian Camp on the Line of the N. P. R. R 133 
 
 Driving Cattle from the Range to the Railroad 141 
 
 Gates of the Mountains, near Livingston, Mont 147 
 
 Old Faithful Geyser, National Park 159 
 
 Giant Geyser, National Park 163 
 
 (Jreat Falls o) the Yellowstone, National Park 171 
 
 Upper Falls of the Yei.lowstone, National Park 177 
 
 Mammoth Hot Springs Terrace, National Park 1S5 
 
 Natural Bridge, National Park 190 
 
 Three Forks of the Missouri River 198 
 
 Gates of the Rocky Mountains, ni:ar Helena, Mont 204 
 
 Beaver Hill, Hell Gate (^anon, near Missoula, Mont 211 
 
 Marent Gulch Bridge, Coriacan Defile 219 
 
 Alice Falls, Mont 226 
 
 Cahinet Gorge, on the Clark's Fork River 233 
 
 Lake Pend d'Oreille, Idaho Territory 241 
 
 Lake C(i;ur d'Alene, Idaho Territory 245 
 
 Spokane Falls, Washington Territory 253 
 
 Along the Cliffs of the Columbia 261 
 
XXIV 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Cascapes of the Columbia River 273 
 
 Multnomah Falls on the Columbia 277 
 
 Castle Rock on the Columbia 293 
 
 Cape Horn on the Columbia 321 
 
 Pillars of Hercules and Rooster Rock 32S 
 
 Mount Hood from thh Columbia River 341 
 
 Portland. Oregon 351 
 
 Iron Mountain, Cow Creek Canon, Southern Oregon 361 
 
 Tacoma, Washington Territory 388 
 
 Seattle, Washington Territory 398 
 
 Distant View of Mount Tacoma 408 
 
 Glaciers of Mount Tacoma 422 
 
 Glaciers of Mount Tacoma 431 
 
 MAPS. 
 
 Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn 310 
 
 Lake Superior Termini of Northern Pacific Railroad •315 
 
 Portland, Oregon 370 
 
 PuGET Sound Ports and their Railway Connections 375 
 
 Profile of the N. P. R. R. from St. Paul and Lake Superior to 
 
 Puget Sound 381 
 
PAGE 
 
 ••• 273 
 
 •■• 277 
 
 ■ • •. 293 
 
 • • • 321 
 
 • .. 328 
 
 ••• 341 
 
 ••• 351 
 
 • • • 3(Ji 
 
 , . 388 
 
 ... 398 
 
 . . 408 
 
 . . 422 
 
 •• 431 
 
 TO 
 
 310 
 
 ■315 
 370 
 
 375 
 381 
 
 PART I. 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 i 
 
NC 
 
 EAl 
 
 Who First 
 Daniel ( 
 Jean Du 
 of the I 
 Carver's 
 for the S 
 tempt of 
 
 The ci 
 of Lake 
 solon Du 
 in the g 
 lately be( 
 adventur 
 son, read 
 before Di 
 went acr 
 to Mont 
 no journz 
 what the 
 tions. V 
 as the fin 
 traversed 
 French \ 
 River Ne 
 torn has i 
 
NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS IN THE NORTHWEST. 
 
 Who First Reached the Head of Lake Superior — Grosellier and Redisson — 
 Daniel Greysolon Du Luth — Meeting with Father Hennepin — Captain 
 Jean Du Luth and his Trading Post — Baron Lahontan's Travels — Opening 
 of the Fur Trade — Veranderie's Settlement on Red River — Jonathan 
 Carver's Expedition — Alexander Mackenzie's Explorations — The Search 
 for the Sources of the Mississippi — Expeditions of Long and Pike — At- 
 tempt of General Cass — Schoolcraft's Success. 
 
 The credit of being the first white man to visit the head 
 of Lake Superior was formerly claimed for Daniel Grey- 
 solon Du Luth, a French officer, but researches in Paris 
 in the government archives, the results of which have 
 lately been pu*- in print, show beyond question that two 
 adventurous French traders, named Grosellier and Redis- 
 son, reached the upper end of the lake twenty-one years 
 before Du Luth, and, pushing on up the St. L ais River, 
 went across the country to Millc Lacs. They returned 
 to Montreal, but, being ignorant men who had kept 
 no journals, no record was made of their discoveries save 
 what the Jesuit fathers took down from their conversa- 
 tions. We may therefore regard Grosellier and Redisson 
 as the first explorers of any portion of the region now 
 traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad. The early 
 French voyageurs gave the name of Grosellier to the 
 River Nemiscan, on which Fort Rupert stands, but cus- 
 tom has restored the Indian title. 
 
NORTHERtV PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 I 
 
 Du Luth left Quebec September ist, 1678, to continue 
 discoveries in the country west of Lake Superior. 
 Father Marquette had ahxady visited the lower end of 
 the great lake and the Jesuits had planted a mission on 
 its outlet at the Sault Ste. Marie. Du Luth left the head 
 of the lake in 1680, ascended the St. Louis, made the port- 
 age to Mille Lacs, and went down the St. Francis River. 
 On the St. Francis he met the expedition under Sieur 
 Dacan, with which was Father Hennepin, the Franciscan 
 friar, who got rather more credit than he deserved for 
 discovering the Upper Mississippi by publishing a book 
 of travels. In a later edition of Hennepin's book the 
 author falsely claimed to have descended the Mississippi 
 to its mouth. He seems to have acquired the art of lying- 
 after he returned to Europe and had read the exaggerated 
 and often fictitious narratives of trav' current at that 
 time. At all events his account of his journey to the 
 Upper Mississippi is truthful. 
 
 There was also a Captain Jean Du Luth, presumably a 
 brother and comrade of Daniel Greysolon Du Luth. This 
 Captain Jean built a trading post at the mouth of Pigeon 
 River, near the Grand Portage, and there is a tradition 
 that at one time in the course of his career as a trader he 
 put up a log cabin on Minnesota Point, where the present 
 town of Duluth stands. Whether the town was named 
 for Jean or Daniel is a question which the antiquarians 
 of the place must settle for themselves. 
 
 After Hennepin and the Du Luths came Le Sueur, in 
 1683, who explored the country thoroughly, opened trade 
 relations with the Sioux, then inhabiting it, and built a 
 fort on Lake Pepin in 1695. As early as 1687 a tolerably 
 correct map of the region immediately west and north of 
 Lake Superior was made by Franquelin, an expert to- 
 pographer sent out for the purpose. A copy of this map 
 may be seen in the New York State Library. 
 
> continue 
 Superior, 
 or end of 
 lission on 
 t the head 
 : the port- 
 cis River. 
 ider Sieur 
 "ranciscan 
 erved for 
 [g a book 
 book the 
 [ississippi 
 t of lying 
 aggerated 
 it at that 
 ey to the 
 
 umably a 
 th. This 
 Df Pigeon 
 tradition 
 trader he 
 ic present 
 IS named 
 iquarians 
 
 Sueur, in 
 led trade 
 d built a 
 tolerably 
 north of 
 [pert to- 
 this map 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 
 m 
 
 6 
 
 u 
 
 'o 
 
 CI 
 
 O 
 
 <U 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 B 
 rt 
 
 a 
 
 rt 
 u 
 
 MV< 
 
mW 
 
EARLY EXPLORATIONS IN THE NORTHWEST. 
 
 Something should also be said here of the travels of 
 Baron Lahontan, an adventurous Frenchman, who cam- 
 paigned against the Indians in the latter part of the 
 seventeenth century all along the shores of the Great 
 Lakes, from Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, to Mack- 
 inac. He was a good writer as well as a stout fighter, 
 an excellent raconteur, a sharp satirist, and an aggressive 
 rationalist, who might be classed with the Voltaire school 
 if he had not lived before Voltaire's time. Returning to 
 Europe after nearly twenty years' service in America, he 
 published at The Hague, in 1703, a curious book, partly 
 devoted to describing his journeys and adventures on the 
 frontier, and partly to reports of imaginary conversations 
 between an Indian philosopher and a pious Jesuit, on 
 the subject of religion, in which the gentle savage always 
 got the better of the argument. This book, with its 
 curiously distorted maps and its pictures of Indian life, 
 is regarded as a great treasure by collectors. In op.e of 
 its chapters Lahontan describes a journey from Mackinac, 
 in i66g, to Green Bay, and thence by the Fox River and 
 across the Portage to the Wisconsin, down the Wisconsin 
 to the Mississippi, and up the Mississippi to a river he 
 called Long River. He professed to have sailed up this 
 stream for a month, visiting numerous Indian towns, and 
 he made a map of it, on which it appears to be a mighty 
 river heading in high mountains somewhere out on the 
 plains of Dakota. It is an open question whether the 
 Baron ever went up the Mississippi at all, or whether he 
 actually entered the mouth of one of the Minnesota 
 streams, and drew on his imagination for the rest. From 
 the fact that the map, described as a copy of one drawn 
 on stag-skin by an Indian, shows a second large river 
 heading in the mountains and running westward, it may 
 be inferred that Lahontan got from the savages some 
 account of the Upper Missouri, the Rocky Mountains, 
 
 ;!•■.■ 
 •)!' 
 
 
8 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 and the Columbia River, and carelessly or purposely 
 confused a minor affluent of the Upper Mississippi with 
 the mighty stream heading in the dividing ridge of the 
 continent. Lahontan's book was translated into English 
 and republished in London. It attracted much atten- 
 tion, and for a long time confused the ideas of geographers 
 concerning the Northwest. 
 
 Not long afterward, the eager quest for the valuable 
 furs of the Northern regions of the American continent 
 led to the opening of a commercial route from the north- 
 ern shore of Lake Superior, by what was known as the 
 Grand Portage and by a chain of small lakes and rivers, 
 to the Lake of the Woods, Lake Winnipeg, and the Sas- 
 katchewan country. Regular trading posts were estab- 
 lished, and the Catholic missionaries, as daring and ener- 
 getic as the traders, carried tlie religion of France wher- 
 ever its flag went. The French Canadians and half-breeds 
 who traversed the northern wilderness to traffic with the 
 Indians for furs were called Courcurs du Boix. They 
 made regular journeys from Montreal to Lake Winnipeg 
 by way of the Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing and the 
 French River to the Georgian Bay on Lake Huron, and 
 thence by the St. Mary's River and Lake Superior and 
 the Grand Portage to their destination. When Canada 
 fell into the hands of Great Britain the Northwest Fur 
 Company was organized, and controlled the regions north 
 and west of Lake Superior by a system of posts and lines 
 of canoe travel for transporting merchandise and pel- 
 tries. 
 
 The first settlement on the Red River of the North was 
 made by a French officer named Veranderie, who ascended 
 the stream in 1728 and built a fort on its bank. Follow- 
 ing him came Legardeur de St. Pierre, who in 1750 
 visited the country between. Lake Superior and the Red 
 River and made treaties with the Indians. 
 
EARLY EXPLORATIONS IN THE NORTHWEST. 
 
 \ 
 
 The first English attempt to explore the country west 
 of the great lakes was that of Jonathan Carver, who 
 started from Connecticut in 1763 with the avowed inten- 
 tion of going across the continent to the Pacific. He 
 went as far as the Minnesota River, and, returning in 
 safety, printed an account of his travels — as was the fash- 
 ion of the time — which attracted considerable attention 
 in Europe. 
 
 The next notable explorer of the Northwest was the 
 Scotchman Alexander Mackenzie, who was the first 
 white man to cross the North American continent at a 
 higher latitude than the Spanish possessions in Mexico. 
 Mackenzie was in the service of the Northwest Fur Com- 
 pany. He started from Montreal in 1789, and reached 
 the Arctic Ocean at the mouth of the great river named 
 in his honor. Returning to FortChipewyan, on the Lake 
 of the Hills, where the company had a trading post, he 
 remained there until 1792, when he ascended the Peace 
 River to its source in the Rocky Mountains, crossed the 
 mountains and descended a small stream which puts into 
 a bay on the Pacific coast, just above Queen Charlotte's 
 Sound. 
 
 Mackenzie's account of his travels, published in 1801, 
 was accompanied by a good map, which is an excellent 
 index to the information then current about the geog- 
 raphy of the northwestern portions of the American 
 continent. The Hudson's Bay country, with the rivers 
 putting into the bay and the numerous lakes they drain, 
 was nearly as accurately mapped then as now, but the 
 whole region south of the British boundary, from the Red 
 River of the North to Puget Sound, was almost a blank. 
 The Missouri had been ascended by traders as far as the 
 mouth of Knife River, where the Mandan Indians had' 
 a village. Beyond that point nothing appears on the 
 map save the ridge of the Rocky Mountains and the 
 
10 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ! '! 
 
 course of the Columbia River as far as a ship could sail 
 up with the tide. 
 
 As late as the "-hird decade of the present century, 
 the sources of the Mississippi were sought by explorers 
 with much of the zeal and spirit of adventure which 
 characterized the search for the sources of the Nile. 
 The portion of Minnesota west of Lake Superior 
 and north of the present line of the Northern Pacific 
 Railroad is thickly dotted with small lakes, varying 
 greatly in size and shape and enveloped in pine forests. 
 In one of these lakes it was known would be found the 
 ultimate source of the great river, but it was a long time 
 before the right one was discovered. 
 
 In 1807, when Lewis and Clarke were crossing the con- 
 tinent, the United States Government commissioned 
 Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike to examine the sources of 
 the Mississippi. He went up to the Falls of St. Anthony 
 and followed the river to Leech Lake, where his party 
 was received with enthusiasm at a camp of trappers and 
 fur hunters from Canada. After visiting Red Cedar Lake 
 Pike returned to St. Louis, his journey having occupied 
 nine months. He subsequently ascended the Arkansas 
 Hiver to the mountains, and entering Spanish territory 
 was captured with his ragged and half-starved followers, 
 and escorted across Texas to Natchitoches in Louisiana. 
 One of the loftiest peaks of the Rocky Mountain chain 
 bears his name. 
 
 In 1820 General Cass, then Governor of Michigan Terri- 
 tory, took up the search for the source of the Mississippi, 
 and leaving Detroit witu twenty experienced woodsmen 
 and voyageurs procc-'.ded to the head of Lake Superior, 
 and crossed the forests to the Mississippi by the route of 
 the Canadian fur traders. Cass followed the river for 150 
 miles to Lake Winnipeg (not the large lake of the same 
 name in the British territory, it should be understood), 
 
EARLY EXPLORATIONS IN THE NORTHWEST. 
 
 I I 
 
 and going still further discovered and named Lake Cass. 
 Here his provisions were so nearly exhausted that he 
 deemed it prudent to return. 
 
 In 1828 the government sent Major Long witli an ex- 
 Ijcdition to explore the Upper Mississippi country. Long 
 had previously followed up the Platte to the Rocky 
 Mountains, and left his name on Long's Peak. He went 
 up the Mississippi from St. Louis to the mouth of the 
 St. Peter's River, and, making his way up that stream to 
 its source, crossed the country to Crooked Lake, Rainy 
 Lake, and the Lake of the Woods, and arrived at the 
 watershed from which the streams run northward to 
 Hudson's Bay. He then turned back, reached Lake 
 Superior, and returned east by the way of the Sault Ste. 
 Marie. 
 
 In 1832 another expedition was sent out by the gov- 
 ernment, under the command of Schoolcraft, the traveler 
 and student of Indian customs and languages. Leaving 
 the head of Lake Superior in June, he two months later 
 reached Lake Itaska, called by the French Lac de la 
 Bichc, which he determined to be the source of the Mis- 
 sissippi. Thus a region traversed by the French voya- 
 gcurs nearly two hundred yeais before was at last defi- 
 nitely known and mapped. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMIJIA RIVER AND PUGET 
 
 SOUND. 
 
 Tradition of the River of the West — Fictitious Spanisli Claim of Discovery 
 — Captain Gray and the Ship Columbia — Captain Kendrick's Discovery 
 — Vancouver's Mistake — Gray Sails into the Columbia River — His Log- 
 book Entry- Expedition of the ISritish Ilrii; Chatham — The Tale of the 
 Greek Pilot Juan de Fuca — Da Fonte's Pretended Discoveries — Van- 
 couver's Explorations — Puget Sound Mapped and Named — Voyages of 
 Lopez de Haro and Elisa. 
 
 A TRADITION carlv came across the continent from 
 tribe to tribe of Indians to the French and English 
 explorers and trappers, that a great river had its sources 
 in the Rocky Mountains near the headwaters of the Mis- 
 souri, and ran westward into the Pacific. The Spanish 
 missionaries and adventurers who established themselves 
 at Monterey and on the Bay of San P^rancisco in Cali- 
 fornia, heard the same reports. The unknown stream 
 was spoken of as the River of the West, but no white 
 man had seen its mouth, or any part of its course, or any 
 of its tributaries. The Spaniards, when they began to 
 push their explorations north of San Francisco, gave a 
 name to the great river without having found it, calling 
 it the San Roque. Indeed, after it had been found by i.n 
 American, they set up a claim to priority of dir.covery, 
 and asserted that in 1775 one of their corvettes, the San 
 Jago, commanded by Captain Don Bruno de Heuta, had 
 entered its mouth. The claim was not confirmed. Prob- 
 ably the Spanish captain put into one of the bays on the 
 Oregon coast, and thought the mysterious San Roque of 
 the Madrid map might flow into its head, but lacked the 
 
^"i^imif^tim 
 
 9B 
 
 D/SCOV 
 
 t 
 
 the Engl 
 \\ est co:u 
 
DISCOVER V or COL UMBIA RIVER AND PUGET SOUND. \ 3 
 
 ■\ 
 
 
 enterprise to sail up it and sec. In 1788 an English cap- 
 tain sailed straight past the mouth of the river, gave 
 Cape Disappointment its name, and reported that there 
 was no river there at all, but only an inlet, with a sand 
 spit blocking its entrance. 
 
 In 1789 two Boston trading ships came out to the 
 Northwest coast. One was the Washington, commanded 
 by Robert Gray, and the other the Columbia, com- 
 manded by John Kcndrick. Their object was to gather 
 furs from the Indians, ex .hange them in China for 
 teas and other commodities, and then return to Bos- 
 ton. This venturesome expedition was fitted out by six 
 merchants, Joseph Barrell, Samuel Brown, Charles Bul- 
 f.nch, John Derby, Crowcll Hatch, and J. M. Pintard, 
 and grew out of a talk about Captain Cook's voyages, 
 and what that famous navigator had written about the 
 fineness and beauty of the sea-otter skins found in abun- 
 dance on the Northwest coast, and the high price they 
 commanded in China. On the way to Nootka Sound, 
 then the resort of whaling vessels on the North Pacific 
 coast. Captain Gray thought he saw indications of the 
 mouth of a great river near latitude 46°. The two ships 
 wintered in the Sound, and the next spring Captain Gray 
 took the furs they had bought, and, loading the Colun'- 
 hiii-, -ailed to Ciiina, leaving Captain Kcndrick with tii 
 iVis//;' non to gather another cargo. Kcndrick demon- 
 s' ratr^l during his companion's long absence^ that Nootka 
 va;- :' I "bland, and not the mainland, by sailing donii the 
 Gulf ■ r G' c "gia and the Canal de Ilaro, to the Straits of 
 San Jui'.i de Fuca, and thence out to sea. The island 
 was soon after called Quadra, or Vancouver's Island, in 
 honor of both the commandants at Nootka, whose mas- 
 ter, the King of Spain, then claimed the country, and of 
 the English naval officer sent out to explore the North- 
 V est coast. Kendrick, in this voyage, passed the entrance 
 
 I !-■ 
 
■wwpn 
 
 «mmmm 
 
 14 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 DISCO VE 
 
 to the beautiful inland sea now known as Puget Sound. 
 He got no credit for the discovery, however, for" Van- 
 couver's maps and books, which soon after made the 
 region known to the world, made no mention of his 
 name. 
 
 Captain Gray, in the Columbia, arrived at Boston in 
 1790. He was the first American to carry the flag of the 
 young republic around the globe. The merchants lost 
 money on their venture, but they refitted the ship and 
 sent her back around the Horn. She arrived in 1791 in 
 Fuca*.-: Strait, and rejoined her consort, the Waslnngton. 
 In th. ' " ':r of 1792, Captain Gray sailed southward to 
 search i.. e river whose mouth he thought he saw in 
 1789. Cru jing down the coast, he met Captain Van- 
 couver's ship going northward. One of the British 
 officers came aboard the Columbia, and Gray spoke of his 
 belief that there ,vas a great river emptying into the Pacific 
 at about the 46th parallel. Vancouver gave no credit to 
 this idea. He had sailed by the supposed river in clear 
 weather and in broad daylight. It seemed absurd that a 
 Yankee skipper could discover a river which a British 
 exploring expedition had not been able to find. 
 
 The ships parted. Gray kept on to the southward. 
 He thought he knew river water from sea water, and was 
 sure he had seen signs of a river's mouth on his former 
 voyage in a bay he had passed. Flis persistence was 
 rewarded, and on the nth of May he passed safely over 
 the bar he had before observed, and beheld the great 
 mysterious, long-sought stream, stretching away to the 
 east. Like a good patriot he named the two points of 
 land at the entrance, Adams and Hancock, for the two 
 greatest Massachusetts statesmen of the time. Then he 
 came to anchor and wrote in his log-book : 
 
 "At four o'clock in the morning of the nth beheld 
 our desired port, bearing east-south-cast, distant six 
 
DISCO VER Y OF COL UMBTA RIVER AND f UGE T SO UND. \ 5 
 
 leagues. At eight A.M. bearing a little to the windward 
 of the entrance of the harbor ; bore away and ran in east- 
 north-east between the breakeis, having from five to seven 
 fathoms of water. When we were over the bar, we found 
 this to be a large river of fresh water, up which we 
 steered. Many canoes came alongside. At one P.M. 
 came to with the small bower in ten fathoms ; black and 
 white sand. The entrance between the bars bore west- 
 south-west, distant ten miles ; the north side of the river 
 distant a lialf mile from the ship; the south side of the 
 same, two and a half miles distant ; a village on the 
 north side of the river, west by north, distant three- 
 quarters of a mile. Vast numbeis of the natives came 
 alongside; people employed pumping the salt water out 
 of our water-casks, in order to fill with fresh, while the 
 ship floated in. So ends." 
 
 Little did Captain Gray know at the time how im- 
 portant this entry in his log-book, with its careful account 
 of distances and bearings, would become. It gave the 
 great river of the Pacific slope to the American Repub- 
 lic, determining in after years the claim of the United 
 States to its mouth, when the boundary line of the 
 Ihitish possessions on the northwest coast came to be 
 defined. 
 
 With a true sailor's love for his ship, Gray gave her 
 name, Columbia, to the river. The Indians called it 
 the Oregon, and for a time there was a struggle on the 
 maps between the old name and the new, but of late 
 years the strong, sonorous Indian term survives, as 
 applied to the stream, only in Bryant's poem of " Thana- 
 topsis." Gray remained in the river for ten days trafficking 
 for furs and salmon. He sailed up stream for fifteen miles, 
 and ran aground among the islands above Tongue 
 Point, but got off safely. Leaving the river's mouth on 
 the 20th of May, he ran up to Nootka Sound, the favor- 
 
^'ff^g9B TOfflt^ ' ' j ai^- '' -l Wtf»» W S» J )!l B lV^ 
 
 ii; 
 
 ■ (- ■ 
 
 i6 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ite harbo- for trading vessels, and reported his discovery 
 to the Spanish Commandante, Quadra. 
 
 In October of the same year one of Vancouver's vessels, 
 the brig Chathajn, commanded by Lieutenant Broughton, 
 was dispatched to the Columbia River from Puget 
 Sound, which the English and Spanish were both survey- 
 ing, both nations at that time claiming the region by right 
 of prior discovery. Broughton sailed up the river as far 
 as the site of the present town of Vancouver. In the con- 
 troversy which afterward arose between the British and 
 the American governments over the title to the Ore. 
 gon Territory, the British, not being able to disprove the 
 fact of Captain Gray's first entrance to the river's mouth, 
 denied that the Columbia was a river below Ton<rue 
 Voint, asserting that it was there an inlet or sound, and that 
 the real river had been first seen by Lieutenant Broughton. 
 Til!, p.v-posterous claim was overthrown by the log-book 
 of the Coliivihia and the testimony of Commandante 
 Quadra. Gray's memory is perpetuated by the name 
 of the little bay in which he first cast anchor and the 
 small river jutting into it, and also by the name of Gray's 
 Harbor, a large bay on the coast north of the Columbia. 
 
 Whether rightly or wrongly, the Greek pilot Juan de 
 Fucagets honor on the maps for the discovery of the 
 body of water generally known as Puget Sound. His 
 name is applied to the broad strait which, putting in 
 straight west from the ocean between the rocky coast 
 of Vancouver's Island on one side nnd the bold moun- 
 tains of the Olympian chain on the other, gives access to 
 the deep channels, spacious inlets, winding canals and 
 countless sheltered coves and green islands of the Sound. 
 Yet nobody knows to a certainty that the Greek ever 
 saw the strait. There is no evidence save his own asser- 
 tion, and whatever of truth he told was badly diluted 
 with lies. His real name was Caposiolus Valerianos de 
 
DISCO VER Y OF COL UMBIA RI VER A ND P UGE T SO UNO. j 7 
 
 Fuca, but when he entered the Spanish service, toward 
 the close of the sixteenth century, lie found it convenient 
 to adopt the familiar name of Juan ; or perhaps the Span- 
 ish officers, despairing of the pronunciation of his real 
 appellation, called him Juan, as Californians call all 
 Chinamen John. Being at Venice in 1596, De Fuca gave 
 to an Englishman, Michael Locke, an account of his 
 last voyage. He said that he was sent from Acapulco, 
 Mexico, in 1592, with a caraval and a pinnace, to find a 
 communication between the Pacific and the Atlantic ; that 
 he sailed northward, and between latitude 47° and 48° 
 perceived a large opening which might be a strait; 
 this he entered and sailed for twenty days. In some 
 places the land bore to the northeast and in some 
 to the northwest. He saw a great number of inhabi- 
 tants clad in the skins of beasts. The country seemed 
 fertile and abounded in gold, silver and pearls. He 
 continued his course and reached the Atlantic Ocean. 
 This tale was written down by Locke and sent to 
 England. It was discredited there, and with reason, and 
 was long regarded as a pure fiction, but in later times 
 it has been thought not improbable that De Fuca 
 really entered the strait which bears his name, and, 
 wishing to magnify the importance of his exploit, pre- 
 tended that it was the long-sought passage between the 
 two oceans. 
 
 Half a century later the Spanish Admiral Da Fonte 
 professed to have discovered in latitude 53° a large river 
 which he named Rio de las Reyes, and pretended to have 
 ascended to a great archipelago, and further to a mighty 
 waterfall and a big lake near Hudson's Bay, He, too, 
 was a liar, like most of the braggart crew of Spanish 
 voyagers of his time, but his story may have had the 
 foundation of fact of an actual entrance to Puget Sound. 
 
 Whatever truth there was, however, in the narrative of 
 
Ill 
 
 m 
 
 i8 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 r 
 
 the Greek pilot and the Spanish admiral, it is certain 
 that the world knew nothing definite about the strait or 
 the sound until Captain George Vancouver of the British 
 navy explored them in 1792. Vancouver, who had accom- 
 panied Captain Cook on his second and third voyages, 
 was sent out from England in 1791, with two vessels — 
 the Discovery and the ChatJiam — to explore the western 
 coast of America. He failed to find the Columbia River, 
 as we have seen in the last chapter, but sailed into the 
 strait on the 30th of April, 1792, and called it on his map 
 the "supposed Strait of Juan de Fuca." Later map- 
 makers omitted the word " supposed," and thus the name 
 of the lying Greek was perpetuated and permanently 
 attached to one of the most magnificent tidal channels of 
 the world. On some maps he is given the odor of sanc- 
 tity by having the prefix " San " to his name. 
 
 Vancouver anchored in Port Discovery, and while his 
 ships were being calked explored the sound with boats. 
 He distributed lavishly upon mountains, bays, inlets 
 and islands the names of his friends in England and of the 
 officers of his vessels. Even the midshipmen came in for 
 a share of these easy honors. Mount Rainier he named 
 after Rear Admiral Rainier, Mount Baker and Whidby's 
 Island after two of his lieutenants, Hood's Canal after the 
 Right Honorable Lord Hood, Port Townshend (it should 
 be spelled with an Jt) "in honor of the noble Marquis of 
 that name ;" Vashon's Lsland after his friend Captain 
 Vashon of the navy, Mount St. Helens after Lord St. 
 Helens, and soon. Lieutenant Puget's name was rightly 
 given to the crescent-shaped body of water at the south- 
 ern end of the beautiful inland sea — he having commanded 
 the boat which discovered it. The main entrance from 
 the strait was called Admiralty Inlet, and so it appears 
 on the maps to this day, but custom has long since 
 applied the name Puget Sound to the whole tidal estuary 
 
DISCO I 'ER y OF COL UMP ^A RI VER A iVD P UGE T SO UXD. \ 9 
 
 with all its ramifications. Returning to England, Van- 
 couver died in 1798, at the age of fo'-ty-onc. Tlie narrative 
 of his voyage was published by his brother John the same 
 year and dedicated to tiie King. 
 
 A few years before Vancouver explored the waters of 
 the sound, two Spanish navigators sailed through the 
 wide strait separating Vancouver's Island from the main- 
 land, starting from Nootka Sound, where their country 
 had a military post. In 1789 Lopez de Haro discovered 
 the archipelago and canal which bear his name, and in 
 1 791 Elisa sailed around the islands ana gave names to 
 San Juan and Lopez Islands and probably to Fidalgo, 
 lying south of the group, and to Rosario Strait. Neither 
 of these navigators brought back any knowledge of the 
 waters of Pugct Sound. 
 
 y\ 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE LEWIS AND CLARKE EXrEDITION. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson's EfTorts to Open a Route to the Pacific — Ledyard's At- 
 tempt liaflled — Captain Lewis' First I'loject — Congress I'rovides for an 
 Exploration — Character of Lewis — Captain William Clarke — The Expe- 
 dition Organized — Its Route, Adventures, and Arrival at the Mouth of 
 the C()iuml)ia. The Return Journey — Great Interest in the Results of 
 the Expedition. 
 
 To Thomas Jefferson belongs the honor of planning 
 and setting on foot the enterprise of exploring the in- 
 terior continental region on the line now followed by the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad. When in Paris as American 
 Envoy he made the acquaintance of John Ledyard, who 
 had accompanied Captain Cook on one of his voyages. 
 Jefferson proposed to Ledyard that he should cross 
 Russia to Kamtchatka, take passage in a Russian trad- 
 ing vess'"! to Nootka Sound, "fall down into the latitude 
 of the Missouri River, and penetrate to and through that 
 to the United States." Ledyard eagerly seized the idea, 
 and by Jefferson's assistance he obtained the protection 
 of the I'Lmpress Catharine, and started on his journey. 
 When two hundred miles from Kamtchatka he was 
 arrested by an officer of the Empress, who had changed 
 her mind after his departure, put into a close carriage, 
 and taken as a prisoner to Poland. When released, with 
 health broken by the hardships he had been subj'ectcd to, 
 he was glad to relinquish his project and leave the Rus- 
 sian territories. Subsequently he went to Africa and 
 died at Cairo. 
 
 Jefferson held fast to his idea of opening the interior oi 
 the continent by the route of the Missouri and the Co- 
 
s At- 
 br .111 
 £xpc- 
 ith of 
 ills of 
 
 ning 
 2 in- 
 ,' the 
 rlcan 
 who 
 ages, 
 cross 
 trad- 
 tudc 
 
 that 
 
 idea, 
 :tion 
 
 ney. 
 was 
 
 iged 
 
 lagc, ^ 
 
 with 
 
 d to, 
 
 Rus- 
 and 
 
 or oi 
 fcCo- 
 
 o 
 
 a. 
 
liimbia rl 
 
 Philosop] 
 
 compctci 
 
 direction 
 
 had he re 
 
 tain Mcri 
 
 family, w 
 
 urged J of 
 
 dition. J 
 
 go with 1: 
 
 cion and ] 
 
 a French 
 
 icana," or 
 
 tucky, wil 
 
 when ord 
 
 directing 
 
 Jcfferso 
 
 mcndatioi 
 
 sending ai 
 
 source, to 
 
 communic 
 
 Ocean." 
 
 two years i 
 
 cation to 
 
 President 
 
 sketch, wr 
 
 lished jour 
 
 thus desci 
 
 knowing 1 
 
 sessing a 
 
 nothing bu 
 
 careful as z 
 
 steady in t 
 
 mate with 
 
 habituated 
 
THE LEWIS AND CLARKE EXPEDITION. 
 
 21 
 
 lumbia rivers. In 1792 he proposed to the American 
 Philosophical Society a subscrintion to eiigai;c some 
 competent person to explore the region in an opposite 
 direction from that which Ledyard designed to take, 
 had he reached the American shore of the Pacific. Cap- 
 tain Meriwether Lewis, a young ofificer of good Virginia 
 family, whose uncle had married a sister of Washington, 
 urged Jefferson to obtain for him the charge of the expe- 
 dition. Jefferson thought only one companion should 
 go with him, because a larger party might excite suspi- 
 cion and hostility among the Indians. Andre Michaux, 
 a French botanist and author of \.\\q.^' Flora Borcalis Amer- 
 icana^' oifered his services and proceeded as far as Ken- 
 tucky, with the purpose of meeting Lewis at St. Louis, 
 when orders from the French Minister reached him 
 directing him to abandon the expedition. 
 
 Jefferson became President in 1801, an 1 o\\ his recom- 
 mendation Congress in 1 803 voted a sum of money " for 
 sending an exploring party to trace the Missouri to its 
 source, to cross the Highlands, and follow the best water 
 communication which offered thence to the Pacific 
 Ocean." Captain Lewis had then been with Jefferson 
 two years as his private secretary. He renewed his appli- 
 cation to have the direction of the expedition, and the 
 President readily granted the request. In a biographical 
 sketch, written by Jefferson and prefaced to the pub- 
 lished journal of the expedition, the character of Lewis is 
 thus described : " I had now had the opportunity of 
 knowing him intimately. Of courage undaunted, pos- 
 sessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which 
 nothing but impossibility could divert from its direction ; 
 careful as a father of those committed to his charge, yet 
 steady in the maintenance of order and discipline ; inti- 
 mate with the Indian character, customs, and principles; 
 habituated to the hunting life, guarded by exact observa- 
 
NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ■M 
 
 tions of the vegetable and animal life of his own country 
 against losing time in the description of objects already 
 possessed ; honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound under- 
 standing and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that what- 
 ever he should report would be as certain as if seen by 
 ourselves. With all these qualifications, as if selected and 
 implanted by nature in one body for this express pur- 
 pose, I could have no hesitation in confiding the enter- 
 prise to him." 
 
 Captain Lewis selected for the second officer of the 
 expedition his friend William Clarke, a Virginian by 
 birth, then living in Pcnnsj'lvania, and President Jefferson 
 commissioned him a captain in the army. The two 
 leaders were of about the same age, Lewis being thirty 
 and Clarke thirty-four at the time the expedition set out. 
 Lewis' choice proved fortunate in all respects. Clarke 
 was intelligent, courageous, persevering, and cool-headed. 
 Commanding on many occasions an advance guard of the 
 party, and returning with a detachment for nearly a thou- 
 sand miles by a different route from that pursued by his 
 chief, he displayed excellent judgment in his dealings 
 with the Indians, whose hostility might have destroyed 
 the expedition, great fortitude in enduring hardships, 
 and an enterprising spirit which surmounted all obstacles. 
 Indeed, it is difficult to say which of the two captains is 
 entitled to the larger credit, and history has rightly de- 
 clined to discriminate between them, and has coupled the 
 names of both with the great enterprise they conducted. 
 
 President Jefferson's intelligent interest in the expedi- 
 tion led him to prepare with his own hand a long and 
 careful letter of instructions. " The object of your mis- 
 sion," said Jefferson, in this letter, "is to explore the 
 Missouri River, and such principal stream as, by its 
 course and communication with the waters of the Pacific 
 Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado, or any 
 
THE LEWIS AND CLARKE EXPEDITION. 
 
 23 
 
 ^ 
 
 ■% 
 
 1 by 1 
 i and 
 pur- 
 nter- \ 
 
 
 ^J 
 
 Other river, may offer the most direct and practicable 
 water communication across the continent for the pur- 
 poses of commerce." How scanty was the knowledge of 
 the interior of the continent extant at the time is shown 
 by Jefferson's reference 'to the Columbia and Oregon as 
 separate streams instead of different names for the sam.e 
 river. The letter went on to instruct Captain Lewis to in- 
 form himself, while following up the Missouri, as to the 
 streams heading opposite its sources. He was also to learn 
 what he could about the most northern source of the Mis- 
 sissippi, and its position in relation to the Lake of the 
 Woods — knowledge, by the way, which he was not at all 
 likely to obtain, inasmuch as the route he was to pursue did 
 not at any point bring him within five hundred miles of 
 the head-waters of the Mississippi. He was to observe 
 the soil, the face of the country, the growth of vegetable 
 productions, the animals, minerals, climate, the Indian 
 tribes, their language, traditions, occupations, food, laws, 
 and articles of commerce. As a precaution against the 
 loss of the records of the expedition, he was directed, in 
 case he reached the Pacific, to send two trusty people 
 back by sea with copies of his notes. In case a return 
 by land seemed imminently dangerous, he was authorized 
 to come home with the whole party by cither Cape Horn 
 or the Cape of Good Hope. He was specially cautioned 
 to cultivate friendly relations with the Indian tribes ; 
 and was furnished with passports from the French, Span- 
 ish and English Ministers, for use in case he entered the 
 territories of their respective sovereigns. 
 
 At the time these instructions were made out the Mis- 
 sissippi River was the western boundary of the United 
 States. The territory beyond was owned by France and 
 was called by the general name of Louisiana. Spain had a 
 rival claim, however, to the country above the Arkansas 
 River, and maintained military posts at St. Louis and St. 
 
ffl 
 
 :lM 
 
 24 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 
 ' 1 '.v'' 
 
 \ 
 
 I ';:« 
 
 Genevieve. Negotiations were in progress at Paris for the 
 abolishment of the Spanish claim and the cession of 
 the French Trans-Mississippi territory to the United 
 States, and on July 1st, 1803, ten days after the letter of 
 instructions was signed by the President, news came that 
 the territory had actually been transferred April 30th. 
 Captain Lewis was thus able to carry to the Indian tribes 
 in the far interior the tidings that their " Great Father " 
 would thenceforth be the President of the United States 
 instead of the King of France. He left W'shington July 
 5th, and arrived at Cahokia, near St. >uis, too late 
 to organize his party and start up the Missouri that 
 season. 
 
 On the 14th of May, 1804, the expedition left camp in 
 a keel boat having a cabin, and two open canoes. The 
 party consisted, besides the two captains, of nine young 
 men from Kentucky, fourteen United States soldiers, 
 two French watermen, an interpreter and hunter and a 
 black servant. In addition, a corporal and six soldiers 
 were engaged to go as far as the Mandan towns and 
 assist in carrying stores and repelling attacks. Two 
 horses were led along the river bank for use in hunting. 
 Early in November the expedition went into winter quar- 
 ters on the eastern bank of the Missouri at a point about 
 fifty miles above the present town of Bismarck. The 
 journey was resumed April 7th, 1805, 'i"^ the mouth of 
 the Yellowstone was passed April 26th. Arriving early in 
 June at the mouth of the Marias River, the two chiefs 
 were in great doubt as to whether that stream or the one 
 it joined was the true Missouri. The party went up the 
 Marias for a short distance and then returned to its 
 mouth, while Captain Lewis made a reconnaissance up the 
 Missouri and solved the troublesome problem by discov- 
 '^ring on June 12th the Falls of the Missouri, which he 
 knev/ from Indian information were upon the main river. 
 
 T. 
 
 The boat; 
 constructs 
 courage, t 
 the 19th, a 
 of the rod 
 of twelve 
 
 Going c 
 were rowii 
 Captain C 
 25th. Wl 
 to which c 
 entitled to 
 was the lai 
 names. T 
 honor, as ] 
 of the Uni 
 to the mid 
 as a comp 
 State, and 
 honor of l 
 It is to be 
 not contir 
 son, which 
 crly to be 1 
 tributaries 
 
 The exp 
 as far as t! 
 going on in 
 came to a i 
 to the Pat 
 when an Ir 
 a small mo 
 roasted sal 
 and satisfie 
 I'acific. I] 
 
THE LEWIS AND CLARKE EXPEDITION. 
 
 2% 
 
 :\ 
 
 The boats were left below the falls and light canoes 
 constructed above. Proceeding on their way witli fresh 
 courage, the party passed the Gate of the IVIountains on 
 the TQth, and were profoundly impressed with the grandeur 
 of the rocky walls towering above the river to the licight 
 of twelve hundred feet. 
 
 Going on by land in advance of the expedition, who 
 were rowing and poling the canoes up the crooked river, 
 Captain Clarke reached the Forks of the Missouri on the 
 25th. When the main body came up a question arose as 
 to which of the three streams was the real Missouri and 
 entitled to the name. It was difficult to determine which 
 was the largest, and so it was decided to give them all new 
 names. The western fork was called Jefferson River, in 
 honor, as Lewis wrote in his journal, " of the President 
 of the United States and the projector of the enterprise;" 
 to the middle fork was given the name of Madison River, 
 as a compliment to James Madison, then Secretary of 
 State, and to the eastern fork that of Gallatin River, in 
 honor of Albert Gallatin, then Secretary of the Treasury. 
 It is to be regretted that the name of the Missouri was 
 not continued above the forks and applied to the Jeffer- 
 son, which, as the longest of the three streams, ought prop- 
 erly to be regarded as the main river, the other two being 
 tributaries only. 
 
 The expedition followed up the course of the Jefferson 
 as far as the canoes could be pushed. Captain Lewis 
 going on in advance crossed the divide on August 1 3th, and 
 came to a little stream whose waters he conjectured ran 
 to the Pacific Ocean. He was confirmed in his belief 
 when an Indian invited him into his bower and gave him 
 a small morsel of boiled antelope and a piece of fresh 
 roasted salmon. This was the first salmon he had seen, 
 and satisfied him that he was on waters flowing to the 
 Pacific. He had in fact reached one of the little moun- 
 
wmammnwuM 
 
 m 
 
 ■ii 
 
 :li:'l 
 
 26 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 1 :•':• 
 
 tain brooks running into the Salmon River in the present 
 Territory of Idaho. He returned to the boats, and the 
 expedition halted while Captain Clarke went ahead to 
 learn from the Shoshone Indians whether the river whose 
 head-waters Lewis had discovered afforded a practicable 
 route to the sea. He traveled three days, reached the 
 main stream and followed it for a day's journey, only 
 to become satisfied that it would not be safe for the 
 canoes, owing to the numerous rapids, hemmed in by 
 precipitous mountain walls, where there was no portage 
 for the canoes, and that a land passage across sandy 
 deserts and rocky wastes would be too hazardous to 
 undertake. He named the stream the Lewis River. 
 
 The expedition turned northward on Captain Clarke's 
 return. The canoes were left on the Jefferson, a " cache " 
 made of a portion of the supplies, and with horses pur- 
 chased from the Indians the party proceeded by land. 
 Captain Clarke discovered the head-waters of the Deer 
 Lodge River, which in its lower course now receives 
 successively the names of Hell Gate River, M'ssoula 
 River and Clarke's Fork of the Columbia. The Indians 
 told him that this stream ran into the Columbia, but dis- 
 suaded him from attempting to descend it with the expe- 
 dition, saying that they had never known any one to 
 go down it, and that when they visited their friends on 
 the Columbia they went directly west across the moun- 
 tains. So it was determined to push on o' cr the Bitter 
 Root Range of the Rocky Mountains. On September 
 1st the party reached the head-waters of Fish Creek, and 
 were over the divide ; but their provisions were exhausted 
 and no game could be fouiid. They were forced to live 
 for several days on horseflesh. The hospitable Nez 
 Pcrces relieved their wants and helped them to construct 
 canoes on the upper waters of the Kooskookie River, now 
 the Clearwater. They left their horses with the Indians, 
 
 Avno pro 
 
 launched 
 reached t 
 or Snake, 
 Agreeing 
 one whos 
 named it 
 On the m 
 the sout 
 " Lewis 
 " Clarke's 
 retained f 
 Lewis' h: 
 repulsive 
 Shoshone 
 
 It was 5 
 down to t 
 with the 
 floated wi 
 reached tl 
 around th( 
 passed th( 
 the mouth 
 of the ocei 
 ing view," 
 of all the I 
 the distani 
 
 The latt 
 cember we 
 bia and th 
 site for a 
 from the C 
 The winte 
 of moccas 
 return trip 
 
THE LEWIS AND CLARKE EXPEDITION. 
 
 27 
 
 f 
 
 
 Avho promised to take care of them until their return, 
 launched their boats on October 7th, and the next day- 
 reached the junction ofthc Clearwaicr with the Shoshone, 
 or Snake, at the site of the present town of Lewiston. 
 Agreeing that the principal stream was the same as the 
 one whose head-waters Captain Lewis had discovered, they 
 named it in his honor. The name did not adhere to it. 
 On the maps for fifty years afierthe expedition returned 
 the southern branch of the Columbia was called the 
 " Lewis Fork or Snake River," and the northern the 
 " Clarke's Fork or Flathead River." Clarke's name is still 
 retained for the stream whose sources he discovered, but 
 Lewis* has been dropped from recent maps and the 
 repulsive name Snake, which translates the Indian name 
 Shoshone, is alone used. 
 
 It was smooth work now for the expedition all the way 
 down to the mouth of the Columbia. The men trafficked 
 with the Indians for provisions, and the canoes rapidly 
 floated with the swift current. On October 17th they 
 reached the Columbia, on the 22d they carried their boats 
 around the Indian portage at the Dalles, on the 31st they 
 passed the Cascades, on November 6th they camped at 
 the mouth of Cowlitz River, and on the 7th came in sight 
 of the ocean, the goal of their long journey. " The cheer- 
 ing view," wrote Captain Lewis, " exhilarated the spirits 
 of all the party, Avho were still more delighted on hearing 
 the distant roar of the breakers." 
 
 The laficr part of November and the first week in De- 
 cember were spent in exploring the mouth of the Colum- 
 bia and the adjacent ocean shores. On December 8th a 
 site for a winter camp was selected about three miles 
 from the Columbia on a small stream called the Notch. 
 The winter was spent in hunting and in making a supply 
 of moccasins and dressed skin garments to wear on the 
 return trip. No ship visited the mouth of the river dur- 
 
i Mw» i »y»« 
 
 III 
 
 28 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ing their stay, but they got from the Indians the names 
 of a number of trading vessels, English and American, 
 which had called there during recent years. It was quite 
 uncertain when another would come, or whether when one 
 should arrive she would be bound for an American port. 
 So it was thought best for the expedition to keep together 
 and return by land, instead of a portion of it going home 
 by sea, as President Jefferson had intended. 
 
 On the 23d of March, 1806, the return journey was 
 begun. " The whole remaining stock of goods might al- 
 most have been tied in two handkerchiefs," wrote Lewis 
 in his journal. *' Our clothing had been replaced with 
 dressed skins, and we had three or four hundred pairs of 
 moccasins, but for trading we had only six blue robes, 
 one scarlet one, a coat, and a hat of artillery pattern, five 
 robes made of an old flag, and a few old clothes trimmed 
 with riband." The problem of subsistence was thus a 
 serious one. On the way out food had been readily pro- 
 cured from the Indians by bartering trinkets and cloth- 
 ing, and the same sort of exchange had secured horses 
 for the mountain journey. Now there was almost noth- 
 ing left to trade with. Fortunately a new resource was i 
 discovered. By the aid of some volatile liniment, a little | 
 eye water ond a few other simple remedies. Captain Clarke 
 established a reputation a? a great medicine man, and his 
 services were in request at every Indian village the expe- 
 dition came to, liberal payment being always tendered in 
 whatever kinds of provisions the country afforded. 
 
 On their way up the Columbia the mouth of the Will- 
 amette River was discovered. They had missed it when 
 they came down, because of the islands which hid it. 
 Captain Clarke ascended the Willamette for a day's journey, 
 and was so much impressed with its magnitude that he 
 thought it might water all the country south to the Gulf 
 of California. He called it the Multnomah, the name the 
 
THE LEWIS AND CLARKE EXPEDITION. 
 
 29 
 
 Indians gave it. The 4th of May found the party again 
 at the mouth of Snake River. They pushed on without 
 adventure to the Clearwater and up to Camas Prairie 
 (they called it Ouamash Prairie) ; the same fertile spot, 
 by the way, for which Chief Joseph and his Nez Perces 
 fought a few years ago. The faithful Indians restored 
 them their horses and guided them over the mountains. 
 They passed the main divide on the 26th of May in a 
 snow storm, and reached the Warm Springs, on Travel- 
 ers' Rest Creek on the 29th. 
 
 Itwasthen arranged that the expedition should divide. 
 Captain Lewis with nine men going to the Falls of the 
 Missouri and exploring the Marias River country, while 
 Captain Clarke with the remainder of the force went up 
 the Jefferson after the canoes and supplies left there. 
 Afterward Clarke was to take ten men, cross to the 
 Yellowstone, and descend that river,, the others joining 
 Lewis with the canoes at the Falls, and all meeting at the 
 mouth of the Yellowstone. This plan was successfully 
 carried out. Captain Lewis reached the falls July i6th, 
 having on the way the only hostile adventure of the 
 whole journey. He killed a Blackfoot Indian who was 
 stealing his horses. For fifty years afterward the re- 
 vengeful Blackfeet dated their hostility toward the 
 whites from this occurrence. On August 12th the two 
 parties met on the Missouri, below the mouth of the 
 Yellowstone. 
 
 Captain Clarke's party ascended the Deer Lodge, which 
 they called Clarke's River, crossed the Deer Lodge Pass, 
 and on July 8th found their canoes and their " cache" on 
 the Jefferson. On the 13th they reached the Forks of the 
 Missouri. A sergeant and nine men went on down the 
 river with the canoes, while Captain Clarke with ten men 
 and fifty horses started by land for the Yellowstone. 
 Going up the Gallatin River they crossed the Belt Moun- 
 
mmmmmmmm 
 
 30 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 tains fro-n its cast fork through what is now called Bozc- 
 man Pass, the route taken by the Northern Pacific Rail- 
 road, and nine miles from the top of the ridge reached 
 the Yellowstone. Passing Shields' River, which they 
 named for one of their men, they camped at the mouth 
 of Big Timber Creek to build canoes. The Crow Indians, 
 as thievishly disposed then as since, stole twenty-four of 
 their horses, and wolves and dogs made off with their dried 
 meat. On July 24th they embarked and came the same 
 day to the mouth of Clarke's Fork of the Yellowstone, 
 which they named. Pryor's River was named for a ser- 
 geant of the party. The names were perpetuated in these 
 instances, but in many cases besides that of the Lewis 
 River the appellations bestowed on the streams by the 
 expedition have passed into forgetfulncss. The river 
 now called the Palouse, which is the main northern tribu- 
 tary of Snake River, was called by them Urewyer's River 
 as a compliment to a brave and active sergeant of the 
 party, and many of the names on the map Lewis and 
 Clarke made on their return will be vainly sought for on 
 maps made in recent years. 
 
 The party camped on the 25th at the foot of the 
 picturesque butte which bears the name they gave it of 
 Pompey's Pillar, and Captain Clarke carved his name on 
 the steep rocky face fronting the river, where it is plainly 
 legible to this da)'. The mouth of the Big Horn was 
 passed on the 26th, Tongue River on the 28th, Buffalo 
 Shoal on the 30th, and on September 3d the party ar- 
 rived at the Missouri. On the way down the Yellowstone 
 great herds of elk were seen and immense droves of buf- 
 falo. At one time the canoes were detained for two 
 hours waiting .""or a buffalo army to ford the river. The 
 number of animals in this enormous moving mass could 
 not be computed. Bears were frequently seen, and wolves 
 abounded. Sergeant Pryor, who traveled by land with 
 
THE LEWIS AND CLARKE EXPEDITION: 
 
 31 
 
 two companions and the horses of the party, overtook 
 Clarke at the mouth of the river. The Indians had stolen 
 all the horses, and the men had made boats of twigs and 
 raw hide and safely descended the stream. 
 
 The mosquitoes were so troublesome at the mouth of 
 the Yellowstone, that Captain Clarke left a letter on a 
 pole to apprise Captain Lewis of his movements, and 
 proceeded down the Missouri. On September 12th 
 Lewis' boats overtook him, and the reunited expedition 
 made the best i^ime they could down the Missouri, eager 
 to reach home wiLh the tidings of their exploits and dis- 
 coveries. They arrived at St. Louis September 23d, fired a 
 salute, and went ashore. Speaking of their return, Jef- 
 ferson, in his biographical sketch of Captain Lewis, says: 
 "Never did a similar event create more joy in the United 
 States. The humblest citizens had taken a lively interest 
 in the issue of this journey, and looked forward with 
 impatience to the information it would furnish." Rumors 
 of the destruction of the expedition had been circulated, 
 and nothing had been heard from it since it left the Man- 
 dan towns in April, 1805. 
 
 Captain Lewis was rewarded with the Governorship of 
 Louisiana and later of the newly organized Territory of 
 Missouri, created by Congress, and embracing the north- 
 ern part of the Louisiana purchase, extending from the 
 Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, and Captain Clarke 
 was appointed General of the Militia and Agent for Indian 
 Affairs Afterward, on the death of Lewis, Clarke be- 
 came Governor of the Territory, and held the office seven 
 years. Lewis came to a sad end. He was subject to 
 attacks of hypochondria. His active life in the field, in 
 command of the expedition, relieved him for the time 
 from these fits of low spirits, which seemed to be consti- 
 tutional, but they returned when he was confined to the 
 office work of his governorship in St. Louis. In the fall of 
 
iRiniiiiiaivirw 
 
 ■ I!;; 
 
 ■;iif 
 
 Mini; 
 
 32 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 
 % 
 
 1809 he started for Washington to transact some business 
 with the government, designing to go also to Philadelphia 
 and superintend the publication of the journals of the 
 expedition. When he started he was under the influence 
 of one of these attacks of melancholia. A friend named 
 Xeeley went with him. They were two days' journey 
 beyond the Tennessee River, when the loss of two horses 
 compelled Nccley to halt. Lewis went on to the first 
 farm-house, and that night committed suicide. Clarke 
 died September i, 1838. 
 
 An imperfect account of the Lewis and Clarke Expe- 
 dition was published in New York in 1806, and reprinted 
 in London in 1809. A complete account prepared from 
 the journals of the two leaders, and edited by Paul Allen, 
 to which was prefixed the memoir by Jefferson, was pub- 
 lished in Philadelphia in 18 14, and in London the same 
 year. Other editions appeared shortly afterward in 
 London and Dublin. The book was reviewed by Robert 
 Southcy in the London Quarterly, and attracted great 
 attention in Europe. The last American edition was 
 published in New York in 1843. 
 
I'' 
 
 ■ ,'1 
 
llii 
 
 FUR 1 
 
 The Iludson'i 
 Councils at 
 Astor's Ent 
 Continent— 
 ville's Exp; 
 Vhg again 
 hinibia — Re 
 Indians — 11 
 crbocker M; 
 
 The grc.' 
 
 century aiK 
 
 important ] 
 
 Oldest of tl 
 
 in 1670, wl 
 
 Its trading 
 
 into that v 
 
 the Pacific 
 
 merchants, ^ 
 
 niorial riglit 
 
 and monopc 
 
 sent out frot 
 
 during the I 
 
 cargoes of m 
 
 furs accumu 
 
 natives. 
 
 In 1783 th 
 trade alone 
 iiij; the Prov 
 west Fur C( 
 corporation ; 
 3 
 
^ 
 
 CHAPTRR IV. 
 
 FUR TRADERS, TRAPPKKS AND >[ISSIONARIES. 
 
 The Hudson's Bay Company — The Northwest Fur Company — Annual 
 Councils at the (irand Portage — The Mackinac Company — John Jacob 
 Astor's Enterprise — Founding of Astoria — A Perilous March Across the 
 Continent — Hudson's Bay Company Posts and Trails — Captain Bonne- 
 ville's Expedition — Nathaniel J. Wyeth's Undertaking — The American 
 Flag again Planted in Oregon — Bonneville's Two Journeys to the Co- 
 lumbia — Rev. Samuel Parker's Travels — His Zeal for Converting the 
 Indians — His Prediction of a Pacific Railroad — Comments of the Knick- 
 erbocker Magazine. 
 
 The great fur companies which flourished in the last 
 century and the early part of the present, played an 
 important part in the exploration of the Northwest. 
 Oldest of these was the Hudson's Bay Company, formed 
 in 1670, whose base of operations was Hudson's Bay. 
 Its trading posts extended far up the rivers flowing 
 into that vast body of water, and ultimately reached 
 the Pacific coast. It was an organization of English 
 merchants, who obtained from the British Crown seig- 
 niorial rights over the whole region north of the Canadas, 
 and monopolized all trade with the Indians. Ships were 
 sent out from London every year, which entered the bay 
 during the brief season when it is free from ice, carrying 
 cargoes of merchandise to the posts, and taking back the 
 tins accumulated during the winter by barter with the 
 natives. 
 
 In 1783 the merchants of Canada engaged in a similar 
 trade along the great lakes and in the region now form.- 
 ing the Province of Manitoba, and organized the North- 
 west Fur Company, which in time became a powerful 
 corporation and the rival of the Hudson's Bay Company. 
 3 
 
34 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 The principal partners lived at Montreal or Quebec in 
 something like baronial rrrandeur. There were junior 
 partners and agents who lived at the Grand Portage, 
 on Lake Superior, and at the posts on Lake Winnipeg, 
 the Red River, the Saskatchewan, and other lakes 
 and water courses. Once every year a conference was 
 held at Fort William, near the Grand Portage, to which 
 the partners from Canada came in great state, richly 
 appareled, and with a retinue of cooks and servants, and 
 an abundance of wines and delicacies. '* Here," says 
 Irving in his Astoria, "in an immense wooden build- 
 ing, was the great council-hall, as also the banqueting 
 chamber, decorated with Indian arms and accoutre- 
 ments, and the trophies of the fur trade. The house 
 swarmed with traders and voyageurs, some from Mon- 
 treal bound to the interior posts ; some from the interior 
 posts bound to Montreal. The councils were held in 
 great state, for every member felt as if sitting in Parlia- 
 ment, and every retainer and dependent looked up to 
 the assemblage with awe, as to the Plouse of Lords. 
 There was a vast deal of sol''mn deliberation and hard 
 Scotch reasoning, with an occasional swell of pompous 
 declamation. 
 
 "These grave and weighty councils were alternated by 
 huge feasts and revels, like some of the old feasts de- 
 scribed in Highland castles. The tables in the great 
 banqueting room groaned under the weight of game of i I 
 all kinds ; of venison from the woods and fish from the 
 lakes, with hunters' delicacies, such as buffaloes' tongues 
 and beavers' tails, and various luxuries from Montreal, 
 all served up by experienced cooks brought for the pur- 
 pose. There was no stint of generous wine, for it was ;i 
 hard drinking period, a time of loyal toast? and baccha- 
 nalian songs and brimming bumpers. 
 
 " While the chiefi thus reveled in hall, and made tlic 
 
FUR TRADERS, TRAPPERS AND MISSIONARIES. 
 
 35 
 
 jtro- 
 ouse 
 /lon- 
 crior 
 d ill 
 .rlia- 
 p to 
 )rds. 
 luiid 
 
 DOUS 
 
 d by 
 dc- 
 rcat 
 
 He of 
 
 the 
 Igucs 
 real, 
 vill- 
 as a 
 cha- 
 
 th 
 
 iC 
 
 rafters resound with bursts of loyalty and old Scotch 
 songs, chanted in voices cracked and sharpened by the 
 northern blast, their merriment was echoed and pro- 
 longed by a mongrel legion of retainers — Canadian 
 voyageurs, half-breeds, Indian hunters, and vagabond 
 hangers-on, who feasted sumptuously without on the 
 crumbs that fell from the table and made the welkin 
 ring with old French ditties, mingled with Indian yelps 
 and yellings." 
 
 Pushing their posts steadily northward year by year, 
 the Northwest Company invaded the domain claimed by 
 the Hudson's Bay Company, A controversy arose be- 
 tween the two powerful organizations which lasted for ten 
 years, and was characterized by many acts of violence and 
 wrong. It was ended at last by the consolidation of the 
 two corporations under the name of the older one i- ^821. 
 
 I For a long time the Northwest Company conii. lied 
 
 ' the fur trade on the American side of the boundary west 
 of Lake Superior, as well as on the British side ; its influ- 
 ence extending as far west as the Red River of the North, 
 and embracing most of the territory within the limits of 
 
 I the present State of Minnesota. Another Canadian Com- 
 l)an}-, called the Mackinac Company, sent its canoes and 
 
 I pirogues by Green Bay, Fox River and the Missouri 
 River to the Mississippi. Congress finally interfered in 
 1816 to put a stop to the operations of these foreign com- 
 panies on American soil. 
 
 In 1807, John Jacob Astor, a German by birth, who 
 came to New York in 1784 to engage in the fur trade, 
 bought out the Mackinac Company and formed a new 
 association, called the American Fur Company, which 
 carried on the traffic in the Upper Mississippi country 
 and on Lake Superior. Encouraged by the action of 
 Congress shutting out foreigners from the trade, Mr. 
 Astor organized the Pacific Fur Company in 18 10, and 
 
36 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 dispatched two parties to establish a trading post at the 
 moutli of the Columbia River, one going by sea and one 
 by land. The sea expedition sailed from New York in 
 the ship Tonquin on the 8th of September, 1810, and on 
 the 22d of March, 181 1, arrived safely at its destination 
 and founded the town of Astoria. T.ic land expedition 
 encountered terrible hardships, and lost a number of its 
 men on the march across the continent by death from 
 famine and fatigue, or from accidents. Its leader was 
 Wilson P. Hunt, of Trenton, N. J., one of the part- 
 ners of the company, and associated with him were 
 Donald McKenzic, another of the partners, Ramsay 
 Crooks, John Day, a Virginia hunter, from whom the 
 John Day River in Oregon got its name, and a num- 
 ber of other hardy pioneers, American and Canadian. 
 The expedition was organized in Montreal in 1808, 
 where a force of Canadian vovagcurs was engaged. At 
 Mackinac, reached by the usual canoe and portage route 
 of the Ottawa River and Georgian Bay, the force was 
 reorganized. It crossed from Green Bay to the Mis- 
 sissippi by the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, and arrived at 
 St. Louis on the 3d of September. Winter was too close 
 at hand to make much progress that year, and the 
 party, filling three boats, only made 450 miles on their 
 way up the Missouri before going into winter quarters. 
 When the voyage was resumed in the spring of 1809 
 the party numbered sixty persons. The intention 
 was to follow closely the route of Lewis and Clarke, but 
 when near the liig IkMid of the Missouri, Mr. Hunt was 
 dissuaded from keeping on up the river by news of the 
 hostility of the Blackfeet Indians. So the expedition 
 abandoned its boats, and buying horses of the Sioux 
 Indians, set out overland. The Rocky Mountains were 
 crossed near the sources of the Big Horn and Wind 
 Rivers, and the head-waters of the Snake were reached 
 
FUR TRADERS, TRAPPERS AND MISSIONARIES. 37 
 
 in September. There the party found Mr. Henry, a 
 trapper for the Missouri Fur Company, who had been 
 driven from the Upper Missouri by the Blackfeet. 
 Canoes were built and the party floated down the 
 Snake for about five hundred miles, when they found 
 the river so encumbered with rocks and rapids, and so 
 hemmed in by precipices, that, after losing one canoe 
 with its occupants, they determined to pursue their way 
 on foot. Starvation soon threatened them, and they 
 divided into three parties for better chance of finding 
 subsistence by hunting or from bands of hospitable 
 Indians. After intense suffering in the deserts west of 
 Snake River, the survivors, including all the leaders 
 of the expedition, reached the Columbia, and follow- 
 ing its course arrived at Astoria. Hunt's expedition was 
 the second body of white men to cross the continent 
 between the Missouri and the Columbia. Its exploits 
 and privations were worthily put into literature by Wash- 
 ington Irving in his Astoria. Mr. Astor's fur-trading 
 enterprise on the Columbia ended disastrously. His 
 partners betrayed it to the Northwest Company and 
 sold its post at Astoria and another established on the 
 Upper Columbia to that corporation. The war of 181 2 
 began immediately afterward and British ships took 
 possession of Astoria in 18 14. The treaty of peace left 
 the question of the ownership of Oregon unsettled, and' 
 threw the country open for ten years to the joint occu- 
 pancy of the citizens and subjects of both the United 
 States and Great Britain. Mr. Astor did not renew his 
 efforts in that quarter, and the Columbia was added to 
 
 1 the domain of the Northwest Company and held by it 
 and its old rival and successor until American settlement 
 
 I tinally forced a decision of the boundary question, and 
 
 4 Captain Gray's log-book gave two future States to the 
 
 } (jreat Republic. 
 
38 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 The hardy French voyageurs in the employ of the 
 Northwest Company used to make regular trips across 
 the continent, starting from Vancouver on the Columbia, 
 the headquarters of the company on the Pacific coast, 
 early in April, threading the rivers and lakes, portag- 
 ing over the mountains and divides, and reachint; 
 Fort William on Lake Superior about the first of July, 
 Returning, they would be back on the Lower Columbia 
 by the end of October. With these courageous scouts 
 and skirm'shers of the army of commerce went the 
 Jesuil missionaries, making their homes among the Indian 
 tribes and setting up \heir altars in the forests and on 
 the verdant prairies and by the shores of half-known 
 lakes and rivers. The eastern limit of the region left 
 open to the joint occupancy of British subjects and 
 American citizens was not accurately defined, and the 
 excellent organization of the Hudson's Bay Company 
 enabled it practically to take possession of the whole 
 country between the Pacific coast and the sources of the 
 Missouri. From the headquarters of the company at 
 Vancouver, on the Lower Columbia, parties were sent 
 out to establish posts in the interior and to open s^^ations 
 among the Indians connected by trails, canoe routes 
 and portages. One important post was maintained 
 at Walla Walla, another at Fort Colville, another 
 on the Spokane River, another on the Koutenai 
 River. Log huts were built on the trails for the 
 shelter of carriers and trappers. These roadside inns 
 had no landlords. Every one was free to make use 
 of their accommodations, which consisted only of four 
 walls, a roof and a fire-place. In the meantime the Ameri- 
 can fur companies, whose headquarters were at St. Louis, 
 had established posts on the Upper Missouri and on the 
 Green River Valley, and carried on trapping and barter 
 for furs on the Eastern shores of the RockyMountains. 
 
 and made 
 
FUR TRADERS, TRAPPERS AND MISSIONAR/ES. 39 
 
 The next notable overland expedition which passed 
 over some portion of the route now traversed by the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad, and aideJ to make known to 
 the world the features of the Northwest, was that of 
 Captain Bonneville, whose adventures were graphically 
 described by Washington Irving. Bonneville was an 
 officer in the United States army, who, in 1832, got 
 leave of absence to organize a party of hunters and 
 trappers and cross the continent to the Columbia River. 
 The expedition had a commercial motive, being sup- 
 ported by a number of New York merchants, though 
 the object of its leader was rather travel and adven- 
 tui than profit. A force of no men was recruited, 
 mostly experienced frontiersmen, and the party set 
 off across the plains from Fort Osage, on th- Missouri 
 River, on May ist. Travejing with wagons instead of 
 with pack-horses, as all land expeditions which had 
 gone as far as the Rocky Mountains had done, Bonne- 
 ville followed the course of the Platte Jliver, and reached 
 the mountains late in July. Crossing the divide he 
 felt some degree of exultation in the thought that 
 his was the first party that had ever crossed north of 
 the settled provinces of Mexico from the waters of 
 the Atlantic to those of the Pacific in wagons. The 
 expedition established a fortified camp in Green River 
 Valley and sent out hunting parties. A detachment 
 was sent back to the States with furs by the route of 
 the Big Morn, Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, in boats 
 made by stretching buffalo hides over frames. With 
 this party returned Nathaniel J. Wyeth, who had come 
 out from St. Louis with Captain Sublette with supplies 
 for the Green River post of the Rocky Mountain Fur 
 Company. Wyeth was a Boston man of great enterprise 
 and sagacity, who afterward returned to the mountains 
 and made his way to the Columbia River. He was the 
 
 u 
 
40 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 first American after the failure of the Astoria experiment 
 to attempt a commercial enterprise in Oregon, and lo 
 rear the American flag in that region. He established a 
 trading post on Wappatoo Island, at the mouth of the 
 Willamette River, then called the Wallamut. This he 
 named Fort Williams, and intended it to be the head- 
 quarters for fur-trading operations in the interior and for 
 salmon-catching on the river. Wycth was the first man 
 to appreciate the value of the salmon of the Columbia 
 as an element of commerce. He designed to cure the 
 fish and ship them cast by sea vith his cargoes of 
 furs. His bold and patriotic enterpi-ise came to grief 
 from want of capital to carry it on, and he was forced 
 to sell his goods and buildings to the Hudson's Bay 
 Company. 
 
 Returning from this digression to Captain Bonneville, 
 we find him, after exploring the Big Horn and Wind 
 River Mountains and dispatching a detachment across 
 the desert to the Mexican post of Monterey, setting 
 off with a few men, in the spring of 1833. for tlie Colum- 
 bia. He followed the Salmon River, a route once sup- 
 posed to be the best for a line of railroad, and got safely 
 to the Hudson Bay Company's post at Walla Walla after 
 many perilous adventures. Offended at the want of hos- 
 pitality of the officers at the post, he started back at 
 once, and reached his camp on Green River before winter 
 set in. 
 
 The Monterey expedition went out for wool and 
 came back shorn. li reached its destination, but the 
 men became so enamored with the dissipated life of 
 the little Mexican town that they spent the proceeds 
 of the sale of all the furs they had obtained in gambling 
 and carousing, and returned the next season empty- 
 handed and half-starved to Bonneville's headquarters. 
 Captain Bonneville made a second journey to the Coluni- 
 
 ;,J 
 
FUR TRADERS, TRAPPERS AND MISSIONARIES. 41 
 
 at 
 iter 
 
 CIS. 
 
 nu- 
 
 bia in 1834, going by the Snake River route part of 
 the-Avay. Thence traversing the Grand Ronde and Wal- 
 lowa Valleys, and crossing the Blue Mountains, he went 
 down the Columbia as far as the mouth of the John Day 
 River. 
 
 Disappointed in his hopes of opening trade with the 
 Indians, who were under tlic influence of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company, and refused supplies at the Walla Walla 
 post. Captain Bonneville had to turn back to the mount- 
 ains, where game abounded, to avoid starvation. He 
 returned to the States in 1835, and resumed his military 
 duties. A town on the Columbia, at the foot of the Cas- 
 cades, bears his name. 
 
 Cotemporary with Bonneville and Wyeth as explorers 
 of the Northwest was the Rev. Samuel Parker, a Presby- 
 terian clergyman, who was sent out by a Presbyterian 
 Church in Ithaca, New York, to cross the continent to 
 Oregon, and report a plan for Christianizing the Indians 
 of the interior and the Pacific coast. 
 
 Mr, Parker, after graduating at Williams College, be- 
 came one of the best known of the liome misfiionaries in 
 Western New York, doing itinerant work in that region. 
 Suspending his work to study with the first class that left 
 Andovcr Seminary, he returned to his mission field, and 
 was pastor at Danby, N. Y., from 18 12 to 1826. While 
 there he married a niece of Noah Webster, the lexicogra- 
 pher, her father being a Lord, of the Lyme (Conn.) stock ; 
 and it was her intelligence and strong character that sec- 
 onded his resolute enterprise. His permanent home after- 
 ward was in Ithaca. 
 
 It was in 1833, while preaching in Middlefield, Mass., 
 that he read an account of the four Flathead Indians 
 who, the year before, came to St. Louis to inquire 
 about the white man's God and Bible, — one of the 
 most remr kable pilgrimages on record. Two of the 
 
42 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 four died in that city. The other two, in their fare- 
 well speech at the American Fur Company's quarters, 
 expressed their great disappointment that they had 
 only been entertained by gifts, shows, and religious 
 ceremonies, and had not found the Light and liook of 
 which they were in quest — a speech afterward repeated 
 by the one survivor to the Oregon missionaries. That 
 speech, overheard by a clerk of the Fur Company, was 
 described by him in a letter to friends, and so found its 
 way into print. 
 
 Mr. Parker read the story, and was fired with a desire 
 to carry his religion to these inquiring red men beyond 
 the great mountains of the West, although he had reached 
 the age of fifty-four. In 1833 he offered his services for 
 this purpose to the great missionary society of his de- 
 nomination, but met with no encouragement. Mean- 
 while he removed to Ithaca, and repeatedly urged his 
 offer to the same society, with no result The First 
 Presbyterian Church of Ithaca, however, listened to his 
 appeal, and resolved to undertake the whole expense. 
 He secured two helpers, prepared his outfit, and, under 
 the auspices of the American Board of Foreign Missions 
 and with a circular letter from the United States Secre- 
 tary of War, set forth, after a solemn fare .veil meeting at 
 the church. 
 
 By some misinformation, he was too late at St. Louis 
 for that year's Fur Company caravan, which, apparently 
 unknown to him, was accompanied by a Methodist mis- 
 sion under the Rev. Jason Lee — a mission that after- 
 ward did excellent work in helping on the Christian civili- 
 zation planted around it in the fertile Willamette Valley, 
 whither immigration in after years was directed by the 
 politic Hudson's Bay Company. Nothing daunted, Mr. 
 Parker placed his two companions as teachers among the 
 Pawnees, returned home, enlisted Dr. Marcus Whitman, 
 
FUR TRADERS, TRAPPERS AXD MISSIOA'ARIES. 43 
 
 found a missionary wife for the doctor, and set out again, 
 March 14th, 1835. 
 
 He joined the expedition of the American Fur Com- 
 pany, which left Liberty, Mo., in May, 1835, under 
 charge of Captain P'ontanelle, to take suppHes to the 
 trading posts in the Rocky Mountains. The caravan 
 proceeded by way of the Black Hills to the fort on 
 Green River, which was a rendezvous fr o or three 
 hundred hunters and trappers employed ■-; tnc com- 
 pany. There Dr. Whitman turned back, Mr. Parker 
 going on for five days further to the Salmon River 
 with a party of hunters under Captain Bridger. The 
 rest of the journey to Walla Walla he made with no 
 other companions than the kind and faithful Nez Perces 
 Indians inhabiting the country, and with no peril save 
 from wandering war parties of the always hostile 
 Blackfeet. From Walla Walla, Mr, Parker explored 
 the Palousc country and the Spokane country, and 
 visited P^ort Colville on the Upper Columbia, and then, 
 descending the river to Astoria, returned to the At- 
 lantic coast by sea. He wrote a book of travels, giv- 
 ing very faithful descriptions of the country he saw, 
 and interesting accounts of t' c manners and customs 
 of the Indian tribes, which had a large sale, and was 
 republished in London. The courage, zeal, and in- 
 telligence displayed by this enterprising missionary 
 deservedly placed him high on the roll of famous Ameri- 
 can travelers. One sentence in his book calls for 
 special mention here. He wrote in his journal, after 
 he had crossed the Rocky Mountains : " There would 
 be no difficulty in the way of constructing a railroad 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. There is 
 no greater difficulty in the whole distance than has 
 already been overcome in passing the Green Mount- 
 ains between Boston and Albany ; and probably the 
 
44 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 time may not be far distant when tours will be 
 made across the continent, as they have been made 
 to the Niagara Falls, to see Nature's wonders." Here, 
 then, was the first prophet of tho Pacific Railway. Mr. 
 Parker died in Ithaca, N. Y., in 1866, at the age of 
 eighty-seven. 
 
 In a review of Mr. Parker's exploring tour in the 
 Knickerbocker Magazine, June, 1838, Willis Gaylord 
 Clark thus eloquently described the great transforma- 
 tion in the far West, which, sooner than any one then 
 anticipated, has come to pass: "The work will yet be 
 accomplished ! Let the prediction be marked. This 
 great chain of communicat'on will yet be made, with 
 links of iron. The treasures of the earth in that wide 
 region arc not destined to be lost. The mountains of 
 coal, the vast meadow seas, the fields of salt, the mighty 
 forests, w-ith their trees two hundred and fifty feet in 
 height, the stores of magnesia, the crystallized lakes ot 
 valuable salts — these were not formed to be unem- 
 ployed and wasted. The reader is now living who will 
 make a railroad trip across this vast continent. The 
 granite mountain will melt before the hand of enterprise; 
 valleys will be raised, and the unwearying fire-steed 
 will spout his hot, white breath where silence has reigned 
 since the morning hymn of young creation was pealed 
 over mountain, flood and field. The mammoth's bone 
 and the bison's horn, buried for centuries, and long since 
 turned to stone, will be bared to the day by the laborers 
 of the 'Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company*; rocks 
 which stand now as on the night when Noah's deluge 
 first dried will heave beneath the action of ' villanous 
 saltpetre'; and where the prairie stretches away, 'like 
 the round ocean, girdled with the sky,' with its wood- 
 fringed streams, its flower-enameled turf, and its herds 
 of startled buffaloes, will sweep the long hissing train of 
 
rUK TRADERS. TRAPPERS AND MISSIONARIES. 45 
 
 c u's, crowded with passengers for the Pacific seaboard. 
 The very rcahns of chaos and old night will be invaded ; 
 while in the place of the roar of wild beasts, or howl 
 of wilder Indians, will be heard the lowing of herds, 
 the bleating of flocks ; the plough will cleave the 
 sods of ipany a rich valL-y ^ind fruitful hill, while 'from 
 many a dark bosom shall go up the pure prayer to the 
 Great Spirit.' " 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MARCUS WHITMAN S HEROIC RIDE. 
 
 Dr. Wliitman and l\cv. II. II. Spalding go to Oregon with tlicir Wives — 
 Sclieincs of the Hudson's I»ay Company to Secure Oregon for (ircal 
 Dritain — Wliitnian's l)aring Resolution — He Starts with A. L. l.ovejoy 
 for Washington — Perilous Winter Journey across t!ie . Mountains and 
 Plains — Whitman's Appearance at the State Department — Oregon Saved 
 to the United States — Whitman Leads the Missouri Emigration — His 
 Tragic Death. 
 
 Dr. Marcus Whitman, who, asv.cluivc seen, left Mr. 
 Parker in the Rocky ]\Iountains to return East, had no in- 
 tention of giving up the missionar)- work in Oregon to 
 which he had pledged himself. In 1836 he again started 
 for the Pacific coast, taking with him his bride, a daugh- 
 ter of Judge Prentiss, of Plattsburg, N. Y., and aLso the 
 Rev. II. H. Spalding and wife, and W. H. Gray, who 
 subsequently wrote a valuable history of Oregon. The two 
 ladies were the first American women to make the over- 
 land journey to the Pacific coast. They endurec" the fa- 
 tigues and privations of 3,500 miles of travel, mostly made 
 on horseback, with a courage and fortitude not surpassed 
 by any of the men in the part}'. The little expedition 
 joined the annual fur trading caravan which left the Mis- 
 ouri River and went as far as Fort Hall, in what is now 
 Southeastern Idaho, then the extreme western post of the 
 American Fur Company. From that point Dr. Whit- 
 man and his companions, resisting the advice of every- 
 body at the fort, started on with a wagon and got 
 safely through to the Columbia Valley. This achieve- 
 ment was of the greatest importance in its effect on the 
 subsequent emigration to Oregon, proving, as it did, that 
 
 i 
 
 3 
 
us 
 
 uc 
 
 )\V 
 
 ; ^ 
 
it was fea 
 
 liold gooi 
 
 prcviousl} 
 
 except to 
 
 Company. 
 
 In 183} 
 
 rived in i 
 
 Dr. Whit; 
 
 Walla; M 
 
 cm Idaho 
 
 Oregon, n 
 
 River — an 
 
 Perces coi 
 
 yond the 1 
 
 and book; 
 
 tliere wer 
 
 missionari 
 
 American 
 
 Tile c(Mi 
 
 time, praci 
 
 pany, who 
 
 treaty witl 
 
 as a mattei 
 
 Mudson's 
 
 their hold 1 
 
 American 
 
 soon be A 
 
 States, whi 
 
 for Great I 
 
 cific north' 
 
 son, the cl 
 
 arrangeme: 
 
 lies of En 
 
 the Red I 
 
 Manitoba,! 
 
MARCUS WHITMAN'S HEROIC RIDE. 
 
 47 
 
 it was feasible to take families with wagons and house- 
 hold goods through to that remote region, which had 
 previously been supposed to be worthless and inaccessible, 
 except to the hunters and trappers of the Hudson's Bay 
 Company. 
 
 In 1838 more missionaries of the American Board ar- 
 rived in Oregon, and there were now three stations — 
 Dr. Whitman's, twenty-five miles east of Fort Walla 
 Walla ; Mr. Spalding's, on the Clearwater, now in North- 
 c;n Idaho ; Messrs. Eells and Walk.;i's, in Northeastern 
 Oregon, now Washington Teriitoiy, near the Spokane 
 River — and the following year a fourth station, in the Nez 
 Perces country, in which year the first printing-press be- 
 yond the mountains was set up, at the Spalding Mission, 
 and books in the Indian languages printed. In 1840 
 there were in all nineteen clerical and thirteen lay 
 missionaries from the United States, and as many more 
 American settlers with their families. 
 
 The control of the whole Oregon country was, at this 
 time, practically in the hands of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany, who occupied it with their trading posts under the 
 treaty with Great Britain, which left its ownershii) open 
 as a matter for future determination. The agents of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, naturally desirous of retaining 
 their hold upon the region, were exceedinglyjealous of the 
 American misr.ioi; ries, fearing that their arrival would 
 soon be followed by an extensive emigration from the 
 States, wh"' \\ would put an end to their plan of securing 
 for Great Britain the possession of the whole of the Pa- 
 cific northwest. To carry out this plan, Governor Simp- 
 son, the chief executive officer of the Company, made 
 arrangements in 1842 for the transfer of some forty f.imi- 
 lies of English, Scotch, and Canadian half-breeds from 
 the Reil River, or Selkirk, settlement, in what is ?\ow 
 Manitoba, to the Puget Sound district. T .is large party 
 
 \ 
 
48 
 
 NORTHER!^ PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 of emigrants started across the northern plains in the 
 spring of 1842, guided and protected by the Compan\-. 
 They reached their destination, but many of them re- 
 fused to remain in the Puget Sound region and made 
 their way to the Willamette and Tualatin districts. 
 Shortly afterward the Hudson's Bay Company began 
 fortifying Fort Vancouver, and a British war ship was 
 stationed in the Columbia River. 
 
 These measures caused great anxiety among the few 
 American settlers, who had no thought when they made 
 the perilous journey to the Pacific coast that they were 
 putting themselves in the way of becoming subjects of 
 Great Britain. Apparently their own government had 
 forgotten them and was ready to yield to the pressure of 
 diplomacy at Washington and turn their country over to 
 the permanent rule of the English crown. The heart of 
 Dr. Marcus Whitman was greatly moved by this con- 
 dition of affairs, and he determined to go to Washington 
 and present the claims of the Oregon settlers to the 
 President and Secretary of State. Winter was close at 
 hand, and the chances were all against his safely getting 
 across the snow-covered mountains and frozen plains of 
 the vast interior, but he did not hesitate. He communi- 
 cated his project to one friend, A. L. Lovejoy, who, with 
 a devotion equal to his own, offered to be his compan- 
 ion. These two men left the missionary station of Wail- 
 atpu, on October 3, 1842, with no supplies save what 
 they could carry on their saddles. After leaving Fort 
 Hall they met with terribly severe weather, and snow 
 greatl)' retarded their progress ; often they were obliged 
 to take shelter for days in dee}) ravines on account of the 
 bliiuling fury of the storm. They bore off to the south 
 in order to cross the mountains in a milder climate, ami 
 
 reached (irand River, which was froze 
 
 n on ci 
 
 th 
 
 er side i-i 
 
 about one-third across. They forced their horses into the 
 
MARCUS WHITMAN'S HEROIC RIDE. 
 
 49 
 
 I 
 
 icy current and safely reached the other shore. After thirty 
 days' travelinjT they arrived at Taos, New Mexico, having 
 subsisted r.ainly on the flesh of such animals as they 
 could kill. Resting at Taos a few days and changing 
 their jaded horses they set off for Bent's Fort, on the head- 
 waters of the Arkansas, where they arrived on January 3, 
 1843. Mr. Lovejoy remained at the fort and Dr. Whitman 
 pushed on to Washington by way of St. Louis, taking 
 care to spread the news through the frontier settlements 
 of Missouri that Oregon was in danger of being wrested 
 from the American Union, and that he would return the 
 next spring to lead a party of emigrants across the plains 
 for its rescue. 
 
 A few weeks later an awkward, tall, sparc-visaged, 
 weather-beaten man, dressed in a blanket coat and buck- 
 skin trousers, which showed by many scorched spots that 
 the wearer had been compelled to lie down close by camp 
 fires to keep himself from freezing to death, walked into 
 the State Department in Washington. This man was Dr. 
 Whitman, the heroof the winter ride across the continent. 
 His hands and ears were frost-bitten, and he had es- 
 caped death by what seemed to his j)iousmind a special 
 interposition of Providence. He had reached his goal, 
 however, and Oregon was saved to the American Rrpublic. 
 The representations of a man of such courage iind self- 
 sacrificing patriotism made a jirofound impression on the 
 minds of President Tyler and Daniel Webster, his Secre- 
 tary of State. Tlie government changed its attitude in 
 the negotiations relating to the Pacific coast, and the 
 treaty soon afterward made with Great Britain confirmed 
 to the United States all the territory now embraced in 
 llie State of Oregon and the future State of \\ ashington. 
 The following spring Dr. Whitman left Independence, 
 Mo., on his return to Oregon, accompanied by a large 
 emigrant train of adventurous frontiers-men and their 
 
50 
 
 NORTHER!^ PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 families, protected by a military escort furnished by the 
 government. They traveled in wagons and arrived 
 without serious mishap in the Willamette Valley. 
 
 This true hero, whose exploits, had they occurred in a 
 less prosaic age, would have been the theme of song and 
 story, met with a tragic fate. He was murdered in 1847 
 by the very Indians to whom he had faithfully ministered 
 as a physician and a Christian teacher, instigated, it was 
 alleged at the time, by the hostility of the Jesuits toward 
 all Protestant missionaries. A monument of Whitman 
 and a county, town and college named after him show 
 the appreciation in which his memory is held by the 
 people of the Columbia Valley. He was born at Rush- 
 ville, N. Y., in 18 10 and was practicing medicine at 
 Wheeler in that State when enlisted as a missionary by 
 Samuel Parker. 
 
the 
 /cd 
 
 n ;i 
 md 
 
 red 
 i^as 
 xrd 
 lan 
 o\v 
 :hc 
 sh- 
 at 
 by 
 
TIIF 
 
 Karly Argumc 
 Bancrofi 1 
 Now York 
 criimeiit U 
 
 Ir \VOlll( 
 person t(i 
 railroad to 
 to iiKiny til 
 of the first 
 wTiS great 
 mode of tr 
 the saiigu 
 would coir 
 continent ' 
 credit for 
 but credit 
 advocated 
 immediate 
 and advani 
 Samuel B, 
 in Crranvil 
 eminiMit ^ 
 as 1834 to 
 the [^runera 
 a railroad f 
 l)ia River. 
 and Ills ne' 
 ^ear.s. He 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE FIRST ]'A(T|-I(: RAILROAD ADVOCATK. 
 
 Early Arguments in Favor of a Railroatl to tlic Tacific Coa^t — Dr. Samuel 
 Bancroft Barlow's Newspaper Articles — A Scheme for a Railroad from 
 New York to the Mouth of tin; (Columbia — Estimated Cost — The Gov- 
 cniniont Urged to Undertake the Work — Kfiecl on East India Trade. 
 
 I r woukl be impossible to ascertain who was tb.e first 
 person to sugj^est tlve practicability or desirability of a 
 railroad to the Pacific coast. Xo doubt tlie idea occurred 
 to many thoui^dUful people about the time of the buikling 
 of the first railroads in the .Atlantic coast States. There 
 \v.;i threat enthusiasm then over the success of the new 
 mode of transportation, and it would only be natural for 
 the san<^uine and enterprising to predict that the day 
 would come, sooner or later, when tlic two shores of the 
 continent would b-: joined by the iron rail. No special 
 credit for foresi;^ht would attach to such a prediction, 
 but credit is certainly due to the man who first publicly 
 advocated a Pacific railroad as a scheme which should be 
 immediately carried out, and carefully estimated the cost 
 and advantages. That man is believed to have been Dr. 
 Samuel l^ancroft Ikxrlow, a practicing physician living 
 in (iranville, Mass., father of S. L. M. l^arlow, now an 
 eminent New York lawyer. Dr. Rarlow began as early 
 a^ 1834 to write articles for the newspapers in favor of 
 the general government undertaking the construction of 
 a railroad from New York city to the mouth of the Colum- 
 bia River. He kept up his active interest in the subject, 
 and his newspaper contributions were continuei! for many 
 > ears. He died iniS/C. Among his papers was found, after 
 
 51 
 
52 
 
 NORTHER X PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 liis death, an article published iu the Intelligencer, a 
 weekly journal printed in Wcstficld, Mass. The exact 
 date of its appearance cannot be ascertained, but the 
 reference it contains to Michigan as a Territory, shows 
 that it was written prior to 1837, the year when that 
 State was admitted to the Union, and the statement that 
 " two or three years more will suffice to extinguish the 
 public debt," fixes its date as before 1835, when the Fed- 
 eral debt was wholly paid. Evidently the article was 
 written as early as 1834, and perhaps in 1833, '^^^^ t''<-' 
 articles in a Michigan paper to which it refers are sup- 
 posed to have been called out by others previously 
 written by him. The article in question is as follows: 
 
 " I'or the Intelligencer. 
 " Mr. Editor: 
 
 " An able writer in the Emigrant, a paper published 
 in Washtenaw Co., Michigan Territory, in a series of num- 
 bers, of which it has fallen to my lot to see only the first, 
 is endeavoring to draw the attention of the public to the 
 scheme of uniting the City of New York and the mouth 
 of the Columbia (Oregon) River, on the Pacific Ocean in 
 about 46 degrees N. Lat., by a railroad, and also 
 endeavoring by facts and arguments to prove the utility 
 and practicability of the project. 
 
 "The writer assumes that the length of the road would 
 be about 3,000 miles, which would be near the truth ; the 
 average cost of the road $10,000 per mile, which I believe 
 would be more than the average cost for constructing it 
 through such parts of the country as are fully settled ; 
 but when we come to the limits of settlement at the West, 
 and go on to push forwanl such a work beyond the 
 limits (I would say the extreme limits), of settlement it 
 is to be presumed, indeed it is certain, the construction 
 of a good railroad cannot be accomplished for $10,000 
 
THE FIRST PACIFIC RAILROAD ADVOCATE. 
 
 53 
 
 per mile. Three thousand miles at an average cost 
 of $10,000 per mile gives as a total cost thirty mill- 
 ions of dollars ($30,000,000), a sum by no means 
 inconsiderable, but yet a sum which the United States 
 can pay in six years or even in three years without 
 over feeling it. Indeed, were the expense the only obsta- 
 cle in the way of its accomplishment, and were the 
 United States to engage in it, three years' time would be 
 ampl}' sufficient, if not to perform the whole work, yet 
 to pay the whole thirty millions of money. 
 
 " If I am not mistaken, our government (thanks to the 
 wisdom which guides it) pays on an average, of the pub- 
 lic debt (National debt) twelve or thirteen millions of 
 dollars annually, and it is calculated that two or three years 
 will suffice to extinguish that debt. 
 
 " Now, Mr. I-lditor, I have a method to propose by which 
 this work can be accomplished by our general govern- 
 ment at the expense of the Union, and that, too, by a way 
 in which the people of a widely extended, rich, prosperous 
 and happy country would never feel one cent the poorer. 
 It is simply this : Let preliminary measures be taken for 
 three years to come, such as making examinations, sur- 
 veys, levels, estimates, &c., &c., at the end of which time, 
 the public debt being paid, the National Treasury over- 
 flowing (I would premise also that the present duties 
 and taxes, indeed every source of revenue, be continued 
 at their present rates) then let the work proceed with all 
 possible and prudent speed and vigor, to a speedy and 
 perfect completion, and let six, eight, ten, twelve or fif- 
 teen millions of dollars of the public money be appro- 
 priated to defray the expense annually until it is finished. 
 What a glorious undertaking for the United States! The 
 greatest public work, I mean the greatest in its ends and 
 utilities that mortal man has ever yet accomplished; a 
 work in its extent, and in the difficulty of accomplishment, 
 
54 
 
 NORTHER X PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 only to be measured by the enterprise of Americans and 
 by their ability to perform it. 
 
 "There is not the least doubt, sir, of the entire prac- 
 ticability of the undertaking, nor is there in our whole 
 countr)', sir, a well-informed man who will not at once, 
 on a fair examination of the plan and of the stupendous 
 results and benefits which would flow to our countr\', to 
 our whole country, from the operation of the road when 
 completed, concede that the road, in the effects it will 
 produce, in the beneficial results which it will procure to 
 our commercial and manufacturing^ interests, and in fine, 
 to every one of the great enriching interests of the countr\-, 
 will ultimately a thousand times pay for itself and be ;i 
 source of almost countless revenue to the Country. 
 
 "To state but two or three particulars: ;\t the very 
 moderate rate often miles an hour, a man would go from 
 New York to the Columbia River in twelve days aiul 
 a half; con:;equently he might go there, transact busi- 
 ness, visit friends, examine the country and be in New- 
 York again in one month. Time and space would seem 
 to be annihilated. It would be the great thoroughfare 
 for emigration and the transportation of merchandise of 
 every description. The ports of New York on the Atlan- 
 tic and of Astoria on the Pacific would seem to be brought 
 together as neighbors ; the rates of transportation 
 would be low and yet profitable ; the settlement of the 
 great West would proceed with unwonted pace ; the East 
 and the West and finally every section of the country 
 would be bound together by stronger ties of common 
 interest ; the rich furs and other noble products of the 
 North and West would find a ready passage to the con- 
 sumers in the Atlantic States, while the products of 
 Eastern manufacture would find in equally ready way to 
 their ever welcome destination at the cabins of our 
 brethren of the West. Again, it would change almost at 
 
THE FIRST PACIFIC RAILROAD ADVOCATE. 
 
 55 
 
 once the mode of East India voyages. Tlic ports and 
 Islands of the East Indies would lie almost at our doors. 
 Our merchants then, instead of tedious and unhealthy 
 voyages to the Indies by the way of the Cape of Good Hope 
 and St. Helena, in a latitude where disease and tempest 
 alike conspire to render a voyage anything but safe or de- 
 sirable, would make that voyage by the way of the Rocky 
 [Mountains and the mouth of the Oregon. From the 
 mouth of the Oregon to the trading ports of the East 
 Iiniies would be, as I suppose, from five to seven thousand 
 miles, and that, too, a good part of the way in a latitude 
 where the weather would be temperate, the air healthful 
 ami not surcharged with the elements of disease and 
 death. 
 
 " The general course of the road from New York 
 would be to the south shore of Lake Erie, and along 
 the south shore of that lake. This project, visionary, 
 chimerical, yea more than Quixotic, as it may now seem, 
 will be accomplished, so sure as our nation goes on in 
 the march of greatness and improvement for some few 
 years to come, as it has done for twenty years past. It 
 will be accomplished, for the wants and exigencies of the 
 country will rec[uire it and most imperiously demand it. 
 Since the completion of the Eric Canal, Americans seem 
 to think, examine and judge for themselves what their 
 wants are in the matter of canals and railroads, and to 
 know that their wants can be supplied. 
 
 " My feeble pen would fail me to expatiate on the sub- 
 stantial time-enduring glory which would redound to our 
 nation, should it engage in this stupendous undertaking. 
 The work itself would be a monument of a country's 
 ^ML-atness, both in design and in execution — a monument 
 not like the mighty Pyramids — useless; but a monument 
 w hose usefulness would be attested in the innumerable 
 blessings, and the more than countless riches which it 
 
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56 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 would pour upon our happy Republic. The v ork will be 
 done, and should you, sir, and I live to the good age of 
 sixty years, we shall live to see it accomplished, and to 
 see a faint prospect of the riches and the glory which it 
 will ultimately confer on a great and magnanimous peo- 
 ple. Happy shall be he whose lot it maybe to live in the 
 time of the completion of this grand scheme, and thrice 
 happy he whose good destiny it shall be to preside over 
 this great nation, and under whose auspices a work of 
 such mighty moment shall be begun and carried to its 
 completion." 
 
 Thus it appears that while Samuel Parker, the daring 
 missionary, was writing in the heart of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains that there would be no difficulty in the way of con- 
 structing a railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, 
 and actually predicting the opening of such a line, Dr. 
 Barlow in his retired home in a Massachusetts village was 
 writing articles in the newspapers urging Congress to 
 undertake the immediate building of the road. Perhaps 
 there were earlier advocates of a Pacific Railway than 
 Dr. Barlow, but, if so, the author of this volume has not 
 been able to identify them, and therefore accords to him 
 the first place. It will be observed that the northern 
 route was the only one contemplcted by Barlow. The 
 valley route by way of the Missouri and Columbia 
 rivers seemed to him, as to the writers on the subject 
 who followed him, the route marked out by nature. 
 

wmamaamamKimmfimamm 
 
 Whitney's 1 
 to Cliin: 
 of the O 
 fiom St 
 Rcccptii 
 cessful I 
 Convent 
 and Dr. 
 
 Asa \^ 
 
 projector 
 
 fact, the 
 
 and to ut 
 
 seen, in t 
 
 the quest 
 
 did not b 
 
 Possibly ] 
 
 Western '. 
 
 but it is r 
 
 ligently p 
 
 that of a { 
 
 bia by Dr 
 
 railway c 
 
 lowed hi 
 
 seen the f 
 
 its champ 
 
 the same i 
 
 Whitnc 
 
 where he : 
 
 with the ( 
 
 and careft 
 
 the points 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ASA Whitney's project. 
 
 Whitney's Early Career — lie Ascends the Missouri — Study of a Short Route 
 to China — His Scheme fi)r a Railroad from Lake Michii^an to the Mouth 
 of the Columbia — Efforts in Washington — Favorable Resolutions Secured 
 from State Legislatures — Whitney Mobbed in New York — A Friendly 
 Reception in Philadelphia — Whitney's Bill Defeated — Another Unsuc- 
 cessful Effort in 1849 — Whitney Dies Poor — The Chicago and St. Louis 
 Conventions of 1849 — George Wilkes' project — Plans of J. Loughborougli 
 and Dr. Ilartwell Carver. 
 
 AsA Whitney has generally been rcgprdcd as the first 
 projector of a railway to the Pacific coast. He was, in 
 fact, the first man to put the idea into practical shape, 
 and to urge it upon the attention of Congress. We have 
 seen, in the previous chapter, that -Dr. Barlow discussed 
 the question in the newspapers as early as 1834. Whitney 
 did not begin his movement until about ten years later. 
 Possibly he had never heard of the village physician of 
 "\ycstcrn Massachusetts and his articles in the newspapers, 
 but it is more than probable that a great idea so intel- 
 ligently presented and so assiduously advocated as was 
 tliat of a government railroad to the mouth of the Colum- 
 bia by Dr. Barlow, did not die out in the period of active 
 railway construction in the Atlantic States which fol- 
 lowed his first publications, and that Whitney had 
 seen the project spoken of in print before he undertook 
 its championship. At all events, he used substantially 
 the same arguments that had been employed by Barlow. 
 
 Whitney returned to New York in 1844 from China, 
 where he had lived a number of years. He was familiar 
 with the conditions of the China and East India trade, 
 and carefully calculating the distances from Liverpool to 
 the points where that trade centered, found that a route 
 
 57 
 
58 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 across the United States by rail, and by sea from 
 Pugct Sound, would be considerably shorter tlian tlic 
 all-sea route around the Cape of Good Hope. In 1845, 
 with a company of young gentlemen from different States, 
 he ascended the Missouri River for 1,500 miles. Return- 
 ing, he appeared in Washington, in December, with a 
 magnificent scheme for a railroad from Lake Michigan to 
 the Pacific coast, to be built by him with the proceeds of 
 a grant of lands for thirty miles on each side of the track. 
 He got little for his pains, at first, but ridicule; but he 
 was not a man to be put down by sneers and laughter. 
 He believed thoroughly in his project, and soon made 
 others believe in it. A great talker in public and private, 
 eloquent, earnest, and well equipped with convincing 
 statistics and forcible arguments, he returnerl to the 
 charge in 1846, and in 1847 got a favorable report from 
 the Senate Committee on Public Lands. 
 
 About this time Whitney began to work upon pub- 
 lic sentiment through the means of meetings, and 
 also labored to obtain resolutions of indorsement from 
 State Legislatures. He traversed the whole country 
 from Maine to the Mississippi, talking to Legislatures, 
 Boards of Trade, and mass meetings, and rarely failin:; 
 to get the commendation he sought. He wanted no 
 money and no stock subscriptions. If Congress would 
 give him the land he would build the road. The object 
 of his journeys and speeches was to organize and bring to 
 bear a pressure of public opinion upon Congress. In 
 this he was remarkably successful. In 1847 '^•i<J 1848 he 
 obtained favorable resolutions from one or both branches 
 of the Legislatures of Maine, N<"w Hampshire, Vermont, 
 Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, 
 Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Tennessee, 
 Alabama, and Georgia, and also from public meetings 
 addressed by him in Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, 
 
J^A IF///T.V£V'S PROJECT. 
 
 59 
 
 la 
 
 IiulianapoHs, St. Louis, Louisville, and many other cities. 
 The only place where he was unsuccessful was New 
 York. He addressed a large meeting in the Tabernacle 
 on January 4th, 1847, or rather he tried to address it. 
 The Mayor presided. The vice-presidents named in the 
 newspaper account published next day were Mr. Tileston, 
 a rich merchant and shipowner; Mr. Spofford, his partner; 
 C. King, J. 1^ Phoenix, a prominent lawyer, and Prosper 
 M. Wctmore, a leading politician. The Courier and 
 Enquirer, then the chief newspaper of the city, began its 
 report of the affair as follows: "The public meeting ad- 
 vertised to be held in the Tabernacle last evening, for the 
 purpose of considering of the expediency of commending 
 to the consideration of Congress the projected railroad to 
 the Pacific, was turned into a bear garden tumult by a 
 packed party of Agrarians, National Reformers, Fourier- 
 itcs, etc., who seem to think the public lands of the 
 United States have no other legitimate use or purpose 
 than to be distributed without money or price among the 
 landless of the Universe, who may come here to clutch a 
 portion of the plunder." 
 
 Whitney had hardly begun speaking when he was 
 interrupted with #alls for Shepherd, a young lawyer then 
 popular with the turbulent classes. Ryckman, a candi- 
 date of the National Reformers for some city office, 
 mounted the platform and began a harangue denouncing 
 Whitney's project, and claiming the public lands as the 
 property of the people, not to be given over to any set of 
 speculators. There was a great uproar in the audience, 
 and the Mayor and the vice-presidents prudently seized 
 their hats and overcoats, and escaped by a back door, 
 Mr. Whitney presumably following close after. The 
 mob had the hall to themselves for a time, until at last 
 the gas was turned off, amid the shoutings of an Irish 
 agrarian orator named Comerford. 
 
'"vnmumBmm 
 
 60 
 
 NORTHERN' PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Whitney met with a very different reception in Phila- 
 delphia. In 1846 he gained for his project in that city 
 the cordial interest of William D. Kelley, now the senior 
 member of the national House of Representatives in 
 length of service, then a rising young orator. What fol- 
 lowed is best told in Judge Kelley's own language: 
 
 " The grandeur of the subject inspired me, and my 
 enthusiasm for his great project induced Mr. Whitney, 
 despite the disparity in our years, to favor me with fre- 
 quent conferences, and to bring to my attention what- 
 ever information relating to the subject he obtained. 
 Early in the year 1846, I felt justified, by the growth of 
 sentiment in its favor, in undertaking to secure him an 
 opportunity to present his project to a public meeting of 
 the citizens of Philadelphia. To induce a sufficient num- 
 ber of citizens to act as officers of the meeting was the 
 work of time. I found but few who took an interest in 
 the subject, or believed in the feasibility of the project. 
 Some said that a railroad so farnorth would not be avail- 
 able for as many months in the year as the Pennsylvania 
 canals were ; that it would be buried in snow more than 
 half the year. Others cried, * What madness to talk of a 
 railroad more than 2,000 miles long through that wilder- 
 ness, when it was impossible to build one over the Allc- 
 ghanies ! ' 
 
 " As I went from man to man, with invaluable collec- 
 tions of facts and figures Mr. Whitney had gathered, I 
 found that the doubts with which the work must contend 
 were infinite in number ; and it was not until six 
 months had elapsed that a sufficient number of well- 
 known citizens to constitute the officers of the meeting 
 had consented to sign the call for a meeting, and to act as 
 such. Yet the cause had gained adherents, and, as I 
 find by reference to the papers of that day, the meeting 
 for which I had so long labored was held in the Chinese 
 
ASA WHITNEY'S PROJECT. 
 
 6l 
 
 Museum on the evening of December 2^J, 1846. His 
 Honor, John Swift, then Mayor of the city, acted as pres- 
 ident ; Colonel James Page, lions. Richard Vaux, Will- 
 iam M. Meredith, and John F. Belsterling, together with 
 Mr. David S. Brown and Mr. Charles B. Trego, acted as 
 vice-presidents ; and Senator William A. Crabb, and Will- 
 iam D. Kelley, acted as secretaries. The speakers at 
 the meeting were Messrs. Whitney, Josiah Randall, 
 Peter A. Browne, and William D. Kelley. 
 
 " Mr. Whitney stated, with great clearness, his project, 
 and the advantages that would result from it. It was, he 
 said, to be a railroad from Lake Michigan to Oregon. 
 He believed that it could be constructed on a line about 
 2,400 miles in length, and he and his associates hoped to 
 be able to build it in twenty years if the government 
 would grant sixty miles breadth of land for the whole dis- 
 tance. In answer to the question how he could make 
 land in that remote wilderness avaikible for building a 
 road, he dwelt upon the contrast between the climate of 
 that country and that with which dwellers east of the 
 Mississippi were familiar, and asserted fearlessly that a 
 railroad through that section would be less disturbed by 
 snow than one through Central New York or Pennsylvania, 
 and proceeded to disclose his plan, which involved a large 
 annual emigration from Europe and the cities of the East- 
 ern States. His plan was to employ these emigrants in 
 the construction of the road, and to pay them in part 
 in land, and to detail a sufficient number to prepare 
 small portions of the farm of each for cultivation and oc- 
 cupation, so that they who worked upon the road one 
 year should dwell upon its borders as farmers thereafter. 
 By this method he believed that by the time the road 
 should be built the line of it would be tolerably well set- 
 tled, and a large local traffic created. 
 
 " Josiah Randall, Esq., submitted to the meeting a 
 
62 
 
 NORTIIER.V PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 seriT's of resolutions which were heartily adopted, and 
 from which I quote the following : 
 
 " ' Whereas the completion of a railroad from Lake 
 Michigan to the Pacific would secure th«. carrying of the 
 greater portion of the commerce of the world to Amer- 
 ican enterprise, and open to it the markets of Japan and 
 the vast empire of China, of all India, and of all the 
 islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, together with 
 those of the Western Coast of Mexico and South 
 America ; 
 
 " * And, whereas, we have in our public lands a fund 
 sufficient for and appropriate to the construction of so 
 great and beneficent a work ; and the proposition of Asa 
 Whitney, Esq., of New York, to construct a railroad from 
 Lake Michigan to the Pacific for the grant of a strip of 
 land sixty miles wide, offers a feasible and cheap, if not 
 the only, plan forthe early completion of an avenue from 
 ocean to ocean ; therefore, 
 
 " * Resolved, That we cordially approve of the project 
 of Asa Whitney, Esq., for the construction of a railroad 
 to the Pacific, and respectfully petition Congress to grant 
 or set apart, before the close of the present session, the 
 lands prayed for by Mr. Whitney for this purpose.' " 
 
 The above resolutions will serve to indicate die charac- 
 ter of those subsequently adopted by meetings in other 
 cities and by legislative bodies. 
 
 In 1S48 Mr. Whitney made another effort in Washing- 
 ton. He obtained select committees in both Houses of 
 Congress for the consideration of his bill. Mr. Pollock, 
 of Pennsylvania, was chairman of the House Committee, 
 and Mr. Niles, of Connecticut, of the Senate Committee. 
 The bill did not provide for any corporate company. It 
 authorized Asa Whitney, his heirs or assigns, to construct 
 a railroad "from any point on Lake Michigan or the Mis- 
 sissippi River he may designate, in a line as nearly straight 
 
ASA WIIITyEY'S PROJECT. 
 
 63 
 
 as the face of the country will admit, and where the streams 
 may be bridged, to some point on the Pacific Ocean 
 where a suitable harbor may be had." It set apart all the 
 government lands Ij-ing within thirty miles of the line to 
 furnish means by their sale for the construction of the 
 road, and allowed Whitney to select indemnity land any- 
 where in the United States in lieu of such tracts as had 
 already been disposed of within those limits. Whitney 
 was to pay the nominal price of ten cents per acre for the 
 grant as fast as sales were made. For every section of 
 ten miles of the road built, a five-mile slice of the sixty- 
 mile wide grant was to be conveyed to him. The other 
 five-mile strip was to be sold by the government and the 
 proceeds were to form a fund for building the road through 
 poor and unsalable lands. Whenever the cost of ten 
 miles of road exceeded the returns from the sale of five 
 miles of the grant, then Whitney was to demand a sale 
 of the reserved lands, and receive enough of the proceeds 
 to make good the deficiency. The road was to be com- 
 pleted within twenty-five years, and was to be of six-foot 
 gauge, laid with rails weighing sixty-four pounds to the 
 yard. When finished, the unsold lands within the grant 
 were to be sold to form a fund to operate the road for ten 
 years. Whitney was to be the sole owner, but the gov- 
 ernment was to establish tolls and regulate the operation 
 of the line, and pay him a salary of $4,000 for man- 
 aging it. 
 
 The Senate Committee reported favorably Mr. Whit- 
 ney's bill in 1848, but Mr. Benton attacked it " in a 
 boisterous and unparliamentary manner," and it was tabled 
 by a vote of 27 to 21. The strong vote it received showed 
 that the measure was popular, in spite of its curious con- 
 centration of the power and profit of the proposed enter- 
 prise in the hands of one man. 
 
 Whitney made a final effort in 1849. A volume he 
 
64 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 published in that year, entitled, "A Project of a Railroad 
 to the Pacific " may be seen in some of the public libraries. 
 It begins with an address to the people of the United 
 States, in which Whitney pleaded for his project in this 
 manner : " Will you, then, allow me to take these wilder- 
 ness waste lands, as they are now, except to a small ex- 
 tent, without timber, without navigable streams, without 
 value, and impossible of settlement, and build this great 
 highway for the nation, with the improved facilities it 
 would afford; settle the lands with a population, which 
 would be a source of wealth and power, and give to the 
 people a road, not to earn dividends for a company, but 
 requiring tolls sufficient for the expenses of its operation 
 and repairs, and making it a sure means of adding mill- 
 ions to the national treasury, without the outlay by the 
 nation of one dollar, and all under the control of Con- 
 gress ? " 
 
 Whitney estimated the length of road at 2,030 miles, 
 and the cost of construction at $40,600,000, to which he 
 added $20,000,000 for repairs and operation until the road 
 should pay expenses, making a total of $60,600,000. The 
 land grant was figured at 77,952,000 acres, about 30,000,- 
 000 acres more than the grant subsequently made to the 
 Northern Pacific Company. Whitney thought that only 
 800 miles of the grant would contain good land. The 
 route M\dicated on the map he submitted to Congress 
 was shown by a line drawn from St. Joseph, Mich., 
 to Prairie du Chien, Wis., thence straight across tue 
 country to Lewis and Clarke's Pass, in the Rocky Mount- 
 ai'Hs; thence down the Clearwater and Snake Rivers to 
 Walla Walla and the Columbia, and finally across the 
 Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound. Whitney believed 
 he had selected the only route offering any hope of suc- 
 cess. He wrote in his pamphlet : " In my examinations of 
 this vast subject the first and most important points of 
 
 consider; 
 the publ 
 nv'ilablc 
 the work 
 route po.'- 
 intcrcour 
 route wh 
 line timb 
 incnt of 
 route whi 
 and Asia 
 where the 
 ucts from 
 route v.'liL 
 bridgtd- 
 tain almo 
 Pacific O 
 which do 
 could not 
 for the gra 
 kind." 
 
 Whitnej 
 
 this cloquc 
 
 route to til 
 
 all routes r 
 
 is unquesti 
 
 and a comi 
 
 one travers 
 
 ous belt of 
 
 mont and ] 
 
 cut— one tc 
 
 and he kn« 
 
 'ind of the 
 
 knowledge 
 
 and Clarke' 
 
AS.l IVI/ITXEY'S PROJECT. 
 
 65 
 
 consideration were the means and route — the means being 
 the public lands, the route must be through to make them 
 a^'-ilablo; and when I found the only available lands for 
 the work on the line of the only feasible route — the only 
 route possessing direct and cheap means of transit to and 
 intercourse with the principal Atlantic cities — the only 
 route which could furnish on the commencement of its 
 line timber and materials for the work and for the setile. 
 mcnt of the country for almost the entire line — tl" " only 
 route which would shorten the distance between Europe 
 and Asia so as to force a change to it — the only route 
 where the climate would permit us to take our vast prod- 
 ucts from the soil to the markets of all Asia — the only 
 route v/hcrc all the streams from ocean to ocean could be 
 bridged — and the only route which could carry and sus- 
 tain almost an entire line of setth^rri nt with it to the 
 Pacific Ocean — and finding here all those advantages, 
 which do not exist in anj- o. jr route, I ditl feci that I 
 could not be wrong, and that Nature's God had made this 
 for the grand highway to civilize and Christianize all man- 
 kind." 
 
 Whitney was right in nearly all the points he made in 
 this eloquent summary of the advantages of the Northern 
 route to the Pacific. It is not the only feasible route — for 
 all routes are feasible to modern engineering skill — but it 
 is unquestionably the best route in both an engineering 
 and a commercial sense, and is, as he foresaw, the only 
 one traversing a country capable of sustaining a continu- 
 ous belt of settlement. Whitney had talked with Fre- 
 mont and Emory, who had recently traversed the contin- 
 ent — one to San Francisco, and the other to San Diego — 
 and he knew of the heavv snows on the Sierra Nevada, 
 and of the vast deserts on the Southern route. His 
 knowledge of the Northern route was formed from Lewis 
 and Clarke's journal, and the narratives of the fur traders. 
 
'^■"oammmmm 
 
 lif 
 
 66 
 
 XORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 The high-water mark of his pro'oct in Congress Scems to 
 have been reached in 1848. He continued his exertions 
 for several years afterward, but without success. The 
 struggle over the slavery question absorbed attention. 
 The air was murky with the clouds of sectional strife. 
 Men could not see far into the future. There was little 
 interest in schemes of national development. Whitney's 
 project languished. It produced one important result, 
 however : the government determined to survey four 
 routes to the Pacific, with a view to learning whether a 
 railroad by any or all of them was feasible. In this survey 
 the Northern route had to be included, although the 
 Southern statesmen, then at the head of affairs in Wash- 
 ington, had no liking for it nor confidence that it would 
 be found practicable. 
 
 Whitney spent his fortune in his efforts to educate 
 public sentiment on the question of a railway to the Pacif- 
 ic and to obtain a land grant from Congress. He passed 
 his last years keeping a dairy and selling milk, it maybe, 
 to the very Congressmen who had voted to give him a 
 belt of land sixty miles broad and over two thousand 
 miles long. He died poor — the usual fortune of men who 
 pioject great enterprises ahead of their time. 
 
 Toward the close of Whitney's efforts in Congress his 
 project was sharply antagonized by several rival schemes, 
 the most conspicuous of which, because supported by 
 William H. Seward, was the " National Pacific Railroad" 
 plan, devised by George Wilkes, of New York. Its orig- 
 inal feature was the election of commissioners by the 
 Legislatures or the people of the several States, to form 
 a Board to build and manage the road. Mr. Wilkes was 
 not so much concerned with the question of the route as 
 with that of the best organization for a company. Thomas 
 H. Benton projected a line from St. Louis by way of 
 Pueblo, New Mexico, to San Francisco, with a branch to 
 
 Oregon 
 
 mence c 
 
 cago, in 
 
 of interi 
 
 ing the " 
 
 a speed' 
 
 that his 
 
 insepara 
 
 built to 
 
 Railroad 
 
 over by 
 
 fended t 
 
 lawyer, \. 
 
 monizing 
 
 ncy's la; 
 
 out a roi 
 
 Council ] 
 
 that strci 
 
 Cascade 
 
 Loughbo 
 
 Missouri, 
 
 Ilumbold 
 
 and termi 
 
 lumbia, ai 
 
 Conventic 
 
 ulating pi 
 
 than the c 
 
 front of si 
 
 bia and se 
 
 poweis an 
 
 About t 
 
 York, clair 
 
 across the 
 
 view with ; 
 
 to build a 
 
ASA WHITNEY'S PROJECT. 
 
 ^7 
 
 Oregon, which he advocated with characteristic vehe- 
 mence on ail occasions. A convention was held at Chi- 
 cago, in the spring of 1849, ^o consider the whole subject 
 of internal commerce. Seward wrote a letter to it favor- 
 ing the Wilkes' plan, and W. M. Hall, of New York, made 
 a speech in its behalf, in which he expressed the belief 
 that his own name, with that of George Wilkes, would be 
 inseparably linked in history with the railroad soon to be 
 built to the Pacific. In the fall of the same year a Pacific 
 Railroad convention met at St. Louis, and was presided 
 over by Stephen A. Douglas. Benton's plan was de- 
 fended by himself, and J. Loughborough, a St. Louis 
 lawyer, presented what he called " a proposition for har- 
 monizing all sections and parties of the Union." Whit- 
 ney's last map, as shown to this convention, marked 
 out a route from Chicago by way of Prairie du Chien, 
 Council Bluffs and the South Pass to Snake River, down 
 that stream to Fort Walla Walla, and thence across the 
 Cascade Mountains to Fort Nisqually, on Puget Sound. 
 Loughborough's compromise line ran from Independence, 
 Missouri, to the South Pass, and thence by way of the 
 Humboldt River to California, with a branch to Oregon 
 and termini at Yaquina Bay, Fort Vancouver, on the Co- 
 lumbia, and Fort Nisqually on the Sound. The St. Louis 
 Convention opposed Whitney's plan as '' a monster spec- 
 ulating project to give him a sweep of territory larger 
 than the domain of eight sovereign States, with an ocean 
 front of sixty miles, comprising the mouth of the Colum- 
 bia and several smaller harbors, and with the contracting 
 poweis and patronage of an emperor." 
 
 About this time Dr. Hartwell Carver, of western New 
 York, claimed to be the first man to dream of a railroad 
 across the Rocky Mountains, and rushed into the public 
 view with a demand for an exclusive and perpetual charter 
 to build a road from Lake Michigan, by v. ay of the South 
 
'"muuuiiiii 
 
 
 68 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Pass, to San Francisco, with a branch to the mouth of the 
 Columbia. His project found little favor, and he was ridi- 
 culed at the St. Louis Convention for " hurrying forward 
 on the heels of Whitney and Wilkes." His financial 
 scheme contemplated a land grant and a subscription by 
 the Government to the stock of his company. 
 
the 
 idi- 
 ard 
 cial 
 by 
 
Ban 
 
 
 
 
 Harvesting on a Honanza Farm. 
 
 [By permission of Harper & Brotliers, New York.] 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EDWIN F. JOHNSON'S EFFORTS. 
 
 All Eminent Engineer Takes up the Pacific Railway I'roject — Edwin F. 
 Johnson's Career — Early Advocacy of Railroad Transportation — Plan 
 for Railroad from the Hudson to the Mississippi— Chief Engineer of the 
 Erie Railway — At Work in Wisconsin — Articles in the Railroad Journal 
 — Arguments in Favor of the Northern Route — Rol)ert J. Walker and 
 Jefferion Davis — Schemes of Southern Politicians — Johnson's Letters Re- 
 jniblished — His Map and Profile. 
 
 After the Northern Pacific Railroad proj'ect was aban- 
 doned in despair by Asa Whitney, it was taken up and 
 kept alive before the public by Edwin ¥. Johnson. 
 He regarded it neither from the standpoint of a 
 theorist nor from that of a speculator eager for profit 
 from a valuable franchise and a grant of public lands. 
 He was one of the great engineers of his time — a time 
 when engineering talent was but little developed in this 
 country and men who could originate and carry forward 
 extensive public works were few. He was, besides, a 
 statesman by instinct, a close student of public questions 
 and remarkably familiar with the topography, climate 
 and productions of all sections of the United States. 
 There was probably no other man living at the time who 
 knew as much about the belt of country between the 
 great lakes and the Mississippi Valley on the east and 
 the Pacific shores on the west, although he had never 
 been further west than St. Paul. He had so gathered 
 and digested all the information on the subject available 
 ill books and from the conversations of army officers, trap- 
 pers and traders that he could describe the plains, valleys, 
 mountain passes, forests, water-courses and harbors to 
 
 69 
 
 < 
 
 i 
 
 
 *;■■ 1 
 
 r 
 • 1 
 
 
 1 ■ / 
 V ■ 
 
 
7^ 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 be traversed or touched by the proposed raUroad much 
 more accurately than most travelers can describe the ob- 
 jects they have actually seen. 
 
 Mr. Johnson was born in Essex, Vt., in 1S03, and in 
 early life assisted his father, an eminent civil engineer, 
 who ran the international boundary line from the 
 Connecticut River to the Bay of Fundy. Later he was 
 a professor in an academy at Middletdwn, Vt. Resuming 
 his profession of engineering at the age of twenty- 
 six, he continued in it until his death, in 1872. Mr. 
 Johnson was one of the first advocates in the United 
 States of railways as a means of transportation. The 
 railway system was in its early stages strongly antago- 
 nized by the canal interest. He came to the conclusion, in 
 1828, that railways must ultimately take the lead of canals, 
 notwithstanding the success of the Erie Canal had created 
 an intense feeling in favor of that kind of improvement. 
 So strong was the feeling, that in 1825 the Legislature of 
 Pennsylvania adopted the canal system in face of a re- 
 port from William Strickland, who was sent to Europe to 
 investigate both the canal and railway systems, and who 
 strongly recommended the latter. The ablest engineers 
 at the time were very doubtful about the future of rail- 
 ways. One of the most prominent, Judge Wright, writ- 
 ing to the President of the Cheasapeake and Ohio Canal, 
 placed the railway in a middle position as a means of 
 transportation " between a good turnpike and a canal." 
 Mr. Johnson at the age of twenty-five clearly compre- 
 hended the importance of rail transportation, and saw 
 that it was destined to immense development in the near 
 future ; this, too, before the opening of the Liverpool 
 and Manchester line, which demonstrated the value of 
 locomotive engines. 
 
 As early as 1826, Mr. Johnson advocated a railway from 
 the Hudson River to the Mississippi. He kept the proj- 
 
EDWIN F. JOHNSON'S EFFORTS. 
 
 n 
 
 cct alive in the midst of his engineering labors on the 
 new railroads in the Eastern States, and in 1831 wrote a 
 pamphlet on tlie subject and caused it to be distributed in 
 all the towns and villages along the entire route he had 
 marked out for the projected road. This work may be 
 called the inception of the New York and Erie Railway, 
 of which he became chief engineer in 1836, 
 
 In 1852 Mr. Johnson was engaged in Wisconsin as 
 chief engineer of a new railroad called the Chicago, St. 
 Paul and Fond du Lac, which afterward became the 
 Chicago and Northwestern. The original project for 
 this road contemplated a terminus at St. Paul, but when 
 the lands granted by Congress to the State of Wisconsin 
 to aid railway construction came to be transferred by the 
 Legislature a Milwaukee company succeeded, after a 
 notable struggle, in getting the grant to the Mississippi 
 for a line to La Crosse. St. Paul was thus deprived of 
 railroad communication with the East for many years. 
 
 With Mr. Johnson, as a capitalist and railroad builder, 
 was Thomas H. Canfield, of Burlington, Vt., who after- 
 ward took a prominent part in Northern Pacific affairs. 
 Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, ex-Senator and ex- 
 Secretary of the Treasury, was interested in the same 
 road, with Nathaniel Talmage, an ex-Senator from New 
 York. While the road was being constructed from Chi- 
 cago to Fond du Lac, Johnson used to have long talks 
 with Canfield about a line to the Pacific from St. Paul. 
 At this time Johnson wrote several articles in Poor's Rail- 
 road Journal in favor of a road to the Pacific by way of 
 the valleys of the Missouri and the Columbia. Can- 
 field became warmly interested in his arguments in favor 
 of the Northern route, and encouraged him to reprint the 
 letters in pamphlet form. While Johnson was preparing 
 the pamphlet Walker went on to Chicago, and the 
 manuscript was shown to him. He was greatly impressed 
 
■«■ 
 
 ■Hi 
 
 72 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 with the chapter summarizing the characteristics of all 
 the routes proposed, and pointing out very clearly the ad- 
 vantages of what Johnson called the valley line, by way 
 of the Missouri, or the Yellowstone, and the Columbia, 
 and insisted on taking it to Washington and showing it 
 to Jefferson Davis, who was then Secretary of War, and 
 the recognized leader of the ultra-Southern element. The 
 schemes of Davis, Walker, and the other Southern lead- 
 ers looked toward the eventual conquest of Mexico, and 
 the spread of slavery over its territory. The desperate 
 attempt to pusli the institution of slavery northward 
 began later with the repeal of the Missouri compromise 
 and the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854. In 
 1852 and 1853 the Southern leaders were still looking 
 southward. They were all agreed that no railroad should 
 be built to the Pacific north of the 35th parallel. The 
 reading of Johnson's chapter is said to have spurred 
 Davis to immediate action to set on foot government 
 surveys of all the proposed routes. He wanted to get 
 the matter in his own hands, and to this end used his in- 
 fluence to obtain the adoption by Congress of a section 
 in the Army bill of 1853 which gave to the War Depart- 
 ment the full control and direction of the surveys. 
 
 Whether Davis had confidence in Johnson's statements 
 about the low altitude of the mountain passes between 
 the Missouri and Columbia valleys, and the compar- 
 atively light snow-fall on the northern route, cannot be 
 said ; but he knew how high was the reputation of the 
 Vermont engineer, and was evidently a little anxious lest 
 his letters and pamphlets shcuM stimulate a new move- 
 ment in favor of the route he so strongly commended 
 before the Southern scheme for a road across Texas and 
 New Mexico could be organized and obtain government 
 sanction and aid. 
 
 It was alleged at the time, perhaps unjustly, that polit- 
 
 was not a 
 
EDWIN F. JOHNSON'S EFFORTS. 
 
 n 
 
 ical motives influenced tlie selection of the officers put 
 by Mr. Davis in charge of the surveys, and that reports 
 in favor of the two southern routes were arranged for in 
 advance. It was also charged that the two officers put 
 in command of the northern survey were expected to re- 
 port against that route, because of their sympathy with 
 the Democratic party as then controlled by the South. 
 We may dismiss these rumors to the limbo of the partizan 
 and sectional controversies of the past. The two officers 
 in question were Stevens and McClcllan. Stevens, as we 
 shall see, became an ardent advocate of the northern 
 route, and for years was its most conspicuous advocate. 
 McClellan, who explored Pugct Sound, the Columbia 
 River and the Cascade passes, made a rather meagre re- 
 port on his end of the line, and his statement that there 
 is only one practicable pass in the Cascade Range besides 
 that of the Columbia River has long since been disproved ; 
 still there is no question as to the serious character of the 
 range as a barrier to easy railway building, and McClclhri 
 was not an eminent engineer like Johnson. His mental or- 
 ganization, as exhibited when he was in command of the 
 army of the Potomac, was such that he saw difficulties 
 plainly, but did not readily see the means of overcoming 
 them. 
 
 In 1853 Mr. Johnson's letters appeared in book form, 
 with a map and profile, the elevations upon the latter 
 being mainly deduced from the flow of the streams and 
 such other evidence as he was able to collect. The line 
 as indicated on this map, started from Chicago, with a 
 branch from the head of Lake Superior, joining it at 
 Brcckenridge, on the Red River of the North, crossed 
 the plains to the Missouri, followed the north bank of 
 that stream and the Dearborn River to the mountains, 
 thence ran to Flathead Lake and Fort Colville, and ended 
 at Bellingham Bay, on Puget Sound. Mr. Johnson's map, 
 
w 
 
 74 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 constructed from a careful study of the journals of the 
 Lewis and Clarke expedition, was much more full and 
 accurate than that given in the published narrative of 
 those explorers. He traced the course of the isothermal 
 lines, and showed that, beginning with what is now Min- 
 nesota, and proceeding west, the winter climate becomes 
 gradually milder, until at Puget Sound a mean winter 
 temperature warmer than that of Chesapeake Bay is 
 found. He called attention to the low altitudes of the 
 passes between the head- waters of the Missouri and those of 
 the Columbia, and to the moderate amount of snowfall on 
 that portion of the Rocky Mountain chain, as shown by the 
 reports of all explorers. It is a remarkable fact that John- 
 son's profile of the Northern Pacific route, drawn before 
 any actual instrumental measurements of elevations had 
 been made west of Minnesota, does not differ more from 
 the actual elevations since ascertained than would prob- 
 ably the measurements of two surveyors using different 
 instruments. It is interesting at this time to read the 
 following summary made by Mr. Johnson of the argu- 
 ments in his pamphlet of 1853, written, it should be re- 
 membered, several years before the full results of the gov- 
 ernment survey under Major Stevens were made known 
 to the public. 
 
 1. Its direct connection at the eastern extremity with 
 the cheap navigation of the great lakes and the St. Law- 
 rence chain of waters, which reach nearly halfway from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
 
 2. Its terminus on the Pacific at a point or points 
 more favorable for concentrating the trade of that ocean 
 and of the interior than any other points further south. 
 
 3. Its location along the great valleys of the Missis- 
 sippi, Missouri, and Columbia rivers, which, with their 
 tributaries, are navigable for long distances, a navigation 
 which is of the utmost importance in connection with the 
 
 propose 
 ing to 
 
 4. It 
 of the J 
 tile val 
 the As- 
 throug 
 resource 
 under t 
 
 5. In 
 sequent 
 upon it, 
 ains, wh 
 branch 
 mountaii 
 by a rar 
 feet to 
 lower an< 
 it, 4,000 
 route thr 
 
 6. Its f 
 tions fron 
 42d paral 
 This diffe 
 duced by 
 narrowne 
 the wintc 
 route to I 
 
 7. In it 
 in this re 
 surpassed 
 fornia, an 
 fuel ; coai 
 the Pacifi 
 found ov( 
 
EDWLV F. JOHNSON'S EFFORTS. 
 
 75 
 
 rc- 
 
 proposed railway in facilitating its construction and giv- 
 iiig to it support when completed. 
 
 4. Its connection with the navigation of the Red River 
 of the North, a navigation which extends through a fer- 
 tile valley into the British possessions, uniting there with 
 the Assiniboinc and Saskatchewan rivers, which flow 
 through a region having large agricultural and mineral 
 resources, as ascertained by explorations recently made 
 under the direction of the Canadian Government. 
 
 5. In the comparative evenness of its surface and con- 
 sequent cheapness, and in the lowness of the gradients 
 upon it, the line crossing the divide of the Rocky Mount- 
 ains, where the sources of the Missouri and Clarke's 
 branch of the Columbia interlock, the backbone of the 
 mountains being there broken down so as to be overcome 
 by a railway with gradients not exceeding about forty 
 feet to the mile, and with its main summit 2,500 feet 
 lower and coast range summit, if the line is carried across 
 it, 4,000 feet lower than the Nevada summit, upon the 
 route through the south pass to San Francisco. 
 
 6. Its freedom from deep snows in winter, the destruc- 
 tions from this cause being greatest upon the route by the 
 42d parallel leading through Salt Lake to San Francisco, 
 This difference in the character of the two routes is pro- 
 duced by the greater elevation of the latter route and 
 narrowness of its defiles, and the absence of moisture in 
 the winter months in the atmosphere of the northern 
 route to produce snows. 
 
 7. In its rich mineral productions, excelling probably 
 in this respect other routes. Its gold fields not being 
 surpassed, if indeed they are equaled, by those of Cali- 
 fornia, and being better supplied with timber, water, and 
 fuel ; coal being now mined in Washington Territory on 
 the Pacific, and lignite of a superior quality having been 
 found over an extensive section of the route and in its 
 
7^ 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 vicinity, and upon the Saskatchewan Valley north of the 
 national boundary east of the mountains. 
 
 8. In its superiority over other routes in its capability 
 of sustaining a greater population, and contributing more 
 largely to the support of a railway, as evidenced by the 
 greater quantity of game found within its limits, and its 
 being the abode of the greatest number of Indians to be 
 found between the Mississippi and the Pacific, consisting 
 of the Sioux, the Crows, the Mandans, the Blackfect, and 
 the Flatheads, all, except the Mandans, being large and 
 powerful tribes. All these find an easy and comfortable 
 support in what the country can furnish, which cannot 
 be said of the resources of any other route to the Pacific. 
 
 9. It constitutes the most direct and feasible route 
 within the United States to connect with the shortest 
 line on the Pacific to the ports of China, Japan and East- 
 ern Russia, it being about fift^ en hundred miles nearer to 
 the ports of China than the route from San Francisco by 
 the Sandwich Islands, and, being coastwise, offers frequent 
 opportunities for obtaining supplies of fuel and food, thus 
 increasing the freighting capacity of vessels, without devi- 
 ating greatly from a direct course. 
 
 Looking back now at the efforts of the three conspicu- 
 ous early advocates of the Northern route for a railroad 
 to the Pacific, we see that Dr. Barlow presented the proj- 
 ect in its theoretical and patriotic phase ; that Mr. Whit- 
 ney gave it the form of a public movement, and brought 
 it to the attention of Congress and State Legislatures ; 
 and that Mr. Johnson placed it upon a practical basis by 
 bringing to bear the experience and special studies of a 
 competent engineer, and showing the actual advantages 
 of the route for railway construction, and the value of the 
 country for settlement. 
 
 jlk!;iV'3!i.-ii .-■,;&l 
 
«p 
 
 iiiij;:iii;!..iii»!ili.:' 
 
 Condition o 
 Gold D 
 Coast :\I 
 Jefferson 
 the Nor 
 Northerr 
 and Piibl 
 His Dea 
 
 Ox\CE 1 
 
 mcnt had 
 
 peace wit 
 
 of the Un 
 
 States of 
 
 Now Mex: 
 
 followed, i 
 
 pioneers ai 
 
 mountains 
 
 Francisco : 
 
 only route 
 
 railroad ac 
 
 and Clarke 
 
 controlled 
 
 est in the 
 
 tory from I 
 
 should be c 
 
 liavc its w( 
 
 tlicsituatio 
 
 soon be bi 
 
 aid its CO 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 » 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT SURVEYS. 
 
 Condition of Public Sentiment — Sectional Jealousy — Effect of the California 
 (iolcl Discoveries — General Agreement that a Railway to the Pacific 
 i i Coast Must Be liuilt — The Question of Routes — Five Lines Surveyed — 
 
 Jefferson Davis Favors the Most Southern — Governor Stevens' Survey of 
 the Northern Route — Thoroughness of his Work — Advantages of the 
 Northern Route Fully Demonstrated — Stevens' Report — 1 1 is Writings 
 and Public Addresses in Favor of the Northern Pacific Railroad Project — 
 His Death on the Battle-field. 
 
 Once launched in Congress the Pacific Railway move- 
 ment had inherent vitality enough to keep alive. The 
 peace with Mexico soon afterward added to the domain 
 of the United States the vast area now comprised in the 
 States of California and Nevada and the Territories of 
 New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. The gold discoveries 
 followed, and thousands of eager treasure seekers, hardy 
 pioneers and restless adventurers, crossed the plains and 
 mountains of the interior or sailed into the Bay of San 
 Francisco in search of the new El Dorado. Hitherto the 
 only route spoken of in connection with the project for a 
 railroad across the continent was that followed by Lewis 
 and Clarke. Now the scheme widened. The .South, which 
 controlled the government, had before taken little inter- 
 est in the plans of Whitney, but the conquest of terri- 
 tory from Mexico opened the possibility of a line which 
 should be of advantage to the Southern States and should 
 have its western terminus in the new gold region. Thus 
 the situation changed. That a transcontinental road must 
 soon be built and that the government would have to 
 aid its construction became the general sentiment. 
 
 77 
 
;,.ti 
 
 1 1.? 
 
 ■ A' 
 
 78 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 \ '■'1 
 
 ■ 'A 
 
 If there was any dissent from this proposition, it was from 
 its last clause, and it came from the strict constructionists 
 of the Constitution, who held that the Federal govern- 
 ment had very little power beyond carrying the mails, 
 fighting Indians and coining money. But even the 
 State rights men of the South, always eager to curb 
 the national power unless they could make it work for 
 the advantage of their own political schemes, were ready 
 to advocate a railroad provided its eastern terminus was 
 at some point in their section. Asa Whitney and his 
 magnificent project for a railroad to the mouth of the 
 Columbia were almost forgotten for a time in the excite- 
 ment over the slavery question which prevailed after the 
 close of the Mexican War, and was heightened rather 
 than allayed by the compromise measures of 1850; but 
 the general idea of a Pacific Railway was not allowed to 
 drop out of sight. Indeed, the sectional jealousies which 
 raged worked in some measure to its advantage. The 
 North wanted a line connecting with roads reaching tlie 
 seaboard at New York, Philadelphia, and Boston ; the 
 South insisted that the proper eastern termini were New 
 Orleans and Memphis, and that the traffic to be opened 
 should flow to the ports of the Gulf of Mexico and the 
 South Atlantic ports. 
 
 It would not have been possible in 1853 to secure any 
 action from Congress looking to the opening of any par- 
 ticular route, or even to its preliminary survey, but it was 
 feasible to throw together all the suggested routes and 
 obtain an appropriation of money to survey them all. 
 This was actually done. In a section of the Regular 
 Army Appropriation Bill, approved March ist, 1853, 
 provision was made for such explorations as the War 
 Department might deem advisable in order to ascertain 
 the most practicable and economical route for a railroad 
 from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. The 
 
THE GOVERNMENT SURVEYS. 
 
 n 
 
 law did not specify the number or latitude of the routes 
 to be explored, but it was the general understanding in 
 Congress that no one which had been advocated as feas- 
 ible and desirable should be neglected. Jefferson Davis 
 was Secretary of War at the time, and the whole matter of 
 organizing the expeditions and selecting the routes they 
 were to follow was in his hands. He put five separate 
 expeditions in the field early the same spring, to explore 
 as many different belts of country, the first near the 32d 
 parallel, the second near the 35th parallel, the third 
 near the 38th and 39th parallels, the fourth near the 41st 
 and 42d parallels, and the fifth near the 47th and 49th 
 parallels. 
 
 The reports of these surveys filled thirteen huge quarto 
 volumes, which were printed by order of Congress, with 
 a profusion of lithographs and woodcuts of scenery and 
 Indian groups and numerous maps. In submitting the 
 reports to Congress, in 1855, Mr. Davis summed up the 
 information obtained very clearly and forcibly, and con- 
 cluded by a recommendation of the 32d parallel route, 
 the most southernmost of all, characterizing it as the 
 shortest line from the Mississippi River to the Pacific 
 Ocean and to San Francisco, the greatest commercial 
 city on that coast; the easiest to build, and the only 
 route, save that of the 38th parallel, free from the danger of 
 ob;)truction by snow Being a Mississippian his predi- 
 lection was strongly in favor of a line that should leave 
 the Mississippi River at a point no further north than 
 Vicksburg. He was not only a Southerner, but an ex- 
 treme Southerner, who wanted to see the seat of em- 
 pire of the American continent established in the Gulf 
 States. 
 
 Of the five explorations we need concern ourselves 
 only with that of the northernmost route. This was 
 placed in charge of Isaac I. Stevens, an experienced army 
 
1 "I* 
 
 .1 
 
 8o 
 
 NORTHER.V PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 officer who had served in the Mexican War, and had 
 held a position in the Coast Survey Office until appointed 
 Governor of Washington Territory, in March, 1853. 
 Stevens was a man of broad views, liberal education 
 and strong character. He did his work so thoroughly 
 that there v/as little necessit}' for further preliminary 
 surveys to ascertain the practicability of the Northern 
 route to the Pacific when, ten years later, the project 
 for a railroad assumed a business-like shape. His in- 
 structions were to operate from St. Paul, or some eligible 
 point on the Upper Mississippi, toward the great bend 
 of the Missouri River, and thence on the tableland be- 
 tween the tributaries of the Missouri and those of the 
 Saskatchewan to some eligible pass in the Rocky Mount- 
 ains. 
 
 Governor Stevens determined that the exploration 
 should be conducted in two divisions, operating respect- 
 ively from the Mississippi River and Puget Sound; and 
 that a depot of provisions should be established by a 
 third party at the St. Mary's village, at the western base 
 of the Rocky Mountains, to facilitate the winter opera- 
 tions of the exploration, and enable the exploring parties 
 to continue in the field the longest practicable period; 
 and that all the parties should be organized in a military 
 manner for self-protection, and to force their way through 
 whatever difficulties might be encountered. 
 
 The western division was charged with the duty of ex- 
 ploring the passes of the Cascade Mounti'ins, from the 
 Columbia River to the British boundary, and of pushing 
 eastward to meet the eastern division between the Cas- 
 cade and Rocky Mountains. Captain George B. McClel- 
 lan, of the Corps of Engineers, was assigned to the charge 
 of this division. Lieutenant Rufus Saxton, Jr., in ad- 
 dition to establishing the depot at the western base of 
 the Rocky Mountains, was directed to make a careful 
 
THE GOVE/i.VMEXT SURVEYS. 
 
 8l 
 
 i53. 
 
 .as- 
 
 :ici- 
 
 irtje 
 
 survey of tlic country passed over by him, with a view 
 of combining the operations of the eastern and western 
 divisions. 
 
 The eastern division, starting from St. Paul, was under 
 the personal direction of Governor Stevens. With him 
 were many persons who afterward obtained fame as offi- 
 cers or men of science. F. W. Lander, afterward a 
 brigadier general ; Lieutenant John Mullan, who later 
 built the wagon road from Fort Benton to Walla Walla, 
 and Cuvier Grover, then a lieutenant and afterward a 
 major general of volunteers and a colonel in the regular 
 army, were among the officers. Captain McClellan, who 
 commanded the division of the party operating from the 
 Pacific coast, was afterward the Commander-in-Chief of 
 the Army of the Potomac, and later the Democratic 
 candidate for President. Lieutenant Saxton, who explored 
 the Rocky Mountain regions, became in the civil war a 
 brigadier general. Probably there was never a railroad 
 surv'eying party put in the field which contained so many 
 future great men. 
 
 Governor Stevens left St. Paul with the eastern division 
 of the expedition on May 24th, and traveling northwest- 
 wardly arrived at the Sheyenne River July 4th, and at Fort 
 Union, at the mouth of the Yellowstone River, August 1st. 
 A wide belt of country was explored by throwing out 
 small parties on either side of the main body, with 
 instructions to rendezvous at a given point ahead. At 
 Fort Union, Lieutenant Mullan was detailed with a party 
 to survey the Valley of the Yellowstone. He ascended 
 the river to a point not far from the present town of Bil- 
 lings, and then turning northward through the Musselshell 
 country and Judith Basin rejoined the main party at 
 Fort Benton, near the Falls of the Missouri, which point 
 it reached on September ist. Here another division of 
 the force was made. Lieutenant Mullan went back to the 
 6 
 
82 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Musselshell and, taking guides from a camp of Flathead 
 Indians, crossed the Belt Mountains to the junction of 
 the three rivers forming the Missouri, and thence puslicd 
 westward over the main range of the Rocky Mountains to 
 Fort Owen, on the Bitter Root River ; Lieutenant Grover 
 reconnoitred Cadotte's Pass; Mr. Lander examined the 
 Marias Pass and the country to the Kootenai post ; and 
 Governor Stevens explored the country north of Fort 
 Benton, including the Sun and Marias valleys and the 
 base of the mountains. Before leaving Fort Benton the 
 explorers had the satisfaction of being joined by Lieuten- 
 ant Saxton's party from the Pacific coast. Saxton, who 
 had ascended the Columbia River, and crossed the plains 
 at the Jesuit mission on Lake Cceur d'Altne and the 
 Bitter Root Range at the pass near the lake, met Lieu- 
 tenant Grover in command of Stevens* advance party 
 on the summit of the Rocky Mountains in Cadotte's Pass. 
 The different parties reached Fort Owen in good time. 
 There Mr. Tinkhani, a resolute young civil engineer, was 
 sent back to examine the western approaches to the 
 Marias Pass, Mr. Lander was directed to explore the St. 
 Mary's (now Bitter Root) Valley, Lieutenant Donelson was 
 sent down the Clarke's Fork, and Governor Stevens crossed 
 the mountains to Lake Coeur d'Al^ne. Stevens reached 
 the Mission on October 12th, and proceeding down the 
 Coeur d'Al^ne River next day met a Spokane Indian, who 
 told him of a party of thirty men that had reached the 
 Columbia, opposite Colville, the day before. Stevens knew 
 that this must be McClellan's party, which had come from 
 the Cascade Mountains and Puget Sound. By pushing 
 on all night he met McClellan next morning. The two had 
 not heard from each other since they separated in May, 
 when talking about their probable place of meeting they 
 had spoken of Colville. The united force proceeded to 
 '^'"V' Walla and the Dalles, reaching the latter place on 
 
THE GOVERNMENT SURVEYS. 
 
 83 
 
 November 12th. Early in December Stevens arrived at 
 Olympia, on Puget Sound. He returned to the Rocky 
 Mountains next year for further explorations, and to 
 gather up the results of the work of his detached parties 
 which rendezvoused at Walla Walla. 
 
 Captain McCIellan surveyed the country between 
 
 Seattle and the Columbia Valley by way of the Valley of 
 
 the Cowlitz, and thence followed the Columbia up to the 
 
 mouth of the Yakima. Then going up the Yakima 
 
 to its head-waters in the Cascade Range he examined 
 
 the Snoqualmie Pass as far as a point three miles 
 
 west of the dividing ridge. He reported to Governor 
 
 Stevens that the Yakima Pass was barely practicable, and 
 
 that only at a high cost of time, labor and money, while 
 
 the Columbia River Pass was not only practicable, but 
 
 remarkably favorable, being by far the best between lati- 
 
 laue 45° 30' and latitude 49°. "The question," McCIellan 
 
 wrote, " is, after all, reduced to a choice between the 
 
 shorter line, high grades, a very long tunnel, and almost 
 
 certain difficulty from the snow, in one case; and the 
 
 longer line, low grades, little or no tunneling and no 
 
 trouble from the snow, in the other. I prefer the latter." 
 
 Governor Stevens sent A. L. Tinkham, who had done 
 
 winter service in the passes of the Rocky Mountains, up 
 
 to the Snoqualmie Pass in the winter of 1854, to measure 
 
 the depth of snow. Tinkham found seven feet in the 
 
 pass on the 2ist of January. McCIellan in his report, 
 
 written in February, 1854, threw doubts on the value of 
 
 Tiiikham's measurement and said that he was still of 
 
 the opinion that in ordinary winters not less than from 
 
 twenty to twenty-five feet of snow would be found in the 
 
 passes during the most unfavorable months of the year. 
 
 A personal difference between Stevens and McCIellan 
 
 grew out of this matter of the snow in the Cascade 
 
 Passes, Stevens preferring to indorse the view of Tink- 
 
84 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ham rather than that of McClellan, and friendly relations 
 were severed until the two met in Washington during 
 the war, when a reconciliation took place. 
 
 The general results of Gov. Stevens' explorations were 
 to show that there was an easy route for a railroad from 
 St. Paul to the Rocky Mountains, either by the Valley of 
 the Missouri or that of the Yellowstone ; that the main 
 range of the Rockies offered no obstacles that could not 
 be overcome by a tunnel and ordinary mountain grades; 
 that the Bitter Root Spur was more formidable, but could 
 be turned by way of Lake Pend d'Oreille; that there 
 were several practicable passes in the Cascade Range, and 
 that the Valley of the Columbia offered a favorable 
 though expensive route. In a word, Stevens showed that 
 the Northern route to the Pacific was not only a prac- 
 ticable but a very favorable one, following valleys or 
 traversing plains for nearly its whole length, and crossing 
 the mountain backbone of the continent at comparatively 
 low elevations. His report served afterward as the solid 
 foundation upon which the Northern Pacific Railroad 
 enterprise as a business project rested. He became an 
 ardent advocate of this route, and by his writings 
 and public utterances did much to make its merits known. 
 
 Governor Stevens's advocacy of the Northern route, 
 begitming immediately after the completion of his sur- 
 vey, continued until his death. He was of an active, ar- 
 dent turn of mind, and combined in his disposition the 
 accurate, practical habits of the trained engineer with the 
 boldness and imagination of a projector of great en- 
 terprises. He could estimate with remarkable correct- 
 ness the cost of constructing railroads through a .> ildcr- 
 ness, and speak with authority on gradients, tunnels, 
 and excavations, and at the same time he could make 
 figures eloquent, and illumine dry pages of statistics 
 by the faculty of graphic presentation with tongue or 
 
itions 
 uring 
 
 were 
 from 
 ley of 
 main 
 d not 
 ados ; 
 could 
 tlierc 
 ;, and 
 irable 
 1 that 
 prac- 
 /s or 
 ssing 
 :ively 
 solid 
 Iroad 
 le an 
 tings 
 own. 
 oute, 
 ! sur- 
 i, ar- 
 1 the 
 1 the 
 en- 
 rect- 
 Ider- 
 nels, 
 nake 
 !stics 
 c or 
 
Buttes in Pyramid Park.^ 
 
 pen. 
 Congres 
 the rose 
 c\c[e.s for 
 graphic 
 he show 
 to the n 
 the cliin 
 milder ii 
 
 In an 
 York, in 
 ical and 
 admirabl 
 veyed by 
 Sound, tl 
 populatic 
 that thcr 
 Northern 
 vantage i 
 presented 
 Pacific R 
 the bill cl 
 appeals t( 
 bonds. ; 
 great dca! 
 were stric 
 
 Among 
 in behalf 
 tion shou! 
 ington Ci: 
 Yancouvc 
 sidcr mca; 
 Columbia 
 and condc 
 tances anc 
 
THE GOVERS'MENT SURVEYS, 
 
 85 
 
 pen. When he came East to attend the sessions of 
 Congress, he wrote pamphlets and delivered addresses on 
 the resources of the Pacific Northwest, and the advant- 
 ac^cs for a railroad of the route he had surveyed. His 
 graphic addresses were illustrated by a map upon which 
 he showed how the isothermal lines make a great sweep 
 to the northward beyond the Mississippi Valley, causing 
 the climate of Oregon and the Pugct Sound region to be 
 milder in winter than that of Virginia. 
 
 In an address on " The Northwest," delivered in New 
 York, in December, 1858, before the American Geograph- 
 ical and Statistical Society, Governor Stevens gave an 
 admirable, thorough description of the ehtire line sur- 
 veyed by him from the Red River of the North to Puget 
 Sound, the soil, scenery, climate, capacity of supporting 
 population, facilities for railway building, etc. He showed 
 that there was a difference in distance in favor of the 
 Northern over the other routes surveyed, and also an ad- 
 vantage in the sum of ascents and descents. In short, he 
 presented the whole argument in behalf of the Northern 
 Pacific Road as it was afterward repeated in support of 
 the bill chartering the company, and in the subsequent 
 appeals to the public for subscriptions to its stock and 
 bonds. Some of his statements were received with a 
 great deal of skepticism, but time has shown that they 
 were strictly and conscientiously accurate. 
 
 Among the effective work done by Governor Stevens 
 ill behalf of the Northern Pacific Railroad project, men- 
 tion should be made of a letter he addressed from Wash- 
 itigton City to a railroad convention which assembled at 
 Vancouver, Washington Territory, May 20, i860, to con- 
 sider means for building a road from the Valley of the 
 Columbia to Puget Sound. In this letter he gave so clear 
 and condensed an account of the Northern route, its dis- 
 tances and grades, as compared with the line then pro* 
 

 
 
 i 
 
 
 It 
 
 86 
 
 NORTHER y PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 jcctcd to Bcnicia, California ; its advantageous situation 
 in relation to the China and Japan trade, and the adapt- 
 ability of the country it would traverse for continuous 
 settlement, that the document, printed in pamphlet form, 
 became a cyclopedia in miniature, from which facts and 
 arguments have ever since been drawn by the friends o{ 
 that route. 
 
 A single paragraph may be quoted here, to show that 
 there was no lack of accurate knowledge concerning the 
 habitable character of the Northern belt nearly a quarter 
 of a century ago, had the public been willing to be disa- 
 bused of the current notion that the region was a hyper- 
 borean desert — a notion, by the way, which lingers in 
 some minds even to this day, although there io now an 
 unbroken line of settlements from St. Paul to Pugct 
 Sound : 
 
 " Nearly the Avhole of the country on the Northern 
 route," wrote Governor Stevens, ** is susceptible of con- 
 tinuous occupancy by our people. There is no such 
 thing as a desert, properly so speaking, on the entire 
 route. There arc gaps or intervals where it is only a 
 grazing country ; there arc portions of the country oc- 
 cupied by mountain ranges which would not admit of 
 profitable cultivation ; but, as a whole, the country is 
 fitted for settlement and cultivation, and must be settled 
 and occupied at an early day. Or, to go more into de- 
 tails, from Breckenridge, on the Red River of the North, 
 to the Divide of the Rocky Mountains, the route passes 
 through a strictly cultivable country, capable of continu- 
 ous settlement, except for about one hundred jn i fifty 
 miles, in three sections of about equal lengths. On this 
 portion you can plant agricultural settlements at points 
 suitable for railroad or mail stations. From near the 
 Divide of the Rocky Mountains the country is capable of 
 continuous settlement to within twenty miles of the Di- 
 
THE GOVEKXMEXT SURVEYS, 
 
 87 
 
 vide of the Bitter Root Mountains. The eastern half of 
 the Great Plain of the Cokimbia, the northern and the 
 southern portions, consists of rich river valleys and fertile 
 tablelands. A portion of the western half will not fur- 
 nish arable land for continuous settlements. BcUvcen 
 the Columbia and the Cascade Mountains, the line is 
 flanked on the south by a large body of fertile land, and 
 passes immediately through a fine grass country, and for 
 at least half the distance through an excellent cultivable 
 country. From the Cascade Mountains to the Sound, 
 the line passes through a continuously cultivable country. 
 The whole intermediate country between the head-waters 
 of the Missouri and the Great Plain of the Columbia ad- 
 mits of continuous settlement, except about forty miles 
 on the highest part of the Rocky Mountains, and thirty 
 miles on the highest part of the Bitter Root Moun*"ains." 
 
 In this letter Governor Stevens gave a table of dis- 
 tances from the principal cities of the East to Seattle, on 
 Pugct Sound, and Benicia, on the Bay of San Francisco, 
 showing that the difference in favor of the Northern 
 route to the Pacific was as follows: from Chicago, 317 
 miles; from Portland, Maine, 582 miles; from Boston, 
 344 miles ; from New York, 420 miles ; from Philadel- 
 phia, 466 miles ; from Baltimore, 309 miles ; from Wash- 
 ington, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans, 
 117 miles. These figures were afterward employed with 
 <^'!<zdX effect in enlisting support in Congress and in the 
 country for the Northern Pacific enterprise. 
 
 Going to Congress in 1857 '^s Delegate from Wash- 
 ington Territory, Governor Stevens served in that capacity 
 until the rebellion broke out in 1861. He then obtained 
 the colonelcy of a New York regiment, was promoted to 
 be brigadier general, and was killed, while gallantly lead- 
 ing his troops, at the battle of Chantilly, in Virginia 
 September ist, 1862. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 FUTILE MOVEMENTS IN CONGRESS. 
 
 Last of Asa Whitney's Project — California's Demand — The Northern Route 
 almost Lost Sight of — \Vm. H. Seward's Bill — Henry S. Foote's Southern 
 Pacific Bill — Sectional Strife over the Question of Routes — The Bill (jf 
 1S55 for Three Lines to the Pacific— Wellcr's Subsidy and Land Grant 
 Bill of 1S56 — President Buchanan's Advocacy — A New Bill for a Slnt^le 
 Central Line Changed to one for Three Lines, and Defeated in 1S59 — 
 Curtis's Single Route Bill of iSGo — The Prototype of the Union and Cen- 
 tral Pacific Railroad Legislation — The Northern I'acific Railroad named 
 and Recognized by Congress in iSCi — A Northern Pacific Company or- 
 ganized in Washington Territory. 
 
 Asa Wiiitnev's crude project was kept alive in a feeble 
 way in Congress until 1852, when it made its final appear- 
 ance on the record coupled with a scheme to authorize 
 Samuel L. Selden and Robert I. Scott to build a railroad 
 from the west bank of the Mississippi, not north of Mem- 
 phis, to the Rio del Norte and the Pacific Ocean at San 
 Francisco or some other point. Here, for the first time, 
 it would seem, was an alliance attempted between the 
 friends of different routes; a proceeding often repeated in 
 the subsequent history of Pacific railroad legislation. The 
 scheme of Selden and Scott for a Southern Pacific rail- 
 road, whatever it was, left no trace of itself save the title of 
 a bill in the Congressional Globe. It does not sceni to 
 have gained in force from its union with Whitney's dying 
 project. Indeed, the whole question of a railroad to the 
 Pacific had now assumed an entirely new phase. The 
 adventurous gold seekers who poured into California 
 during tiie years 1848, 1849, 'i"<^ 1850 from all parts of the 
 civilized globe, had organized themselves into a stable 
 community, built cities and towns, and established a State 
 
 88 
 
imc, 
 the 
 
 xl ill 
 'he 
 
 rail- 
 of 
 to 
 
 Vlllg 
 
 the 
 The 
 niia 
 
 the 
 ible 
 tatc 
 
 a 
 
 V 
 
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 Oh 
 
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governn 
 1850, an 
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 line terr 
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 outstrip] 
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 kept aliv 
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 By gen 
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 annual ir 
 words wii 
 route or 
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FUTILE MOVEMENTS IN CONGRESS. 
 
 89 
 
 fTovernment. California was admitted to the Union in 
 1850, and had her senators and representatives on the 
 floor of Congress to ocmand that any railroad project 
 supported by the Government should have in view a 
 line terminating at the Bay of San Francisco. This de- 
 mand seemed only reasonable, inasmuch as the popu- 
 lation of the new gold-producing State had already far 
 outstripped that of the feeble agricultural communities 
 of Oregon and Washington Territory. Thus it happ< ned 
 that the Northern route to the Pacific, which prior to the 
 gold discoveries in the Sacramento valley had been the 
 only one seriously considered, almost dropped out of 
 public notice for sj\cral years. Indeed, it was barely 
 kept alive by the vc i atelligent and forcible advocacy of 
 Governor Stevens^ 'lidod by the efforts of the Minnesota 
 and Oregon delegation in Congress. 
 
 The last heard of Whitney's project was in 1852, when 
 a Mississippi member, nar.iv,d Freeman, speaking in favor 
 of the Southern route from Vicksburg to California, ridi- 
 culed Whitney's plan as one " to build a railroad through 
 a barren, uninhabited, frozen region," and produced a 
 letter from a Boston committee, composed of William 
 Ingalls, E. H. Derby, I. C. Dunn, P. P. F. Le Grand, and 
 0. D. Ashley, criticising Whitney's bill on the ground 
 tlut, as it required him to build only ten miles a year, one 
 hundred and seventy years mi;;-!: elapse before the road 
 was finished. 
 
 By general consent the Paniic railroad project was laid 
 aside in Congress while ilic J v. crnment surveys were 
 being prosecuted. In 1853, President Pierce made a long 
 reference to the surveys and the project in general in his 
 annual message, and succeeded in using a great many 
 words without committing himself either to any special 
 route or to the general principle of the constitutional 
 right of the Gcernmci to build a railroad or aid in the 
 
'S'\ 
 
 ll'l 
 
 90 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 building of one. Shortly afterward William H. Seward, 
 then a Senator from New York, brought forward a bill 
 for a road from the western border of some State west of 
 the Missouri River to the eastern boundary of California. 
 In this and subsequent legislation proposed or enacted 
 in reference to the Pacific railroad, the principle was fol- 
 lowed that Congress had no right to construct a railroad 
 or charter a company for the purpose within the limits of 
 any State ; its power extending only to the Territories. 
 
 Seward's plan was that the Government should furnish 
 money directly from the Treasury to build a road, and 
 get it ba^.i>.' by raising the pric ^^ l-^rids in the regions 
 traversed by the line. About 1 ime time Senator 
 
 Footc, of Mississippi, presented a bi. .'or a railroad from 
 the Mississippi River to California by x Southern route 
 on the basis of a small land grant. The Senate refused 
 to take up either of these bills, and there was so much 
 opposition in the House that the whole project of a Gov- 
 ernment road to the Pacific was dropped for a time. In 
 December, 1854, a resolution declaring it to be the duty 
 of Congress to pass an act providing for the immediate 
 construction and early completion of such a road was 
 tabled by a vote of 1 19 to 68. 
 
 In 1854 and 1855 there was a great deal of talk on the 
 subject in both houses of Congress, and many conflicting 
 schemes came to the front. Sectional jealousies and ani- 
 mosities cropped out continually in the debates. The 
 strife was not between different individuals or corpora- 
 tions proposing to build roads with Congressional aid, 
 but between different States and sections of the Union, 
 anxious to make whatever project j'hould finally be 
 adopted tributary to their interests. In looking back 
 from this distance of time nothing is very clear save the 
 sturdy insistence of Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri, 
 that the line should be a central one, and should start 
 
 from tl 
 active 
 gold fi( 
 tinent. 
 
FUTILE MOVEMENTS IN CONGRESS. 
 
 91 
 
 from the borders of his own State; the demand of the 
 active young senators, Gvvin and Weller, fresh from the 
 gold fields of California, that a railroad across the con- 
 tinent, by whatever route it ran, should end at the 
 Bay of San Francisco ; and the clamors of the Texans, 
 Louisianians, and Mississippians for a Southern route. 
 
 There were select committees in both houses on the 
 general Pacific railroad project, and in 1855 a bill was re- 
 ported proposing that three lines should be chartered 
 and aided with land grants; one from the Western border 
 of Texas to California, one from the Western border of 
 Missouri or Iowa to California, and one from the Western 
 border of Wisconsin to the Bay of San Francisco or to 
 the Pacific Ocean In Oregon or Washington. The report 
 of the Government surveys was at that time being dis- 
 tributed, and there was very little concentration of opin- 
 ion cither in regard to the best route or the proper means 
 to facilitate construction of a road. Nevertheless the 
 Senate passed the bill on February loth, 1855, by a vote 
 of 24 to 21, and gave to each of the lines a land grant of 
 twelve alternate sections on each side of the track, and a 
 contract for carrying the mails at $300 per mile per annum. 
 No subsidy in money was given, nor does it appear that 
 any individuals or companies stood ready to undertake the 
 work. The bill, in fact, was a hasty, crude, semi-political 
 measure — a sort of pooling of issues between different sec- 
 tions of the country, and, had it become a law, it would 
 have been wholly inadequate to secure the construction of 
 even a single road to the Pacific, much less three. The 
 House passed this bill in a great hurry, and then, appar- 
 ently astonished at its own action, reconsidered the vote, 
 and recommitted the bill to the co'- mittee, from which it 
 did not emerge again during that session. 
 
 In the session of 1856 a new bill was prepared by Senator 
 WcUer, of California, for a single line starting at the Mis- 
 

 i^ii 
 
 92 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD 
 
 souri River, to be aided by a land grant of twelve sections 
 to the mile, and a Government subsidy of $2,500,000 in 
 bonds. The plan was to have sealed proposals for build- 
 ing the road submitted to the Secretary of the Interior and 
 the Postmaster-General, who were to contract with parties 
 making the best oiTer as to the time when they would 
 agree to surrender the road to the United States. This 
 measure, notable from the fact that it was the first to 
 embody a scheme for Government aid in bonds, was de- 
 feated in the Senate by a refusal to consider it. The 
 same bill was presented in the House, and although 
 favorably reported from a committee, met a like fate. 
 
 President Buchanan took much more decided ground 
 in favor of the Pacific railroad than President Pierce had 
 ventured to do. In his inaugural address and in his first 
 message sent to Congress in December, 1857, Buchanan 
 advocated the building of a re ad wi'^i Government aid, as 
 a military necessity, and found constituti-inal warrant in 
 the power given the General Government to provide for 
 national defence. The project had not grown in favor, 
 however, and the usual motion to raise a select committee 
 to consider it narrowly escaped defeat in the House. 
 There was a great deal of skirmishing over the different 
 routes proposed, and long arguments drawn from the re- 
 ports of the army surveys were thrown into the debates, 
 'ihc Senate committee reported a bill authorizing the 
 President to contract for the building of a single line, the 
 eastern terminus to be on the Missouri River, between 
 the mouths of the Big Sioux and the Kansas River, and 
 the western terminus at the eastern boundary of the 
 State of California. The successful bidder for the con- 
 tract was to receive twenty sections of land per mile, and 
 a subsidy in five per cent, bonds of $12,500 per mile, and 
 was to complete the road within twelve years and sur- 
 render it at the end of the specified time to the United 
 
FUTILE MOVEMENTS IN CONGRESS. 
 
 93 
 
 States to be turned over to the States it traversed, 
 and the Territories when they should become States. 
 The bill went over to the ensuing session, when, after long 
 debates on the location of a line and numerous amend- 
 ments, the measure was so changed as to simply give 
 authority to the Secretary of the Interior to advertise for 
 proposals for three routes — one from Minnesota to Puget 
 Sound, one from Missouri or Iowa to California, and one 
 from Texas to California, and to lay the proposals before 
 Congress. In this shape it was laid upon the table. 
 
 In i860 the same bill was revived in the Senate, but 
 no action was taken upon it. In the House a new bill 
 was reported, which in its general features was the proto- 
 type of the measure subseijuently passed for the Union 
 and Central Pacific railroads. It contemplated a line to 
 start from two points: one on the western border of Mis- 
 souri, and the other on the western border of Iowa, and to 
 unite and run as a single line to the border of California. 
 Tlie plan of bids and proposals for a Government con- 
 tract was dropped, and a number of men of national rep- 
 utation were named as corporators. A land grant of 
 six sections to the mile on each side of the track was 
 provided, and a subsidy in Government bonds of $6o,CXX>- 
 000. Mr. Curtis, of Iowa, the father of the Union Pacific 
 Bill, passed two years later, was the author of this meas- 
 ure. The House refused to pass it, and sent it back to 
 the committee. 
 
 It will be seen that, in the measure of i860, both the 
 Northern and Southern routes were dropped from consid- 
 eration, and the idea pressed that the Government should 
 centre its favors upon a single road, to be constructed on 
 what was known as the middle or central route. In the 
 ensuing year the matter assumed a new phase. The 
 House, on December 20th, i860, passed a bill for a land 
 grant and subsidy to both the Central and Southern 
 
94 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 routes. So little consideration was shown for the North- 
 ern route at the time, that an amendment, offered by 
 Governor Stevens, who had been in the House since 
 1857 as a Delegate from Washington Territory, granting 
 ten sections to the mile for a road from the Red River of 
 the North to Puget Sound, to be built without other aid 
 from the Government, was rather contemptuously re- 
 jected in the House. However, the New England sena- 
 tors coming to the aid of those from Wisconsin, Minne- 
 sota, and Oregon, were able to put an amendment on 
 the bill in the Senate, giving a subsidy of $25,000,000 
 for a railroad from Lake Superior to Puget Sound. A 
 land grant of six alternate sections to the mile on each 
 side of the track in the State of Minnesota, and ten al- 
 ternate sections for the rest of the distance, was also 
 provided. This measure, thus amended, stopped very far 
 short of doing equal justice to the Northern route. It 
 gave a subsidy of $60,000,000 in bonds to the central 
 route, and $36,000,000 to the Southern route, while it 
 gave only $25,000,000 to the Northern route. 
 
 The amendment was offered by Senator Wilkinson, of 
 Minnesota, and contemplated a line from the head of 
 Lake Superior to Breckenridge, on the Red River of the 
 North, and thence to Puget Sound, with a branch from 
 some point in eastern Washington Territory down the 
 Valley of the Columbia to Portland, Oregon. Here, for 
 the first time, the name of the Northern Pacific Rail- 
 road Company appears in Congressional legislation. The 
 bill, as thus amended, created a company by that name, 
 and empowered Charles D. Gilfillan, of Minnesota, Na- 
 thaniel P. Banks, of Wisconsin, and Isaac L Stevens, of 
 Washington Territory, to act as a Board of Commis- 
 sioners to organ e a company. The Wilkinson amend- 
 ment was adopted, by a vote of 22 to 19, and the bill 
 then went back to the House for concurrence. The 
 
FUTILE MOVEMENTS IN CONGRESS. 
 
 95 
 
 session was almost at an end, and repeated efforts to take 
 the bill from the Speaker's table, to get it before the 
 House for consideration, failed for lack of a two-thirds' 
 vote. 
 
 The name of the " Northern Pacific Railroad Com- 
 pany," did not obtain, however, its first legislative recogni- 
 tion in the action of the Senate in 1861, for as long before 
 as January 2Sth, 1857, the Legislature of Washington Ter- 
 ritory passed " an act to incorporate the Northern Pacific 
 Railroad Company," with a capital of $15,000,000, and 
 authority to increase it to $30,000,000. This company was 
 "authorized and empowered to survey, locate, construct, 
 alter, maintain, and operate a railroad, with one or more 
 tracks or lines of rails, commencing at one of the passes 
 in the Rocky Mountains between the Territories of Wash- 
 ington and Nebraska, and connecting with such road 
 passing through the Territories of Minnesota and Ne- 
 braska as the company may elect ; thence extending 
 westwardly through the Territory of Washington by the 
 Bitter Root Valley, crossing the Cceur d'Alene Mount- 
 ains by the most practicable route ; thence across the 
 great plain of the Columbia, with two branches, one down 
 the Columbia to Vancouver, the other over the Cascade 
 Mountains to the Sound, with a connection from the 
 river to the Sound." The railroad was to be commenced 
 in three years, and completed in ten years from the 
 passage of the act. Among the incorporators were Gen- 
 eral Isaac I. Stevens, first Governor of Washington Ter- 
 ritory; Colonel Wm. Cock ; Elwood Evans ; A. A. Denny ; 
 Judge Wm. Strong; W. S. Ladd ; ex-Senator Ramsey, 
 of Minnesota ; and General James Shields, then of Min- 
 nesota. 
 
 This legislation grew out of the enthusiasm of Gov- 
 ernor Stevens for the Northern route, which he had just 
 finished exploring. Those who engaged in the move- 
 
9<5 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ment little imagined that a quarter of a century would 
 elapse before railway communication would be opened 
 from Puget Sound and the Columbia Valley to the East. 
 They expected a rapid development of their beautiful 
 country ; and, while they did not think the money could 
 be raised on the Pacific coast to build a road to the 
 Rocky Mountains, they evidently thought that an organ- 
 ized company, with a charter, would be the first practical 
 step toward putting the enterprise in motion. Nothing 
 but talk, and exuberant writing in the local press, came 
 of this premature effort. The company existed only on 
 paper, and in a few years died a natural death. 
 
 The description of the route selected for the proposed 
 road will be intelligible when the fact is recalled that, 
 in 1857, Nebraska embraced not only the present State 
 of that name, but also the present Territories of Dakota 
 and Montana, while Washington included the present 
 Territory of Idaho. The route outlined in the act of the 
 Washington Legislature was nearly the same as the one 
 now followed by the Northern Pacific Railroad, with the 
 exception that it crossed the Cceur d'Alfene Mountains, 
 instead of going around them by way of Lake Pend 
 d'Oreille. 
 
I'ould 
 )cncd 
 East, 
 atiful 
 :ould 
 ) the 
 •gan- 
 rtical 
 ihine 
 came 
 \y on 
 
 loscd 
 that, 
 state 
 kota 
 
 ^SCIlt 
 
 f the 
 : one 
 I the 
 ains, 
 'end 
 
I?f 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 JOSIAII P 
 
 \M S I'KOri.E S I'ACUIC RAILROAD. 
 
 c 
 2 
 3 
 
 A 
 
 o* 
 > 
 
 -5 
 c 
 
 Pciliain's Business Career. — The " Fallier " of the Cheap Excursion System 
 — N'isioiis of u Railroad to the Pacific. — A Current Misapprehension Cor- 
 rected. — Perhani Not Originally in Favor of the Xorlhern Route. — 
 T'le Peo[)le's Pacific Railroad Company. — Failure to Get a Charter in 
 Massachusetts. — Perham's Speech to a lioston Meeting. — The Company 
 Chartered by the Maine Legislature. — Perham's Appeals to Congress for 
 Aid. — Ilis Impracticable Plan of Raising Moi-ey by .Small Stock Sub- 
 scriptions. 
 
 Ix the midst of the rampant sectional jealousies and 
 the confusion of conflictini^ local projects for a railroad 
 to the Pacific Coa;5t, which prevailed at Washington pre- 
 vious to i860, tiiere appeared upon the ground a man of 
 definite purpo'- nd strong will who knew exactly what 
 he wanted to id who had sufficient earnestness and 
 
 enthusiasm to convert other men to his views. This was 
 Josiah Perham, who was destined to play an important 
 role in connection with the Northern Pacific enterprise. 
 Perham was a peculiar character. He was a good type of 
 a class of men who have the genius and intelligence to 
 conceive large projects, and the energy, honesty of pur- 
 pose and perseverance to enlist others in their sup- 
 port, but who kick the practical talent to carry them for- 
 ward to completion. He was born in 1803, in Wilton, 
 Franklin County, Maine, under the shade of Old Blue, a 
 sombre-looking mountain, whose summit was once an 
 important station in the coast survey. In early life he 
 uas first a country store-keeper at East Wilton, and after- 
 ward a woolen manufacturer at Readford. He made a 
 fortune in what was known in Maine as the great Hallo 
 7 
 
98 
 
 NOR TITER y PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 well land speculation, in the days of President Jackson; 
 but this he lost soon afterward by holding on to his in- 
 vestments until a crash came and made him a bankrupt. 
 Going to Boston about 1842, he began business anew as 
 a wool commission merchant. Fortune favored him 
 again, and he was able to accumulate money and pay 
 off in full, with interest, all the claims of his old creditors, 
 amounting to $35,000. This honorable action gained him 
 the confidence of the merchants of Boston, and onab'icd 
 him in after years to enlist the support of many of them 
 for his railroad enterprises. 
 
 In 1849 Perham failed a second time. He was about to 
 start for California, by the Isthmus route, having sent his 
 son of fifteen years in advance by a sailing vessel, when he 
 met in Boston a man who had brought to that city a paint- 
 ing of the Great Lakes and the Niagara, St. Lawrence and 
 Saguenay Rivers, known as the " Seven Mile Mirror." 
 Except Banvard's Panorama of the Mississippi, it was 
 the first thing of the sort ever exhibited in this country. 
 Becoming interested in the painting, Mr. Perhani's active 
 mind saw in it a way to replenish his assets. He devised 
 the cheap railroad excursion system ; beginning by bring- 
 ing into Boston small parties from the neighboring 
 towns at reduced fares to visit the " Great Mirror." The 
 idea was novel, and became popular. Country people 
 could enjoy a day in Boston and visit the" Mirror" at small 
 expc; ,e. The railway managers, surprised at the results, 
 gave the scheme their co-operation. Mr. Perham bought 
 the " Mirror," went actively to work to perfect and en- 
 large his excursion system, and during the season of 1850 
 transported over 200,O0O people to lioston by the various 
 railroads in New England and Canada. He continued 
 the excursion business for many years, applying it to sum- 
 mer travel, and arranging round trips with tickets good 
 for thirty and sixty day.s — from Boston to New York, 
 
JOS/A/I PER/IAM'S PEOPLE'S PACIFIC RAILROAD, gg 
 
 thence up the Hudson by boat, to Saratoga, Niagara 
 Falls, Toronto, Kingston, down the St. Lawrence to Mon- 
 treal and Quebec, Portland, and back to Boston. During 
 the winter of 1 861-2, while the Army of the Potomac 
 was encamped near Washington, he sold excursion tick- 
 ets to the national capital. During the twelve years he 
 was enga^'^^d in the excursion business few names were 
 better knc \vn than his to the general public of New Eng- 
 land. The railroad managers had great confidence in 
 him, and the newspapers called him the father of the 
 cheap excursion system. 
 
 In this business Perham again accumulated money, 
 and possessed a comfortable fortune when the vision 
 of the Pacific Railroad dawned upon him in 1853. From 
 that time until his death the vision haunted him night 
 and day, and he could talk of nothing else and think of 
 nothing else. The idea took complete possession of him. 
 He seemed to feel that he had a call from the unseen 
 powers to build a railroad across the continent. He had 
 unbounded faith in his ability to convey to others his own 
 enthusiasm for the project, and spent much of his time in 
 going from place to place and talking about the great 
 scheme to everybody whose attention he could gain. In 
 this respect he followed closely in the path of Whitney, 
 but he did not at first, like Whitney, go to Congress for 
 aid. His idea was that the people of the whole country 
 were ready to come forward and subscribe small sums to 
 the stock of the company, which in the aggregate would 
 amount to enough to construct the road. This fantastic 
 notion took such a strong hold upon him that the most 
 discouraging experiences failed to dislodge it. 
 
 In order to remove a wrong impression generally enter- 
 tained, let it be said here, at the outset of this account of 
 Josiah Pcrham's career, that he was not in any sense the 
 projector of the Northern Pacific enterprise. His first plan 
 
lOO 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 % 
 
 was to build a railroad from the Missouri River to the Bay of 
 San Francisco, and to this he held firmly for nearly ten 
 years, until Congress, in chartering the Union and Central 
 Pacific Companies in 1862, left him, his project and his 
 friends entirely out of the bill. Only then did Mr, Per- 
 ham turn to the Northern route, which he regarded as 
 the best alternative scheme. Asa Whitney proposed 
 from the first to build to the mouth of the Columbia, and 
 only changed his plan after the settlement of California 
 so far as to include a branch from the Wind River Mount- 
 ains to the Bay of San Francisco. Perham, although 
 familiar with the claims made in behalf of the Northern 
 route and well acquainted with Governor Stevens, the 
 most conspicuous champion of that route, whom he fre- 
 quently met at Washington between 1857 and 1S60, 
 thought only of the central line until his efforts to ob- 
 tain the indorsement of Congress for his original scheme 
 proved abortive. 
 
 Mr. Perham rallied around him a small group of de- 
 voted friends in Boston, and in his old home in Maine, 
 who stood by him very faithfully through all his vicissi- 
 tudes, and advanced money for his needs after his own 
 fortune had melted away. These men were, for the most 
 part, merchants of modest means and small influence, 
 but among them were some persons of considerable prom- 
 inence in State and national affairs. The records of Con- 
 gress afford no trace of Perham's movements prior to 
 1859, unless, as is possible, he was connected with the Na- 
 tional Pacific Railroad project, which frequently appears 
 on the record in the form of a bill introduced and referred 
 to committees. In his efforts at Washington he con- 
 stantly met with the objection that there was no prec- 
 edent for an act of Congress chartering a railroad com- 
 pany and giving it a grant of public lands. All previous 
 land grants in aid of railroad construction liad been given 
 
JOSIAH PERHAM'S PEOPLE'S PACIFIC RAILROAD, jqi 
 
 to the States, and by them turned over to companies of 
 their own creation. The States Rights Democrats, who 
 then controlled the policy of the General Government, 
 held that it was not in the constitutional power of Con- 
 gress to create corporations. President Buchanan, in his 
 annual message of 1858, used the following language : 
 
 " r s freely admitted that it would be inexpedient for this Government 
 to exercise the power of constructing the Pacific Railroad by its own im- 
 mediate agents. Such a policy would increase the patronage of the Execu- 
 tive to a dangerous extent, and introduce a system of jobbing and corruption 
 V no vigilance on the part of Federal officers could either prevent or 
 
 (I. t. This can only be done by the keen eye and active and careful 
 supervision of individual and private interest. The construction of tliis 
 road ought, therefore, to be committed to companies incorporated by the 
 States, or other agencies, whose pecuniary interests would be directly in- 
 volved. Congress might then assist them in the work by grants of land or 
 of money, or both, under such conditions or restrictions as would secure the 
 transportation of troops and munitions of war free from any charge, and that 
 of the United States mail at a fair and reasonable price." 
 
 To meet these objections, Perham endeavored to pro- 
 cure a charter for the People's Pacific Railroad Company 
 fiom the Legislature of Massachusetts. His petition, 
 signed by one hundred and eleven persons, was presented 
 to the Massachusetts House by Moses Kimball, of Boston, 
 on February 20th, 1 859. Among the signers were In- 
 crease S. Withington, afterward the first treasurer of the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad Company, Edward S. Philbrick, 
 Daniel Chamberlain, W. W. Clapp, Jr., present editor 
 of the Boston Journal ; Daniel S. Haskell, editor of the 
 Boston Transcript ; Curtis Gill, editor of the Boston 
 Commercial Bulletin ; Roland Worthington, present Col- 
 lector of the Port of Boston ; Benjamin F. Cooke, R. 
 W. Holmes, Samuel A. Green and. Jabez C. Howe. In 
 aid of this petition another was filed from citizens of 
 Maine, headed by the name of Hannibal Hamlin, and still 
 others from various parts of Massachusetts, and from the 
 States of New York, Illinois, California, Maryland, Ten- 
 
102 
 
 NORTHER AT PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 nessee, AlabaiT>a, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, 
 and Iowa. From these petitions, coming as they did 
 from so many sections of the country, it would appear 
 that Perham had been engaged for some time in working 
 up his project of a State charter, or possibly he used with 
 the Massachusetts Legislature the petitions he had col- 
 lected with a view of presenting them in Washington. The 
 route described in his own petition for the People's Pacific 
 Railroad was as follows : " From the Missouri River, at a 
 point between the mouth of the Platte River on the 
 north and the mouth of the Kansas River on the south, 
 and from such point by such route as maybe most direct 
 and practicable, to the city of San Francisco." This, it 
 will be seen, was substantially the route afterward 
 adopted by the Union Pacific Company. 
 
 The bill chartering Perham's company passed the Massa- 
 chusetts Senate on March 30th. In order to give it force 
 in the House, Perham arranged a meeting at Fanueil Hall, 
 Boston, on the evening of March 31st, which was presided 
 over by Benjamin F. Cooke. At this meetliig Mr. Per- 
 ham made a speech, in the course of which he gave the 
 following outline of his project : 
 
 " I propose to get a chartir from the Legislature of Massachusetts by the 
 name of the People's Pacific Railroad Company, with a capital o( oiif hun- 
 dred million dollars, divided into shares of one hundred dollars each, to build 
 the road with, with the legal consent of Congress, and of any States through 
 which any pan of the road may be located. 
 
 " I propose to go before the masses and get the stock taken up in small 
 sums by the people, asking each man to take one share and not more than 
 ten, and requiring ten dollars on each share to be paid when the subscrip- 
 tion is made. Tiie amount of such subscriptions will be so small that the 
 payment will not be felt, and yet the aggregate amount of such payments 
 will furnish funds sufficient for the purpose. 
 
 " There are many instances where the smallest items are paid and yet the 
 total sum is very large. In the omnibus and horse railroad business no man 
 misses the small disbursements, and yet the aggregate is immense. 
 
 " By a recent computation a most astonishing instance of this fact is shown 
 
JOSIAH PERM AM" S PEOPLE'S PACIEIC RAILROAD. lo^ 
 
 to exist in the city of New York. By a reported list of tlie open drinking 
 saloons of tlaat city, it appears from a careful examination and calculation of 
 the total receipts of those places, on Sundays only, in a single year, it 
 reaches the large total of one million dollars. This total is made up of five 
 and ten cent pieces. 
 
 " This plan of accomplishing this end and of meeting the expense of the 
 construction of this road is not new to me. It has been a subject of conver- 
 sation with me for the past six years in all parts of the country, and not the 
 fust person has yet been found who has said it was not the best plan pro- 
 posed, though some great men think any efforts for this object useless and 
 visionary. The class of men who express such opinions are those who, from 
 necessity perhajis, never move in anything until some other person shows 
 them the way — slow-coach men — o(T-ox men. The question has often been 
 asked me, is it not too great an undertaking for a private corporation ? I 
 have given the President's views upon that subject, and I know the masses, 
 and know it will take with them. 
 
 " The name, the People's Pacific Railroad Company, to be owned by the 
 people, in small sums, will be very popular and will go through the country 
 beyond anything ever put before them. Thousands are now waiting for the 
 books to be open to subscribe for the stock. 
 
 " I do not want to get this project into politics. I want the 7i'//(Vt' people 
 of ihe country to subscribe to the stock. I want one tiiilUon people to sub- 
 scribe for one share each and the road is built. 
 
 " I want t-ii<mty thousand people of Boston and IMassachusetts to sub- 
 scribe for one snare each, within two weeks after the books are open, which 
 will give it such force as to sweep the whole country like a whirlwind. I 
 want to got so large a share of the stock taken before Congress meets in 
 Decniber next, that the President will recommend in his message to grant 
 us lands, and the moment we get a grant of lauds from Congress the balance 
 of stock not taken will be taken at once. I propose to have aline of mag- 
 netic telegraph built as soon as we have got y?//tv« w/7.V(»« dollars of the 
 stock subscribed, and will endeavor to have the line of telegraph open dur- 
 ing the next session of Congress. 
 
 " I am often asked, Why do you seek a charter in Massachusetts? My 
 answer is, because it is my adopted home. I know the press, the railroad 
 people and the masses of the people, and they know me, and -^nwx threat men 
 have heard of me. 
 
 " I ask the charter of Massachusetts because I shall have associated with 
 me some of the best men in the country — live men — who will put their 
 enerjjies with mine, and make a long and strong pull to accomplish this 
 j^reat work." 
 
 The meeting passed resolutions in favor of Perham's 
 project, but they were of no avail, for the House, on 
 
104 
 
 KORTJIERX PACII'IC RAILROAD. 
 
 
 April 4th, indefinitely postponed the bill. Failing in 
 Massachusetts, Perham had recourse to his own State of 
 Maine, where he had many friends in public life. The 
 Maine Legislature gave him the charter he wanted, and 
 passed a bill incorporating the People's Pacific Railroad 
 Company, which was approved by Governor Lot AI. 
 Morrill on March 20th, i860. It named no corpora- 
 tors residing in a dozen different States, but chiefly 
 in Maine and Massachusetts, of whom fifty-one were 
 made commissioners with power to organize the com- 
 pany. The location named for the road was " from 
 a point on the Missouri River, between the mouth of the 
 Platte River on the north and the Kansas River on the 
 south, and on such route from the Missouri River through 
 Utah to the citv of San Francisco, on the Pacific coast, 
 and as near as practicable to the present traveled mail 
 route, or by such route as the corporation shall deem ex- 
 pedient and for the public interest." 
 
 The original intention seems to have been to select the 
 route afterwards taken by the Union Pacific, under its 
 charter from Congress, in 1862, but the language of the 
 People's charter was broad enough to embrace a northern 
 route, or, in fact, any route. The stock of the company 
 was to be one million shares of one hundred dollars each, 
 and no person or company was to subscribe for more 
 than one hundred shares. 
 
 In this act Pcrham's impracticable idea of a popular 
 stock subscription, embracing people of all conditions in 
 all parts of the country, was first put into shape. He fancied 
 that a million of people would come forward and gladly 
 pay a hundred dollars each to help build a railroad across 
 the continent. In his imagination he communicated his 
 own enthusiasm for the project to the entire population 
 of the United States. This wild plan of a general and 
 spontaneous subscription to stock he put into the bill 
 
JOSIAH PERHAM'S PEOPLE'S PACIFIC RAILROAD. 105 
 
 which afterwards passed Congress, chartering the North- 
 ern Pacific Company, and it came near destroying the 
 enterprise at its birth. 
 
 The People's Pacific Railroad Company was organized 
 in lioston. Josiali Pcrham was chosen president, Oliver 
 Frost, vice-president, and I. S. VVithington, treasurer. 
 Stock was issued, and it would appear, was sold in small 
 sums of from ten dollars to one hundred dollars to a few 
 of Pcrham's friends. The history of the scheme, although 
 brief, is not very clear, owing to the fact that many of 
 the papers concerning the company, together with others 
 relating to the first movements for organizing its direct 
 successor, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, were 
 destroyed in the great Boston fire. 
 
 Pcrham hastened to Washington with his People's 
 Pacific Railroad charter, and was diligent in his attend- 
 ance upon the committees and in the lobby of the two 
 Houses. From that time forward he endeavored to ob- 
 tain from Congress a recognition of his company as the 
 one best entitled to Government favor, and asked for it a 
 grant of land and money to aid it to build the proposed 
 railroad. It does not appear that Mr. Perham had any- 
 thing to do with the development of the subsidy plan 
 which was afterwards made the basis of the legislation 
 for the first line to the Pacific coast ; but finding that 
 plaif growing in favor, and meeting with but poor success 
 in his efforts to obtain subscriptions to the stock of the 
 People's Company, he was naturally ready to attach it to 
 his project. We shall see in the subsequent chapter, how- 
 ever, that he had not abandoned the notion that it was 
 feasible for him to raise sufficient money to build the road 
 by direct appeals to the people for subscriptions in small 
 sums to his stock. 
 
M' 
 
 wmmmmmm. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE UNION AND CENTRAL PACIFIC CHARTER. 
 
 Five Praclicaljle Routes to tlie Pacific — Congress Prefers the Middle Route 
 — Political Considerations — TJireats of the Southern Element in Cali- 
 fornia — The Union and Central Pacific Railroad Bill — Perham's Project 
 left out — Fruitless Effort in the Senate for the Northern Route — Passage 
 of the liill — Its tienerous Conditions — Profits of Construction — The 
 Route Adopted Follows the Emigrant Trail — Amendment of the Charter 
 in 1864 — Condition of the Northern Belt in 1862. 
 
 The Government surveys, as we have seen, disclosed 
 the fact that there were at least five practicable rotitcs 
 for a railway to the Pacific. Each of the lines explored 
 was found feasible, though there were marked differences 
 in the altitudes of the mountain barriers to be overcome, 
 and in the character of the country to be traversed in re- 
 spect to its fitness for settlement and cultivation. The 
 northern route, traversing the belt of country first made 
 known to the world by the Lewis and Clarke expedition, 
 was found to be the only one offering a soil valuable for 
 farming or grazing for nearly its entire length. The 
 country along the middle route, after leaving the prairie.'^ 
 of Nebraska, is mainly barren, save in the basin of»thc 
 great Salt Lake ; the more southern lines west of the 
 narrow alluvial valley of the Rio Grande traversed and 
 wastes all the way to California, relieved by only a few 
 narrow strips of irrigable valleys or mountain and timber 
 belts. 
 
 The beginning of the civil war in 1S61 postponed any 
 determination by Congress of the question of the route to 
 be favored by the Government. In 1862, however, when 
 the war was in its most doubtful stage, political consid- 
 
M 
 
 ta 
 
 K 
 
 » 
 
 icn 
 
 SKI 
 
THE UNIOX AND CENTRAL PACIFIC CHARTER. 
 
 107 
 
 cratlons hastened action on the transcontinental railway 
 project. California, during the gold fever, had attracted a 
 considerable immigration from the Southern States. The 
 settlers from that section naturally sympathized with the 
 rebellion. The power of the Government, absorbed in the 
 fierce contest raging from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, 
 was but feebly felt on the Pacific coast. A separation of 
 California and Oregon from the United States, and the 
 erection of a Pacific republic or empire, was freely talked 
 of. There were also bold projects of a rebel expedition 
 across the plains to conquer California for the South with 
 the aid of its Southern-born citizens. An expedition 
 from Te.xas did, in fact, go as far as New Mexico, but was 
 driven back with heavy loss. Meanwhile the loyal 
 people of California urged upon Congress the importance 
 of speedily uniting their State with the East by a rail- 
 road, as a political as well as commercial measure. So 
 Congress stopped in the midst of the great task of pro- 
 viding men and money to carry on the struggle for 
 national existence, to create and subsidize corporations 
 to build a railway across the continent. When the first 
 Pacific Railroad Bill was passed, the cannon of the defiant 
 enemy could almoL>t be heard at the Capitol in Washing- 
 ton. This was in June, 1862, shortly after the defeats of 
 McClellan on the Peninsula, and just before the disas- 
 trous battle known as the second Bull Run. 
 
 This bill, approved July i, 1862, was substantially the 
 same as the Curtis bill of 1861. It chartered two com- 
 panies, one to build from Omaha on the Missouri River 
 westward, and the other from Sacramento, in the State 
 of California, eastward, until their lines joined. At the 
 same time it recognized a company chartered by the 
 Legislature of Kansas, and called the Leavenworth, 
 Pawnee and Western Railway Company, the name of 
 which was changed to the Union Pacific, Eastern Divi- 
 
'mmns^anamm 
 
 1 08 
 
 NOKTlIERiV PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 sion, and afterwards to the Kansas Pacific, and gave to 
 that company like grants of money and public lands to 
 those given the Union Pacific, for a distance of 394 miles 
 west of the Missouri River through the State of Kansas. 
 It further provided for branches to the main Union line, 
 leaving the Missouri River at the towns of Atchison and 
 Sioux City. 
 
 In the long list of incorporators named in the bill, 
 nearly every locality and interest connecud with the pre- 
 vious movements for a road from the Missouri River to 
 California were recognized except Perham and his New 
 England friends who had organized the People's Pacific 
 Railroad Company; they were crowded out. The rudi- 
 mentary organizations chartered in New York, Missouri, 
 and Iowa were noticed, as well as the California Com- 
 pany already building from'San Francisco to Sacramento, 
 while every little town on the Missouri River from Sioux 
 City to Leavenworth was included among the eastern 
 termini. Perham's friends in Congress made futile efforts 
 in his behalf. Mr. Lovejoy, of Illinois, in the House en- 
 deavored to have the People's Bill substituted for that 
 reported by the committee, and Mr. Fesscnden, of 
 Maine, spoke of the People's Company as comprising 
 many of the most respectable citizens of his State. Mr. 
 Lovejoy's motion was rejected. 
 
 Not much was said in the course of the debate in the 
 House about the northern route, but the Legislatures of 
 Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota had instructed their 
 Senators to support it in preference to any other, and 
 Mr. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, offered a carefully prepared 
 amendment in the form of additional sections to the bill. 
 It provided for three engineers to locate the line from 
 Lake Superior to Puget Sound, for a grant of alternate 
 sections of land for twenty miles on each side of the 
 track, for the sale of the land, and the payment of ninety- 
 
THE UNION AND CENTRAL PACIFIC CHARTER. 109 
 
 three per cent, of the proceeds to the States aiul Terri- 
 tories traversed by tlie road, which were to turn it over 
 to the company undertalcing the construction, as sections 
 of twenty-five miles of the track were completed. This 
 proposition the Senate rejected by a vote of 15 yeas to 23 
 nays. The original bill, which had passed the House 
 May 6, 1862, by a vote of 79 yeas to 49 nays, passed the 
 Senate, June 20th, by yeas 35, nays 5. 
 
 Under its provisions, the Union Pacific, starting at 
 Omaha, received a subsidy in Government bonds of $16,- 
 000 per mile for the portion of its line traversing the 
 great plains, $48,000 per mile for the 150 miles across the 
 Rocky Mountains, and §32,000 per mile for the remainder 
 of the line. The aggregate of this subsidy for the 1,033 
 miles of the road was $27,226,512. The Central Pacific 
 received a like subsidy in bonds, the $16,000 per mile 
 grant applying only to a short portion of the line west of 
 the Sierra Nevada Mountains, while $48,000 per mile was 
 given for 150 miles across the Sierras, and $32,000 per 
 mile for the long stretch of road through the deserts of 
 Nevada. Thus the Central Company received for the 883 
 miles of its line from Sacramento to Ogden a little more 
 than the Union Pacific, the total of its subsidy being 
 $27)855>68o. Each company obtained at the same time 
 a grant of public lands of 12,800 acres per mile of road. 
 
 By the act of incorporation of these two companies 
 the subsidies of Government bonds were to be secured by 
 a first mortgage on the road, but before any progress was 
 made in the work of construction, an amendment to the 
 charter was passed by Congress, on July 2d, 1864, allow- 
 ing the CO- .pan o issue an amount of their own bonds 
 cqn ' le subsidy bonds given them by the Govcrn- 
 
 m ,id the Gov nment's lien was subordinated to the 
 
 ne\. )onds md secured only by a second mortgage. 
 Economica ly used, the proceeds of the Government 
 
no 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 bonds would have been sufficient to buiM and equip the 
 entire road from Omaha to Sacramento. In effect, the 
 generous legislation of Congress in behalf of the two com- 
 panies uniting to open the first line of railroad between 
 the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, operated, first, to loan them 
 monc)' enough to build the line ; second, to present them 
 with a large area of public land ; third, to authorize them 
 to borrow a sum equal to the Government loan on the 
 strength of a first mortgage ; and fourth, to allow them to 
 issue and sell stock to the amount of one hundred 
 millions of dollars. Under this arrangement the Com- 
 panies practically obtained possessioii of about 2,000 
 miles of railroad without investing any money of their 
 own, had in addition a large surplus from the Govern- 
 ment subsidy and the sale of their first mortgage bonds 
 and of the stock, and owned a land grant of nearly 
 25,000,000 acres. Under these exceedingly liberal and 
 advantageous, conditions it was not to be wondered at that 
 the construction of the road proceeded rapidly from botli 
 ends after the passage of the amended charter by Con- 
 gress. The time fixed for the opening of the entire line 
 was July 1st, 1876. It was completed May loth, 1869. 
 Its progress from month to month had been observed by 
 the whole country with great interest, and its completion 
 was an occasion of general rejoicing. 
 
 It is fair to say, in this connection, that the Union and 
 Central Pacific Companies, as such, did not realize as 
 large profits as would appear from the foregoing state- 
 ments. The cost of construction was made unnecessarily 
 great, in order that large profits might go into the pockets 
 of individuals prominently connected with the companies, 
 who were at the same time members of the construction 
 companies which took the contracts for building the line. 
 Thus the nominal cost represented not only the actual 
 necessary expenditure, but a very large margin above th. 
 
THE UNION AND CENTRAL PACIFIC CHARTER. \\\ 
 
 same, which was divided as profits among the stockholders 
 in the construction companies, and enabled them to realize 
 large fortune's. It should also be said that the land grant 
 of the Union and Central Pacific Railroads, forming the 
 first transcontinental railway line, was of small value in 
 proportion to its actual acreage. From the looth 
 meridian of longitude in Nebraska to the timbered slopes 
 of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a distance of nearly 
 1,500 miles, there is very little land available for agricul- 
 ture. Of the entire grant, extending from the ^Missouri 
 River to the valley of the Sacramento, more than one- 
 half consists of deserts and mountains not salable at any 
 price, and the greater proportion of the remainder covers 
 dry, elevated plateaux and narrow valleys, valuable chiefly 
 for pasturage, and offering small inducements to farmers. 
 The route selected for the first railroad to the Pacific 
 coast, aided by the national Government, followed closely 
 the overland trail to California made by the gold hunters 
 in 1849, 1850, and the following years. That, in its turn, 
 had followed as far as Salt Lake in the track of the great 
 Mormon exodus of 1847 ^"^ 184S. The route was thus 
 well known long before the railroad engineers stuck their 
 stakes upon it. The overland mail traversed it, and 
 passengers were jolted through in stage coaches, which 
 ran night and day, from the Missouri River towns to 
 Sacramento. It was only natural that this familiar route, 
 leading directly to the cities and gold mines of California, 
 should be preferred by Congress when there was a 
 question of a railroad. There were still other reasons for 
 the choice. Railway lines had already reached the 
 Missouri River opposite the new Kansas and Nebraska 
 towns, and in California a road had been built from San 
 I'rancifjco to .Sacramento. Then there were, halfway along 
 that portion of the line which crossed the alkali deserts, the 
 thrifty agricultural settlements of the Mormons around 
 
w 
 
 112 
 
 J\rOJ?T///?£Ar PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 
 K> ' 
 
 J4'- 
 
 the Great Salt Lake and in the Valley of the Jordan, 
 which afforded supplies of food and reinforcements of 
 laborers. 
 
 The friends of the northern route were, however, not 
 idle. They pressed its advantages upon Congress, but 
 at first without much effect. In 1862 Minnesota as a 
 State was but four years old, and the Sioux Indians had, 
 in that very year, burned her frontier settlements and 
 massacred nearly one thousand of her people. Dakota 
 was a buffalo range and an Indian hunting ground. 
 Oregon had a scanty population of farmers and two or 
 three small towns, whose names had hardly reached the 
 East. It seemed hopeless to advocate a railroad to the 
 mouth of the Columbia at that time, although a few years 
 before, previous to the gold discoveries in California, the 
 route of the Columbia and the Missouri was the only one 
 thought of in Congress or the country. 
 
 In 1864, when the amended charter of the Union and 
 Central Pacific companies was passed, subordinating the 
 Government loan to their own mortgage, the supporters 
 of the Northern Pacific project, represented in Congress 
 chiefly by the Senators and Representatives from Minne- 
 sota, Wisconsin, and from the New England States, were 
 strong enough to get a charter and a land grant. They 
 did not venture to ask for a grant of money or credit. 
 Their plan seems to have been looked upon by most peo- 
 ple in and about Congress with a sort of sceptical, good- 
 humored tolerance, and as they asked nothing but land, 
 which was supposed to be of no value, they had, as wc 
 shall sec in the following chapter, no great trouble in run- 
 ning their bill through side by side with the Union and 
 Central bill, which last was worth fifty millions of dollars 
 to the promoters of those corporations. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PASSAGE OF THE CHARTER ACT. 
 
 Perham Transfers liis Efforts to the Northern Project— Thaddeus Stevens 
 Supports the People's Pacific Scheme — Defeat of the Bill in the House — 
 A Xcw Bill framed creating the Northern Pacific Company — It Passes 
 the House and Senate, and is approved by President Lincoln — Its Prin- 
 cipal Provisions — Pcrham's Impracticable Stock Subscription Plan — The 
 Company Prohibited to Issue Bonds or Mortgage the Road — A Doulde 
 Land Grant, but no other Government Aid. 
 
 After the failure of his efforts to obtain for his Peo- 
 ple's Company the charter from Congress to build the 
 road to San Francisco, Josiah Perham made a stroke of 
 genius. He transferred himself, his organization, his at 
 guments, and his friends en masse to the Northern route. 
 This shifting of position was effected at a fortunate mo- 
 ment. The Northern project had no conspicuous advo- 
 cate. Governor Stevens had just perished upon a Virginia 
 battle field. The influence of his remarkable report and of 
 his vigorous and persevering presentation to the public of 
 the merits of the northern route, year after year, had 
 been almost sufficient to cause Congress to adopt it with- 
 out any pressure from the lobby. When the Union 
 and Central Pacific bill passed, there was a general un- 
 derstanding among the leading men in Congress that a 
 road from St. Paul and Lake Superior to Pugct Sound 
 should be commenced at no distant day, with the aid of 
 a liberal land grant. The time, therefore, was auspicious 
 for Perham's movement. Me had attracted considerable 
 attention at Washington by his earnest arguments, re- 
 peated session after session, in favor of a line to California. 
 He had the support of a chartered company, numbering 
 8 
 
114 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 among its directors men of substance and respectability. 
 He wisely determined to ask for no subsidy in bonds, 
 such as had been given to the companies building by the 
 middle route. If Congress would give his People's Com- 
 pany double the land grant given to the Union and Cen- 
 tral Companies, he was confident that he could raise 
 enough money by a popular subscription for stock to build 
 the Northern road. The facility with which he changed 
 his Maine charter, his directors and stockholders, from an 
 organization to build a railroad from the Missouri River 
 to the Bay of San Francisco to one to build from the head 
 of Lake Superior to some unknown port on the forest- 
 clad shores ot Puget Sound was certainly surprising. The 
 truth is, however, the People's Pacific Railroad Company 
 was Josiah Perham, and the men associated with him 
 in it were his personal friends, whom he had indoctrinated 
 with his absorbing idea that he liad a special call and 
 mission to construct a railroad across the continent. 
 
 Mr. Perham gained the favor and friendship of Thad- 
 deus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, at that time the most 
 powerful man in cither branch of Congress. As the dic- 
 tatorial leader of the dominant party in the House, I\Ir. 
 Stevens shaped all important legislation in that body, and 
 rarely failed to carry through the measures he favored, 
 and to defeat those he opposed. It is safe to say, that 
 without his support the Northern Pacific charter could not 
 have been obtained during his lifetime. He was a member 
 of the Pacific Railroad Committee, and as such reported 
 to the House on February 15, 1864, a bill " granting lands 
 to the People's Pacific Railroad Company, to aid in the 
 construction of a railroad and telegraph line to the Pacific 
 coast by the northern route." In respect to route and 
 land grant, this bill was identical with the Northern Pa- 
 cific bill afterwards passed. Mr. Stevens silenced criti- 
 cisms on the score of the magnitude of the land grant, by 
 
PASSAGE OF THE CHARTER ACT. 
 
 "5 
 
 asking Mr. Holman, of Indiana, if he believed the value 
 of the lands approached the value of the subsidies voted 
 two years before to the Union Pacific Company. Objec- 
 tions to adopting a Maine company for a road to run from 
 Minnesota to the Pacific were not, however, so readily 
 met. A carefully prepared speech in favor of the bill, 
 and in advocacy of the claims of the northern route, was 
 delivered by L. D. M. Sweat, a Democratic member from 
 Maine. Mr. Holman offered an amendment, requiring 
 the company to transport the troops and property of the 
 United States free of charge. He had offered the same 
 amendment when the Ui "mi Pacific bill was pending, and 
 it had been rejected. Now k was adopted by a vote of 55 to 
 47. Mr. Donnelly, of Minnesota, spoke in favor of the bill. 
 Mr. Sloan, of New York, had an amendment adopted 
 requiring the road to run north of the 45th instead of the 
 44th parallel. Mr. Stevens closed the debate, and the 
 House proceeded to vote. Greatly to Stevens's surprise, 
 the bill was rejected by yeas, 55 ; nays, 66. 
 
 After this defeat, Stevens told Perham he must fit his 
 scheme to the temper of the House, and must drop his 
 Maine charter and company. On the 23d of May a new 
 bill, which had been prepared in the Pacific Railroad 
 Committee, was reported by Stevens and recommitted. 
 It was entitled " A Bill granting lands to aid in the con- 
 struction of a railroad and telegraph line from Lake 
 Superior to Puget Sound, on the Pacific Coast, by the 
 Northern Route." It created a company by direct char- 
 ter, called the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and it 
 named as corporators all of Mr. Perham's best friends in 
 Maine and Massachusetts who had aided him in the 
 People's movement, and in addition many eminent capi- 
 talists, railroad men and politicians living in different 
 parts of the country, such as John C. Fremont, George 
 Opdyke and Chauncey Vibbard, of New York ; R. D. 
 
1^ 
 
 li6 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Rice and A. P. Morrill, of Maine ; George W. Cass and J. 
 Edgar Thompson, of Pennsylvania; Onslow Stearns and 
 William E. Chandler, of New Hampshire ; Cyrus Aldrich, 
 of Minnesota; John Gregory Smith, of Vermont; U. S. 
 Grant and Wm. B. Ogden, of Illinois; W. Prescott Smith 
 and John H. B. Latrobe, of Maryland ; John A. Bingham 
 and Philo Chamberlain, of Ohio ; and Alexander Mitchell, 
 of Wisconsin. The bill came before the House on May 
 31st, on amotion to reconsider the vote recommitting it, 
 and after a {g.\\ questions had been answered by Thaddcus 
 Stevens, it was passed — yeas 74; nays 50. 
 
 The bill was reported favorably from the Senate com- 
 mittee June 27th, with numerous minor amendments, and 
 one which was important, binding the Government to ex- 
 tinguish the titles of Indian tribes to lands embraced within 
 the area of the grant. It passed the same day without a 
 division. The House disagreed to the amendments, and 
 a committee of conference was appointed, consisting of 
 J. R. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, Ira Harris, of New York, 
 and J. W. Nesmith, of Oregon, on the part of the Senate, 
 and Thaddeus Stevens, L. D. M. Sweat, and Ignatius 
 Donnelly, of the House — all conspicuous friends of the 
 measure. The committee speedily agreed, their report 
 was adopted by both Houses, and the bill was signed by 
 President Lincoln, July 2d, 1S64. 
 
 The readiness with which the two Houses of Congress 
 adopted this important measure was due no doubt, in 
 some part, to Perham's indefatigable labors at Wash- 
 ington, talking to Senators and Representatives about 
 the need and justice of Government aid to a northern 
 line to the Pacific, and of his ability to raise money to 
 build the road ; but it was due still more to the education 
 of public opinion through the writings of Edwin F. John- 
 son and Isaac I. Stevens, on the advantages of the northern 
 route, and to the growth of a sentiment in the country 
 
PASSAGE OF THE CHARTER ACT. 
 
 117 
 
 that fair treatment of the Northwestern States and Ter- 
 ritories by the General Government required that a rail- 
 road should be built to the Pacific, connecting the waters 
 of the Great Lakes with those of the Columbia River 
 and of Puget Sound. 
 
 In its provisions for organizing the company, the 
 Northern Pacific bill followed closely the bill passed two 
 years before creating the Union and Central Companies. 
 The corporators were made a Board of Commissioners, 
 and directed when and where to meet, how to organize, 
 and where to open books for subscriptions to the stock. 
 After two millions of dollars were subscribed and ten per 
 cent, of the subscriptions paid in, the subscribers were to 
 elev^t directors, and the company, havmg first formally 
 accepted the charter, was to be duly formed. The rest of 
 the bill, however, differed widely from its prototype. The 
 land grant, instead of being twenty sections to the mile 
 of track, was twenty in the States of Minnesota and 
 Oregon, and forty in the Territories; but there was 
 no provision for a subsidy in Government bonds. In- 
 deed, in order to remove all doubts from the minds of 
 Congressmen as to the possible future effects of the 
 bill, a clause was tacked on to the land grant section 
 providing " that no money should be drawn from the 
 treasury of the United States to aid in the construction 
 of the said Northern Pacific Railroad." 
 
 To Perham was due a novel section which proved a 
 dead weight on the neck of the enterprise, until it was 
 removed in 1870, at great trouble and expense, by the 
 passage of a bill amending the charter. This section 
 provided "that all the people of the United States shall 
 have the right to subscribe to the stock of the Northern 
 Pacific Railroad Company until the whole capital named 
 in this act of incorporation is taken up, by complying 
 with the terms of subscription ; and no mortgage or con- 
 
ii8 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 i;ii: 
 
 struction bonds shall ever be issued by said company, on 
 said road, or mortgage or lien made in any way, except 
 by the consent of the Congress of the United States." 
 This section, advocated by Perham, the outcome of iiis 
 absurd notion that a million of people were ready to sub- 
 scribe a hundred dollars apiece to build any Pacific rail- 
 road, delayed the commencement of construction on the 
 road for five years. The charter bound the company to 
 commence work within two years, to complete not less 
 than fifty miles a year after the second year, and to finish 
 the entire road by July 4, 1876. 
 
 Nothing in the bill gave Josiah Perham and his asso- 
 ciates of the People's Company control of the charter ; 
 in fact, the other corporators largely outnumbered them ; 
 but the project was generally regarded as Perham's, and 
 there was no disposition to deprive him of an opportunity 
 to carry it out if he could. 
 
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CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ORGANIZING THE COMPANY. 
 
 A Board of Commissioners — The Company a New England Concern — First 
 Meeting of tlic Board — Perham's Speech — Ilis Estimate of the Cost of 
 the Northern Pacific Road — Exaggerated Notions as to the Value of the 
 Land Grant — Subscription Books Opened — The Original Stockholders 
 — First Board of Directors — Officers Elected. 
 
 The act of incorporation named one hundred and thirty- 
 five persons as commissioners to organize tiic Northern 
 Pacific Railroad Company. Doubtless a majority of these 
 gentlemen had little knowledge of the project, and felt 
 no particular interest in it. Their names were inserted 
 in the list by friends in Congress as an easy way of pay- 
 ing them a compliment. Ex-Governors, ex-Senators and 
 Congressmen, the then general of the army, U. S. Grant, 
 together with a few active railroad managers and a 
 sprinkling of capitalists swelled the list, which very 
 properly included also the little group of New England 
 men whose efforts at Washington had procured the pas- 
 sage of the charter. It was evidently intended by the 
 promoters of the enterprise that the company should be 
 a New England affair so far as its management was con- 
 cerned. The charter provided that the first meeting of 
 the commissioners should be held in Boston, at such time 
 as any five of the commissioners from Massachusetts 
 should appoint. On the first of September, 1864, the 
 meeting was held in Melodeon Hall, Boston. Only 
 thirty-three of the commissioners attended it. Of these 
 fourteen were from Massachusetts, four from Maine, one 
 from New Hampshire, one from Connecticut, two from 
 New York, one from Pennsylvania, three from Michigan, 
 
120 
 
 NORTH ERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 two from Missouri, two from the District of Columbia, 
 one from Illinois, one from Kansas, and one from Min- 
 nesota. The board elected as its officers: Josiah ?cr- 
 ham. President ; Willard Sears, Vice-President ; Abicl 
 Abbott, Secretary; I. S. Withington, Treasurer. 
 
 Mr. Perham made a speech, over sanguine, as were 
 most of his utterances, for he was an enthusiast by nature, 
 but showing a clear conception of the magnitude of 
 the project and remarkably correct ideas of the character 
 of the then little known country the proposed road was 
 to traverse. He said the northern route was the shortest 
 to the Pacific. Nature had made it such. Puget Sound 
 was directly west of Lake Superior, and at the very point 
 where the coast bends inland and carries the Pacific 
 waters farthest east. It was also the most central route, 
 as any one would see by looking on the map. It was 
 also the most practicable route, for the mountain ranges, 
 the great obstacles to any Pacific railroad, were here the 
 most depressed and most easily overcome. There were 
 no deserts along this route — no want of water, or timber, 
 or stone. There was required but little heavy grading, 
 tunneling, or trestle work, and no formidable bridging. 
 
 For farming, grazing and mining purposes, there was 
 no parallel zone that equaled that through which this 
 road would pass. Almost every acre was rich in soil, or 
 still richer in mineral wealth. There was every variety 
 of surface and scenery that could give pleasure to the eye 
 and usefulness to the diversif d employments of man. 
 There were rich bottoms and valleys, undulating plains, 
 rolling prairies, solitary hills and peaks, mountain spurs 
 and ranges. There were innumerable lakes of every size 
 and form, of the purest water. Also countless streams 
 and majestic rivers, with rapids, cascades and falls. Forest 
 and prairie alternated throughout, rendering the opening 
 of farms easy and cheap. Game was abundant, and would 
 
ORGANIZING THE COMPANY. 
 
 121 
 
 be ample for meat until domestic animals could be intro- 
 duced and multiplied to any desirable extent. The cli- 
 mate, too, was singularly adapted to health, activity and 
 length of years. Free from the extremes of moisture 
 and drought, of torrid heat and arctic cold, it was exempt 
 from the malarial diseases that so often in other regions 
 prostrate strength and shorten life, or render it miser- 
 able. 
 
 To a country possessing such natural advantages the 
 railroad would not only, with astonishing rapidity, add 
 population and wealth, but from it would receive its best 
 income and profits. The facilities for travel would cause 
 its corn fields and gold fields to swarm with agricultural 
 and mining labor, while this very labor would in return 
 fill the successive trains as they passed along. Thus the 
 local business would grow with the road, and undoubtedly 
 support every section of it as fast as it could be finished. 
 But as a medium for a more extended internal and a 
 foreign commerce, this road must command the highest 
 consideration. From Lake Superior, westward, it would 
 transport tl e trade of the Red River of the North, of the 
 Hudson Bay Company and its dependencies, including 
 the broad valleys of the Saskatchawan and its tribuUiries, 
 and of all the regions of the Upper Missouri and Colum- 
 bia. From the same points east and southward it is 
 already connected by water or rail with all the great 
 cities of Canada and the United States — and through the 
 Atlantic and Gulf seaports, by steam and sail, with all 
 the Trans-Atlantic, West Indian and South American 
 ports. From Puget Sound, its western terminus, through 
 the broad and deep waters of Admiralty Inlet and Fuca 
 Straits, is the direct and nearest route to the great Pacific 
 emporiums of Russia, China and Japan. Hence the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad would be on the direct line of 
 the shortest and most practicable route between Europe 
 
122 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 and the great silk and tea producing countries of Asia, as 
 well as of the great wheat producing regions of America. 
 
 It would become the grejit commercial artery through 
 which would flow the rich and varied productions of the 
 East. Here they would be received, and, through numer- 
 ous connecting branches, distributed throughout the land, 
 thus filling our country with activity and wealth, aiul 
 making our chief cities the depots and emporiums of the 
 trade and commerce of the world. From a national point 
 of view it would also be of the utmost importance. To 
 the Government it would be invaluable in the tran'^'t of 
 mails, munitions of war, and troops; to the coui tr) in 
 the increasing facilities it would afford for travel, tr.iiis- 
 portation and settlement, thus adding rapidly to its 
 population and trade, and vastly to the value of the puJj- 
 lic domains. 
 
 Mr. Perham estimated the entire cost of the road at 
 $120,000,000, which was not far out of the way, but when 
 he came to talk about the value of the land grant he gave 
 his fancy free rein. These lands he said, when the road 
 should be built and the business fairly started, including 
 town and station sites, would certainly average ten dollars 
 per acre, making the sum of §473,600,000. How far be- 
 yond the mark he was in this statement may be judged 
 from the fact that the prices of land sold by the Northern 
 Pacific Company have ranged from four dollars an acre 
 down, the average price never much exceeding two dollars 
 and a half. 
 
 Mr. Perham, in conclusion, said that years of the best 
 portion of his life and matiy thousands of dollars h.id 
 been devoted to the accomplishment of this ei'.terprise. 
 "With the footsteps of time and the avidity of death, 
 in summer's heats and winter's storms, against opposition, 
 open and covert, jeers and sarcasms, alone, or aideil on!}- 
 by those he employed, and the charter from the far- 
 
ORGANIZING THE COMPANY. 
 
 123 
 
 seeing and enterprising State of Maine, the sole en- 
 couragement and foundation for his efforts, he liad 
 struggled on until a point had been readied that defied 
 opposition and gave assurance of success." 
 
 The officers of the Board of Commissioners were di- 
 rected to cause books for subscriptions to the capital stock 
 of the Northern Pacific Railroad to be opened in lioston, 
 Massachusetts, and Portland, Maine, and to receipt for 
 the cash payments often per centum on the subscriptions 
 rccpiired to be made by thj charter. Then the meeting 
 adjourned. The great enterprise was launched, but its 
 progress was painfully slow for several years afterwards. 
 
 The next move in obedience to the charter was to ojjcn 
 the subsc'lption books. The law directed that such books 
 should bv* opened " in such principal cities or other places" 
 as a quorum of the commissioners should determine. 
 Evidently the selection of Boston and Portland, and the 
 exclusion of New Vt rk, Philadelphia, and other large cities 
 was for the purpose keeping the enterprise in the hands 
 of its projectors, until a lioard of Directors could be chosen 
 and officers elected. It was necessary that 20,CXX) shares 
 of stock should be subscribed for before this could be done. 
 This amount was exceeded by only 75 shares, the sub- 
 scri|)tions amounting to 20,075 shares. 
 
 The following is a list oi the subscribers, with the 
 number of shares taken i)\- each: Ab<>:l .\bbott, Soo; 
 Cyrus Aldrich, 2,000; A. W. Baiifield. 2<:.o ; John A. Bass, 
 I; Jas. M. Beckett, I ; Charles ]k)Ug.iU;i\, 2,050; (leorge 
 lhi.;gs, 100; Wm. L. Cavenaugh, loo; D. W. C. Clarke, 
 UX); S. C. Fessenden, 4,000; P.J. I'orristall, 200; Oliver 
 I'rot, 1 ; Nathaniel (ireene, Jr.. 5; John Hancock, i ; 
 J. 1'". Ilowett, 100, J. II. llersey, loo; Ogdcn Hall, I ; 
 N. Ci. King, 1,000; A. C. King, 500; J. W. Moore, 100; 
 C. S. I'erham, i ; Josiali Perhani, 10; Joseph Perham, 1 ; 
 J. II. Pope, 500; Philander Reed, 2,000; Willard Sears, 
 
124 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 2,ioo ; L. D. M. Sweat, i ; K. B. Scvvall, i ; J. S. Scwall, 
 I ; John Toy, 2,000; K. H. Toy, 100; I. S. Withingtun, 
 2,000. 
 
 A meeting of the subscribers was held in the Mer- 
 chants' Exchange, Boston, on December 6th, 1864, and a 
 Board of Directors was elected, consisting of: Josiah 
 Perham, I. S. Withington, A. W. Danfield, rhilandcr 
 Reed, Ogden Hall, Kiah B. Sewall, Willard Sears, Abicl 
 Abbott, Nathaniel Greene, Jr., P. J. T'orristall, John A. 
 Bass, James M. Beckett, and Oliver Frost. The Directors 
 met next day, and elected Josiah Perham, President ; 
 Philander Reed, Vice-President; Charles S. Perham, 
 Secretary, and Increase S. Withington, Treasurer. 
 
 The Board of Commissioners now went t)Ut of existence, 
 and the company was fully organized with officers and a 
 Board of Directors. Nominally, at least, it had §200,750 
 in its treasury, from the ten per cent, payment on the 
 stock, but it is doubtful whether any portion of this sum 
 was ever available for the uses of the company. One of 
 the first acts of the board was to authorize the payment 
 of the "costs and expenses, in time and money, incurred 
 in obtaining the company's charter." There is reason to 
 believe that the money went back to the subscribers to 
 the stock, and that their subscriptions were gauged in 
 amount to correspond to the amounts of their claims 
 against the company. Six years later, when their stock 
 was assessed for the remaining ninety per cent., they ile- 
 clined to pay, and allegcil that their services entitled 
 them to the stock without further payments. Tlu- board 
 then in control of the company thereupon confiscated llic 
 whole amount of these original subscriptions. 
 
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 sum 
 
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CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A TRAXSKKR OK THE l-liANCIIISE. 
 
 Mission of Colonel W. S. Rowland anil (lovcrnor Frank Fuller to Boston — 
 I'uller's S|iucch before tlie Board of Trade — I lamillon A. Hill's Interest — 
 Report of a Committee Indorsing the Northern I'aeifie Fnterprise — An 
 International Line Proposed — Co-operation of the Railroads from lioston 
 to Canada Secureil — 1' :hani at the Kii'l of his Resourecs — Transfer of 
 the Charter — A Xew Organization Formed — Congress Looked to for 
 Means to Uiiikl tlie Road. 
 
 LaTK in the fall of 1865, Colonel \Vm. S. Rowland ap- 
 peared in Boston, stylinc^ himself on his cards " Commis- 
 sioner of the Northern Pacific Railroad." He was, in fact, 
 by virtue of an appointment from President Perham, 
 subsequently confirmed by the Board of Directors, a con- 
 fidential re[)resentative of the company. With him was 
 Governor Frank Fuller, late of Utah. Fuller had been 
 Secretary of the Territory, and for a time during the 
 absence of the governor had performed the executive 
 duties. The two men were good-looking, good t.ilkers, 
 active and enthusiastic, ami could make public speeches 
 on occasion. They had been adopted by Perham as con- 
 spicuous members of the Northern Pacific Company. 
 They were introduced at the Hoard of Trade rooms in 
 company with ex-Governor Curry, of Oregon. Rowland 
 first explained to Hamilton A. Hill, a shipping merchant 
 largely interested in the Canada trade, the magnificent 
 project of a railroad to the Pacific coast. Hill took an in- 
 terest in it at once. His business concerns lay in the 
 direction of increased trade with the liritish Provinces, 
 ami he naturally thought the enterprise should be an in- 
 ternational one. Rowland, who had failed to interest 
 
 •' I 
 
m^ 
 
 >smmi 
 
 126 
 
 NOKTHERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 mm* 
 
 New York capitalists in the project, at once fell in with 
 Hill's itlea of makintj Boston the Atlantic terminus, 
 usin^ the Canadian system of roads as far as constructed 
 westward, persuading the Canadian Government to extend 
 the system around Lake Superior to the Red River, and 
 building thence to Puget Sound on American soil. Hill 
 got a hearing before the Board for the project. A mectiii^f 
 was held in the Exchange, to which the leading business 
 men of the city were invited. There was a large attendance. 
 Ex-Governor Curry made a brief speech, and cx-Goverror 
 Fuller a long one full of effective statistics, and well sea- 
 soned with eloquent allusions to the enterprise and intelli- 
 gence of Boston, calculated to gratify local pride. The 
 meeting was enthusiastic, and was followed by a dinner at 
 the Parker House in honor of the two ex-Governor; and 
 Colonel Rowland and the Northern Pacific scheme, at 
 which Mayor Lincoln presided, and General Banks and 
 other men of distinction made speeches. The project now 
 floated on the tide of public favor. A full report of the 
 Exchange meeting and the speeches appeared in the Ad- 
 vertiser, and there was much talk on the streets and in 
 offices and counting-rooms about the great scheme for 
 connecting Boston with the Pacific coast by a direct line 
 yj\ railroad tributary to the New I'.ngland metropolis 
 alone. Hill's next step was to move for a committee "to 
 inquire into the plans for the construction of a railroad 
 from the western shore of Lake Superior to the Pacific 
 Ocean, a.; contemplated by the Act of Congress approved 
 Juh' 2, 1864, and as submitted to the Board by Colonel 
 Rowland, and particularly to consider the bearing which 
 the completion of this line of railroad will be likely to 
 have upon the manufacturing and commercial prosperity 
 of New En-land." The committee was appointed, and 
 consisted of George C. Richardson, Edward .S. Tobey, C. 
 O. Whitmore, F. \V. Lincoln, jr., E. B. Bigelow, Alphcus 
 
A TRANSFER OF THE FRANCHISE. 
 
 127 
 
 Hardy, Hamilton A. Hill, Otis Norcross, and Avery 
 riumcr. Every Bostonian will recognize in this list the 
 names of several of the most eminent business men of 
 the city. Mr. Hill wrote the report. It was signed by 
 all the members of the committee, and read to the Hoard 
 on the 24th of November. This report gave to the 
 Northern Pacific project the first indorsement it had re- 
 ceived since the days of Asa Whitney, from men of 
 prominence in business affairs, who were able to back up 
 their opinions with their checks. Perhaps it is not too 
 much to say that it saved the project from perishing from 
 lack of public interest. 
 
 The report made a clear, forcible presentation of facts 
 concerning the country and climate along the northern 
 route, and its supposed advantages for railway construc- 
 tion and traffic and for the development of direct trade 
 with China and Japan. It argued that the northern 
 route was the only one which could be shown to promise 
 results in which New England had a positive and direct 
 interest. "The Central and Southern routes," saitl the 
 report, " will bring the Pacific States into close connec- 
 tion with New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore antl New 
 Orleans. But none of the commerce thus to be de- 
 veloped will flow near or towards New England ; it will 
 pass altogether away from the northern lakes and rivers, 
 in the traffic of which we have a large interest, and it 
 will not touch the Northwestern States, with the pros- 
 perity of which our citizens are intimately connected. 
 We may, perhaps, remotely participate in the intrrnal 
 tr.ule which will grow up under the improved state of in- 
 land transportation, but in the oxirland business — the 
 foreign through tralTic — seeking a port on the Atlantic 
 for transmission to luirope, we tan expect to h.i\ e no 
 share whatever. On the other hand, your committee 
 believe that New England will have a positive and direct 
 
 ..^•A ^..ui«.^i^._ ;:r.-:. \-.-'uB\i:^\<.i 
 
128 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 interest in the Northern Pacific Railroad, being brought 
 into connection with it by lines now in operation, and 
 being able to offer, by its means, superior facilities for the 
 commerce of the Orient, which must surely, to a greater 
 or less extent, pass over this continental line." The re- 
 port then brought forward the scheme of an international 
 line. For all purposes of inquiry, the committee said, 
 New England and Canada might be considered as 
 having one and the same interest. The Northern and 
 Eastern States had a common interest with the Canadas. 
 and vice versd, in constructing a Pacific railroad wliicli 
 should add to the profit of the lines in existence, and make 
 use of them as so many links in the chain of communica- 
 tion from ocean to ocean. The Grand Trunk Railway 
 had been pushed to meet the waters of the central lakes. 
 It might be extended on the north shore of Lake Superior, 
 but, as it already connected at Sarnia and Windsor with 
 American lines crossing Michigan and Wisconsin, it would 
 seem more expedient to ally its interests to those lines, 
 rather than to encounter the difficulties of construction 
 fiirther north. English capital and enterprise, joined to 
 the American land grants, would form a soun .1 basis for 
 the finances of the road. One northern road to the Pacific 
 would for many years to come answer for the commerce 
 of both countries. These sentences, taken here and there 
 from a number of pages of the committee's report, will 
 show the character t)f the plan presented to the capital 
 andcomniLMcial interests of Boston. It meant to make the 
 Northern Pacific a joint New England and Canadian en- 
 terprise. 
 
 About this time Sir Alexander Gait, the Canadian 
 statesman, came down to Boston. A dinner was given 
 him at the Union Club. Hill was an old acquaintance of 
 his. Rowland was present. The Northern Pacific i)rojcct 
 was much talked about. Gait took a hearty interest in 
 
A THAXSI-EK OF THE J-RAXCIIISE. 
 
 129 
 
 it, and intimated that he might be willing to accept a 
 scat in the Board of Directors. The next step was to 
 obtain the co-operation of the managers of the railroads 
 leading from Boston up to the Canadian line. Mill and 
 Rowland undertook to see President Smith and lienja- 
 niiii F. Cheney, of the Vermont Central, George Stark, 
 of the Boston and Lowell, Onslow Stearns, of the North- 
 ern Railroad, which connected those two roads, and 
 Judge Rice, of the Maine Central. 
 
 A number of interviews were had with these gentlemen 
 in Boston. At some of them Pcrham was present with 
 a few of his Directors. Perham frankly admitted that he 
 could not go on with the enterprise. Mis plan of raising 
 money by a popular subscription to interest-bearing 
 frOck had proved a dead failure. The company's treasury 
 v\v.s empty, and it had no credit. Rowland's salary and 
 ::;.v)se of the clerks in the Nev/ York office had not been 
 paid, and the rent was in arrears. Perham was constantly 
 pressed to redeem the obligations he had given out freely 
 at Washington when the charter act was pending in Con- 
 gress. Me had come to the end of the means or the willing- 
 ness of the few men of capital whom he had drawn into 
 tlic enterprise. Disheartened and nervously exhausted, 
 he felt that he must give up the struggle. Me told the 
 Hoston men that if provision were made immediately to 
 nuet passing claims upon him, and at an early day to 
 pay all the expenses he had incurred in obtaining the 
 charter, he would transfer the franchise and step out. 
 
 Perham called a meeting of the lioard at the Merchants* 
 Exchange in Boston. The meeting was held on Decem- 
 ber 12th, 1865, and Messrs. Briggs, Sears and P^ssenden 
 were ajipointetl a committee " to confer with certain per- 
 sons in Boston relative to placing the affairs and manage- 
 ment of the company upon a more solid and permanent 
 financial basis, in order to insure the speedy construction 
 9 
 
130 
 
 NORTIIERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 of the road." At the Parker House that evening there was 
 another meeting, and next day still another. Then it 
 was resolved, " that, in consideration of the faith of cer- 
 tain gentlemen in Boston, with whom our committee 
 have been in conference, being pledged to use their influ- 
 ence to their utmost to secure subscriptions to the stock 
 of the Northern Pacific Railroad to the amount of $150,- 
 000, and to the acknowledgment of the issue of $600,000 
 worth of stock, whenever said subscribers, or any of ihcm, 
 shall become Directors in said Northern Pacific Railroad, 
 we, the Directors of said Northern Pacific Railroad, do 
 agree, whenever said gentlemen shall affirm their readi- 
 ness to subscribe to .said stock, to resign in our lioard of 
 Directors to the number of eleven or twelve Directors (jf 
 the Northern Pacific Railroad to the aforesaid gentlemen 
 of Poston." Messrs. Briggs, Sears and I'^mery were ap- 
 pointetl a committee to negotiate for the transfer of the 
 control of the franchise of the company. They reporli.d 
 the same day that the conditions of the transfer had been 
 agreed to. Next day Hamilton A. Hill was maile a 
 Director in place of Ji. S. Adams, who resigned to j^ivc 
 the Boston men immediate representation in the Board. 
 The claims against the old organization were then autliied 
 by a committee, and an issue of stock authorized to pay 
 them, and this business being disposed of, eight more 
 Directors resigned. They were Messrs. V. VV. Manso!!, 
 Nathaniel Greene, Jr., Willard Sears, Abiel .^Vbbotl, 1". 
 W. Emery, Ogden Hall, James M. Beckett, ami Josiah 
 Perham. Their places were filled by the election of John 
 (iregory Smith, of Vermont, George Stark, of New I l.imp- 
 shire, Onslow Stearns, of New Hampshire, P'rank Fuller, 
 of New York, Benjamin P. Cheney, of Massachusetts, 
 George H. Gordon, of Massachusetts, James C. Converse, 
 of Massachusetts, and William S. Rowland, of New \'ork. 
 Other changes soon followed, R. D. Rice, of Maine, and 
 
./ TKAXSFEK OF TJIE FRANCHISE. 
 
 131 
 
 Joscpli Clarke, of Vermont, being elected new mem- 
 bers. 
 
 The new board contained not a single member of the 
 original I'erham board, and no one remained who had 
 served at any time with Perham except L. D. M. Sweat, 
 of ]\Iaine. John (iregory Smith was elected President, 
 and Frank Fuller Vice-President. Mr. Fuller resigned a 
 few months later and was replaced by Phineas S. I'isk, 
 and Mr. Rowland made way for Geo. F. Richardson. 
 Clias. S. Perham's place as .Secretary was taken by Ham- 
 ilton Hill. 
 
 The new organization was strong in its personality and 
 ill the capital it represented. IMessrs. Smith, Stark, Rice, 
 and Stearns controlled several of the most important 
 railroads in New I^ngland. Mr. Cheney was the proprie- 
 ti)r of Cheney's Express, and was largely interested in 
 railroads. Messrs. Converse, Richardson, and Hill were 
 iiiflucntial business men. Mr. Gordon had served in the 
 army as a general officer, and was expected to l)e useful 
 ill directing the engineering department of the road. A 
 better organization for prestige and force could hardly 
 have been found in New England. It was weak, how- 
 cvtr. in the fact that it was so exclusively a New I-liigland 
 ciniccni. The new directors did not expect to put money 
 intii the Northern Pacific enterprise to the extent of build- 
 ing ati\' portion of the road. They only agreed to pa}' the 
 dcl)ts of the Perham organization. Their hope was to get 
 nioiic)' by the help of Congress, to which body the}' im- 
 iiiciliatcly a[)pealed for aid. It should be said, however, 
 in their behalf, that in 1866, it was absolutely impossible 
 to raise money by stock subscri[)tions or the sale of bonds 
 not indorsed by the Government, to build a railroad to 
 the Pacific. The Union and Central companies had great 
 ilifficulty in obtaining funds even on a first mortgage, al- 
 though the Government furnished them, on a second 
 

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132 
 
 NORTIIERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 lien, bonds suffi ;icnt to pay the major part of the cost 
 of their lines. The stock put out to pay Pcrham's debts 
 and claims had no standing in the market. Under these 
 circumstances, Smith and his associates looked to Con- 
 gress as the only power which could save the Northern 
 Pacific Company from speedy demise. 
 
 Josiah Perham died in 1868, at the house of his son, in 
 Boston. His last days were embittered by the reflection 
 that he had spent many years of his life in an enterprise 
 which he could not carry forward to fruition, and which 
 others had taken out of his hands, leaving him no results 
 from his labors in its behalf. The money he received from 
 the new organization of the Northern Pacific Company 
 hardly sufficed to pay his debts, and the stock he received 
 could not be sold. After his death it was redeemed at the 
 rate of twenty-five cents to the dollar. Like Asa Whit- 
 ney, the projector of the Northern Pacific Railroad, Per- 
 ham, its first president, died in poverty. 
 
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 111 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 APPEALS TO CONGRESS. 
 
 V, 
 
 J. (Gregory Smith's Early Career — His Plan for Co-operation with the Can- 
 ada Pacific Company — Movement for an Extension of Time — Opposition 
 in Congress to all Land Grait Railroads — Thaddeus Stevens' Assistance 
 — Two more Years Allowed for Beginning Work — l^ffort to Secure 
 Government Aid — A Discouraging Outlook — A Guaranty of Interest on 
 Stock Asked — Defeat of tlie Guaranty Hill in the House — Attempt to 
 Revive the Bill in the Senate — An Indirect Defeat by a Majority of One 
 — A IMessing in Disguise. 
 
 J. Gregory Smith, who now came ''nto the control as 
 President of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, 
 was born at St. Albans, Vermont, in 1818. He graduated 
 at the University of Vermont, and studied law at the Law 
 School in New Haven, which he left in 1841 to go into 
 practice with his father. He continued at the bar until 
 1855, when he retired from general practice, retaining the 
 attorneyship of the Vermont Central Railroad, of which 
 corporation his father was trustee. When his father died, 
 in 1S58, he succeeded him as trustee of the road. In 1858 
 he was elected to the State Senate, and again in 1859. 
 He served in the Vermont House from i860 until 1862, 
 and was Speaker in the latter year. In 1861 he was 
 Chairman of the State Republican Committee, and in 
 1S63 was elected Governor, r. re-election following in 1864. 
 He held the office until 0( tober, 1865. The urgency of 
 the ]?oston gentlemen who had undertaken to relieve 
 Josiah Perham of the Northern Pacific franchise and pay 
 Ills debts brought Mr. Smith into the new organization, 
 and the presidency naturally fell to him, as a practical 
 railroad man. He did not approve of the Boston scheme 
 
134 
 
 NORTIIEKX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 for an alliance with the Grand Trunk Railroad of Canada. 
 His plan was to aid the Canada Pacific Company, just 
 chartered, by subscriptions of American capital, secure 
 from it the building of a line from Montreal to the Sault 
 Sainte Marie, and thence through the Upper Peninsula 
 of Michigan to connect with the Xorthern Pacific at the 
 Wisconsin boundary ; the line across Michigan from the 
 Sault to be leased by the Northern Pacific Compan\-. 
 This plan would have made Boston the seaboard terminus 
 of the Northern Pacific, and the Vermont Central one of 
 the links in its line to the east. Sir Hugh Allan, who 
 was at the head of the Canadian company, approved tlic 
 plan and held numerous conferences with Gov. Smith. The 
 fall of the McDonald ministry carried with it the Canada 
 Pacific scheme as then organized, and also the Boston 
 plan for an international line across the continent and a 
 tide-water terminus on Massachusetts Bay. 
 
 The first and most pressing thing before the new Board 
 of Directors was to obtain from Congress, if possible, an 
 extension of the time prescribed for beginning work. 
 The ciiarter act directed that the company should com- 
 mence work within two j-ears from the approval of the 
 act by the President. The date of approval was July 2, 
 1864; consequently the time allowed for beginning con- 
 struction expired July 2, 1866. It was already January, 
 1866, when the Perham party turned over their seats on 
 the Board to the Smith organization. The company had 
 no existence except on paper and by virtue of its fran- 
 chise. It consisted, in fact, of a few hopeful gentlemen 
 who had clubbed together to take the franchise off Per- 
 ham's hands and pay him and his associates $102,000 to 
 reimburse them for the expenses they had incurred in 
 organizing the company. There was no money on hand 
 to begin building the road, and no plan had been matured 
 to raise funds. The only definite idea of the new direct- 
 
APPEALS TO CONGRESS. 
 
 135 
 
 ors seems to have been to fall back upon Congress for a 
 grant of Government aid. No surveys had been made, 
 aiul there was no place even where construction could begin 
 for the sake of a formal compliance with the charter. 
 
 Perham had already set on foot an effort at Wa.shington 
 to bridge over the first difficulty by obtaining an exten- 
 sion of time. He had sent Colonel W. S. Rowland as 
 commissioner, and had been there himself. Rowland was 
 an impecunious, plausible, ^-^If-important person, always 
 in debt and always on the point, in liis own opinion, of 
 floating some scheme with " millions in it." lie attached 
 himself to the Northern Pacific project in its early stages. 
 He had considerable organizing talent, however, was en- 
 ergetic and intelligent, and the new I^oard made him a 
 director, and continued hirn as commissioner at Wash- 
 ington, wishing to bring to bear all the influence it could 
 command to push the extension bill through. The task 
 was by no means an easy one. Hostility to all land grants 
 had begun to be a popular cry. Besides, the Northern 
 Pacific scheme, as we have seen, had almost no local 
 strength outside of New England and Minnesota. For 
 a while the case looked desperate. Smith and Rowland 
 rallied the friends of the enterprise, but they were few in 
 number. It was saved from destruction by the powerful 
 aid of Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvanici, then the leader 
 of the House — a man who for ten years wielded an influ- 
 ence in Congress scarcely paralleled in the history of 
 legislative bodies. A land-grant road, known as the 
 Union Pacific, Eastern Division, which afterwards be- 
 came the Kansas Pacific, was at the same time seeking 
 an extension. It had powerful backers, among them 
 Colonel Thomas A. Scott, of the Pennsylvania Railroad. 
 The Northern Pacific people wanted to join forces with 
 Scott and his associates, but Scott felt sure of getting his 
 bill through without additional help, and, thinking an 
 
136 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 alliance dangcM-ous, declined. When Stevens heard how 
 the case stood he said he would look after the Northern 
 Pacific. A day was set for the consideration of the Union 
 Pacific Eastern Division bill, and when it arrived its 
 friends were on hand in full force. Mr. Stevens, wIkj 
 could always get the floor when he wanted it, rose and 
 moved an amendment in the form of an additional sec- 
 tion providing " that the time for commencing and com- 
 pleting the Northern Pacific Railroad and all its several 
 sections is extended for the term of two years." The 
 Scott party did not dare oppose the amendment for fear 
 of hazarding the passage of their own extension measure; 
 so the bill passed, and the first danger of the forfeiture of 
 the Northern Pacific franchise was bridged over. 
 
 An effort to secure financial aid for the Northern Pacific 
 enterprise ran parallel in Congress with that to obtain an 
 extension of time for beginning work, in the session of 
 1866. The company opened an office in Washington, pam- 
 phlets were printed presenting it.- claims to Congressional 
 favor, newspaper articles were published, a number of the 
 Directors appeared in the committee rooms of the capitol, 
 the President and Secretary went back and forth, reso- 
 lutions were adopted by sundry Boards of Trade and 
 Chambers of Commerce indorsing the application of the 
 company — in short, all the machinery of a well-equipped 
 movement to influence Congress was set in motion. 
 
 It is easy now to lookback in the light of nearly a score 
 of years of experience in the relations of railways to the 
 government and criticise this effort of the Northern Pa- 
 cific managers as unwise; but at the time what they 
 did seemed the most reasonable and business-like thing 
 for them to do. They had satisfied themselves that a 
 railroad to the Pacific coast could not be built with stock 
 subscriptions in the ordinary way, as an ordinary business 
 enterprise. They were not allowed by their charter to 
 
 pic 
 tral 
 
APPEALS TO COXGRESS. 
 
 137 
 
 issue bonds, and if they had enjoyed that privilege, first 
 obtained four years later, they could not at that time 
 have found a market for their securities. The land grant 
 did not afford a sufficient basis of credit, because the 
 land grant railroads in the nearer regions of Iowa, Mis- 
 souri, Nebraska, and Kansas, had millions of fertile acres 
 upon the market, and no inducements could then be pre- 
 sented to persuade settlers to go beyond the forest belt 
 of Minnesota to the unknown plains of Northern Da- 
 kota. In short, the value of the land-grant was all in 
 the future, and capitalists would not lend money upon 
 it. Besides, the Northern Pacific Company had tlie exam- 
 ple of the two companies just chartered to build the Cen- 
 tral line across the continent to California. Those cor- 
 porations never dreamed of constructing a road through 
 the most uninhabited spaces and over the lofty mountain 
 ranges in the interior of the continent with a land grant 
 alone. They had obtained, at the outset, a loan of United 
 States bonds amountingtoan average of about $32,000 per 
 mile. Not satisfied with this heavy subsidy, they came 
 to Washington in 1864, the year the Northern Pacific 
 charter was granted, and asked and got from Congress 
 the right to put a first mortgage upon their roads to the 
 full amount of the government loan, and to subordinate 
 the government's lien to the position of a second mort- 
 
 rrnfTn 
 
 What the Northern Pacific asked for and did not get 
 was modest compared with the generous bounty ac- 
 corded to the Union and Central Pacific companies. It 
 asked a guaranty from the United States Government 
 that it would for a period of not more than twenty years 
 pay interest at the rate of six per cent, on the company's 
 stock to the average amount of $31,000 per mile, or $57- 
 000,000 in all. The company was to relieve the Govern- 
 ment of the whole or part of this burden as soon as it 
 
I 
 
 138 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 could from its net earnings, and it was to surrender to 
 the Government the proceeds of the sales of all lands in 
 its grant lying on tlie south side of its track. This prop- 
 osition seemed fair and reasonable to many of the leading 
 men in both Houses of Congress. It failed of passage 
 when put in the form of a bill, from two causes: first, 
 the organized opposition of the Union and Central Pa- 
 cific corporations and their friends in Congress, who were 
 naturally hostile, from motives of self-interest, to the 
 construction of a second line to the Pacific coast ; and 
 second, from the influence of a growing public sentiment 
 against Congressional grants or subsidies to railroads in 
 the West. 
 
 The bill to aid the Company, entitled, " A Bill to 
 Secure the Speedy Construction of the Northern Pacific 
 Railroad and Telegraph Line, and to Secure to the Govern- 
 ment the Use of the same for Postal, Military, and other 
 Purposes," was reported to the House by Mr. Price, of 
 the Committee on the Pacific Railroad, April 24, 1866, 
 and occasioned an animated debate lasting three days. 
 The opponents of the bill asserted that if it became a law, 
 it would take fitly or sixty millions of dollars from the 
 public treasury which would never be recovered ; its 
 friends insisted that the advances of interest on the stock 
 would all be repaid soon after the completion of the road. 
 The extravagant estimates of the value of the land grant 
 printed and circulated by the company when it was en- 
 gaged in the futile effort to sell its stock, were the most 
 effectual weapons in the hands of the opposition to the 
 bill. Among the company's advocates of the measure 
 were Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, then the leader 
 of the Republican side of the House; Wm. D. Kelley, of 
 Pennsylvania, an early friend of the Northern Pacific en- 
 terprise ; John A. Bingham, of Ohio, now Minister to 
 Japan; William Windom, of Minnesota, afterward Sena- 
 
APPEALS TO COXGPESS. 
 
 139 
 
 tor, Secretary of the Treasury, and again Senator. The 
 leaders of the opposition were Samuel Randall, of Penn- 
 sylvania, auci'.vard Speaker of the House; Coluinbus 
 Delano, of Ohio, who was later a member of President 
 Grant's Cabinet; Jolin 1'. P^arnsworth, of Illinois, and 
 R. P. Spalding, of Ohio. The bill was finally tabled on 
 April 27th, on motion of Mr. Spalding, by a vote of yeas. 
 76; nays, 56; not voting, 51. 
 
 The friends of the Northern Pacific were somewhat dis- 
 heartened by this defeat, but they determined to go to 
 the Senate, in the hope that the bill could be got through 
 that body, and that the House would look upon it more 
 favorably if it came with the Senate's indorsement, and 
 that a majority could be secured for its passage before 
 the close of the session or at the ensuing short session of 
 1866-7. The Senate Committee favored the bill, and its 
 chairman, Mr. Howard, of Michigan, brought it up for 
 consideration on the 14th of July. It was sharply at- 
 tacked by Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, who asserted that it 
 would cost the Government $120,000,000, and argued that 
 Congress, in giving the company double the land grant 
 per mile given to another road, had been sufficiently 
 generous. He was supported by Mr. P'esscnden, of 
 Maine, who then wielded great influence in the Senate. 
 Conspicuous advocates of the bill, besides Mr. Howard, 
 were Mr. Williams, of Oregon, Mr. Cragin, of New 
 Hampshire, and Mr. Ramsey of Minnesota. The ses- 
 sion was too far spent for a thorough consideration of the 
 measure, and it was practically defeated on the i6th by 
 a recommittal to the Committee reporting it — the vote 
 being, yeas, 20; nays, 19. 
 
 In effect, this adverse majority of one disposed of the 
 whole scheme of building the road with financial aid from 
 the Government. Renewed effort was made at subse- 
 quent sessions, as we shall see in other chapters, to 
 
I40 
 
 KORTJIERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 revive the rejected bill, but the temper of Congress was 
 evidently less favorable than before, and no progress was 
 made. The failure of the bill looked at the time like a 
 serious and perhaps fatal disi" twi to the Northern Pacific 
 enterprise. In the end, however, it turned out to be a 
 benefit, for the affairs of the company were at last put 
 upon a much sounder financial basis than would have been 
 possible had they been involved in the entanglement of a 
 government loan. In view of the experience of the rail- 
 roads constructed with government subsidies, there can 
 be no question that the debt of the Northern Pacific on 
 its completion will be considerably less than it would have 
 been if Congress had consented to loan the company the 
 credit of the nation and to indorse its interest obligations. 
 
; ^vas 
 
 i WilS 
 
 ike ;i 
 acific 
 be a 
 ; put 
 been 
 ; of a 
 : rail- 
 ; can 
 ric on 
 have 
 y the 
 tions. 
 
 .-! 
 
 ■-\ 
 
[|r 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE ORIGINAL INTERESTS AGREEMENT. 
 
 Weakness of the Northern Pnc'fic as a purely New England Enterprise— 
 Gov. Smith's I'lau to Nationalize the Company — A Railroad Syndicate 
 Proposed — William 15. Ogden Agrees to Join it — The Original Interests 
 Agreement Formed — Twelve Shares Provided for — Edwin F. Johnson 
 Appointed Chief Engineer — Surveys Ordered. 
 
 The experience of President Smith in Washington 
 during the winters of iSC6and 1867 convinced him that 
 his organization lacked breadth. It was too purely a 
 down-cast affair to command the strength in Congress 
 nccc3sary for the passage of any measure for giving it the 
 financial support of the Government. Something had to 
 be done to widen the area of its influence if the enter- 
 prise was to be kept alive. Besides, some of the Boston 
 gentlemen associated with him had become alarmed at 
 an attack made in Congress upon the company by " Long 
 John " VVentworth, of Chicago, on account of the plan 
 for a Canada connection to the seaboard, and being be- 
 sides greatly annoyed by claims for services and influence 
 alleged to have been given Mr. Perham at Washington, 
 were eager to step out. In this situation of affairs, Mr. 
 Smith conceived the plan of a great railroad syndicate 
 embracing many of the leading roads in the country. To 
 assist in carrying out this plan he enlisted Thomas H. 
 Canfield, of Burlington, Vermont, an early advocate of 
 the Northern Pacific project. Canfield was energetic and 
 fertile in resources. It was agreed that an effort should 
 be made to secure the interest and influence of the New 
 York Central, the Erie, the Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh, 
 
 < I 
 
142 
 
 XORIIIERX 1\ICIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Fort Wayne & Chicago, the Chicago & Northwestern and 
 other lines. Some of the New England directors were ready 
 to resign, and it was manifestly out of the question to 
 push the great enterprise forward on the narrow basis of 
 exclusive New England support. Gov. Smith was too 
 busy with the pressing affairs of his Vermont Central 
 Railroad to give much help himself to the new plan, but 
 he had great confidence in Canfield, and told him he 
 would back him up in whatever he did. 
 
 Mr. Canfield's first step was to get the Northern Pacific 
 Charter Act printed in a pamphlet. He then went to 
 New York and broached the ]:)roposition of transferring 
 the management to William B. Ogden, President of the 
 Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, feeling that if he 
 could secure his support there would be slight difficulty in 
 persuading the other men whom he had in mind. Ogdcn 
 appointed an evening a week ahead, at his home, called 
 Boscobel, near High Bridge, where Canfield succeeded so 
 well in interesting him in the project that the two talked 
 about it from nine o'clock in the forenoon till midnight. 
 Ogden was an enthusiast on the subject of the develop- 
 ment of the Northwest. No man in his time was better 
 informed upon the resources of that section. He could 
 talk eloquently by the hour about its marvellous growth 
 and its great future. Of all the great railway managers of 
 that day he was the one whose indorsement and active 
 support was of most value to the struggling, feeble North- 
 ern Pacific scheme. It was agreed that night that Gov. 
 Smith should be telegraphed for. He came down from 
 Vermont, met Canfield and Ogden at the latter's office, 
 on the evening of January lo, 1867. A financial plan 
 was discussed and drawn up, which afterwards became 
 known in the affairs of the company as the Original 
 Interests Agreement. As a basis for this agreement, 
 Smith made a statement of the amount of money he and 
 
THE OKIGIXAL INTERESTS AGREEMENT. 143 
 
 his associates had expended in the payment of Perham's 
 debts, incurred in procuring the charter, and in keejiing 
 the company alive. It amounted to $102,000. Besides this 
 sum they had issued certificates of indebtedness for 
 $100,000, and had agreed to recognize the $600,000 of 
 stock issued by the Perham party. It was provided in 
 the Original Interests Agreement that the enterprise 
 should be divided into twelve shares, each to be valued 
 at $S,5oo, or one-twelfth of the $102,000 already expended 
 by Smith and his associates. Each subscriber to the 
 agreement was to " come in on the ground floor," as the 
 phrase goes among financiers, paying for his interest only 
 $8,500 for a twelfth share, and having a joint interest 
 with Smith and his associates, according to the number of 
 shares or parts of shares he took. It was agreed by the sub- 
 scribers that the best efforts of each and all should be given 
 to obtain from Congress the passage of a bill granting aid 
 to the company for the construction of its road, and for 
 such further legislation as might be needed, and that 
 each should contribute, according to the interest which he 
 held, the necessary funds for that purpose. In this last 
 clause lay the kernel of the whole matter. The subscribers 
 were nott supposed to be acquiring anything of positive 
 value in return for their $102,000; they were, in fact, 
 binding themselves to put their hands in their pockets 
 from time to time and pay for indefinite expenses to be 
 incurred to give the franchise vitality and future worth. 
 Probably there was not a man among those who subse- 
 quently signed this agreement who felt confident at the 
 time that he had an even chance of getting his money 
 back. 
 
 It was further stipulated in the agreement that each of 
 the twelve shares should be entitled to one director in the 
 company, the thirteenth director being reserved by general 
 understanding for the Pacific coast, and that each party 
 
144 
 
 A'OKTIIEH.V PACIFIC KAILROAD. 
 
 to the agreement might subdivide his interest according 
 to his own choice; the subdivision and addition of new 
 parties should not, however, change the manner of repre- 
 sentation in the Board. 
 
 It was late in the evening before the terms of the 
 agreement were fully planned and put upon paper. 
 There was no gas in the office, and candles were sent for. 
 At last, when the document was ready, Mr. Ogden said: 
 " Well, gentlemen, is there anything else to do?" "Yes, 
 there is one thing more," said Mr. Canfield, "and that is, 
 for you to put your name to the paper for one of the one- 
 twelfth interests." Ogden signed his name, and Smith 
 and Canfield left him to walk up Broadway together. As 
 they passed Trinity church, Gov. Smith said that he felt 
 that a critical turning-point in the Northern Pacific enter- 
 prise had been passed. Mr. Canfield soon afterwards ob- 
 tained the signatures of Robert Berdell, President of the 
 Erie Railway, Wm. G. Fargo, Vice-President of the New 
 York Central Railway, D. N. Barney, B. P. Cheney, and 
 A. H. Barney, who, with Fargo, had large express com- 
 pany interests, Edward Reilly, a friend of Thaddeus Ste- 
 vens, of Pennsylvania, G. W. Cass, President of the Pitts- 
 burgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad, and J. Edgar 
 Thompson, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad. 
 
 On the 31st of the following July, the "Original Inter- 
 ests Agreement " was modified so as to limit the amount 
 to be assessed upon each share for expenses to $12,500, 
 including payments already made, unless unanimous con- 
 sent was given to the assessment of a larger amount. 
 There was some redistribution of interests made, and the 
 signatures, with the number of shares or parts of shares 
 held by each subscriber, were as follows: J. Gregory 
 Smith, for self and associates, 47^ shares; W. B. Ogden, 
 i'^ shares; Robert II. Berdell, I share; D. N. liarncy 
 and 13. P. Cheney, i share jointly; A. H. Barney and W. 
 
 G. 
 
 Tho 
 Reil 
 twel 
 
 Oi 
 ofD 
 Fisk 
 of ot 
 ment 
 elect! 
 field 
 
 Th 
 
THE ORIGINAL INTERESTS AGREEMENT. 
 
 145 
 
 G. Fargo, i share jointly ; G. W. Cass, i share ; J. Edgar 
 Thompson, for self and associates, i share; Edward 
 Rcilly, I share. This arrangement disposed of all the 
 twelve shares. 
 
 On the 1 6th of May, 1867, six members of the Board 
 of Directors, Messrs. Gordon, Clarke, Briggs, Richardson, 
 Fisk and Stark, resigned to make room for the holders 
 of original interests, according to the terms of the agree- 
 ment detailed above, and their places were filled by the 
 election of Messrs. Ogden, Thompson, Cass, Berdell, Can- 
 field and Fargo. 
 
 The new board appointed Edwin F. Johnson Chief En- 
 gineer, and ordered him, under direction of the President, 
 to commence surveys and locate a line between Lake 
 Superior and the Red River of the North ; also to explore 
 the western end of Lake Superior, with a view to the lo- 
 cation of the Eastern terminus of the road. He was further 
 instructed to locate the line from Portland toward Lake 
 Pend d'Oreille, to make a reconnoissance of the country 
 between the waters connected with the Straits of Juan 
 dc Fuca and the Columbia River, and thence eastwardly 
 towards the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, to 
 make a measurement of the practicable passes in the Cas- 
 cade Range, and to report the result of such surveys 
 before the 15th of November. A committee, com- 
 posed of President Smith, A. FL Barney, A. S. Diven 
 and Thos. H. Canfield, was appointed to collect $25,cxx) 
 to pay the expenses of the surveys and to defray the 
 incidental expenses of the Company. Thos. H. Can- 
 field was appointed General Agent in New York to 
 collect assessments, make disbursements, and attend 
 generally to the business of the company. The sub- 
 scribers to the twelve original interests agreement 
 continued to make advances for the cost of surveys 
 and the current expenses of the company, until they had 
 
 10 
 
146 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 furnished in the aggregate about a quarter of a million 
 of dollars. 
 
 In the following December an executive committee, 
 consisting of the President and Messrs. Ogden, Thomp- 
 son, Cass, Fargo, Rice and Stearns, was appointed, and 
 charged by resolution with the duty of presenting a 
 proposed amendment of the charter of the company to 
 Congress, authorizing the issue of bonds, and to raise 
 such sums of money as might be necessary to meet the 
 incidental expenses connected therewith. 
 
 At last the enterprise seemed to have been put upon 
 its feet. Its managers were among the foremost rail- 
 road men in the country. They had the respect of the 
 public and the confidence of capitalists. They had not 
 yet determined, however, t-o abandon the impracticable 
 scheme of securing a subsidy in bonds or in the form of 
 a guaranty of interest from Congress, and instead to 
 place the project upon a bi::.me55 footing based on the 
 traffic the road would develop when built, and the value of 
 the magnificent land grant given it by Congress — a grant 
 double the extent of that given to the companies char- 
 tered to build to the Pacific by the Middle and Southern 
 routes. Indeed, the object of the surveys described in 
 the following chapter was not to prepare the way for 
 early construction so much as to strengthen the company 
 at Washington, and the remarkable alliance of railway 
 men represented in the Board of Directors was not 
 formed to give strength to a loan or an issue of stock, 
 but rather to bring influence to bear upon Congress. The 
 weakness of the Northern Pacific enterprise in these early 
 stages was this persistent leaning upon the Government 
 for help. The temper of Congress and the country was 
 adverse to further favors to land-grant roads, and efforts 
 to pass bills in face of this hostile spirit were thrown 
 away. If the time, labor and money spent at Washing- 
 
ilHon 
 
 ittee, 
 omp- 
 , and 
 ng a 
 ly to 
 raise 
 t the 
 
 upon 
 rail- 
 f the 
 1 not 
 cable 
 ■m of 
 id to 
 1 the 
 lueof 
 grant 
 char- 
 thern 
 ^d in 
 y for 
 pany 
 ihvay 
 not 
 tock, 
 The 
 early 
 mcnt 
 '■ was 
 (Torts 
 rown 
 hing- 
 
THE ORIGINAL INTERESTS AGREEMENT. 
 
 147 
 
 ton between 1866 and 1870 by the managers of the North- 
 ern Pacific had been devoted to a sound financial scheme 
 for building the road, it would have been completed 
 earlier and many troubles and much needless expense 
 would have been saved. 
 
 C 
 > 
 
 J 
 u 
 u 
 
 3 
 
 
 M 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 SURVEYING THE LINE. 
 
 Chief Engineer Johnson's First Report — A Preliminary Location Made 
 in 1S67— First Estimates of Cost — Two Surveys Across Minnesota- 
 Choice of a Lake Harbor — Routes Across the Cascade Mountains Ex- 
 amined — W. Milnor Roberts' reconnoissance in 1869 — Gov. Marshall's 
 Expedition to the Upper Missouri — The Rocky Mountain Passes — Ad- 
 vantages of the Pend d'Oreille Route over the Clearwater Route — A 
 Final Survey of the Bitter Root Mountains. 
 
 Edwin F. Johnson, appointed Chief Engineer of the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad Company in May, 1866, pre- 
 sented his first general report to the Board of Directors 
 in November, 1867. At that time surveys in Minnesota 
 and in Washington Territory were in progress, but full 
 reports from them had not been received. Mr. Johnson 
 was able, however, to prepare a map showing a prelimi- 
 nary location of the entire line from Lake Superior to 
 Puget Sound. The map indicated two routes across 
 Minnesota ; one starting from Superior City and running 
 to the Red River by way of the Crow Wing River and 
 the Otter Tail Lakes ; the other beginning at Bayfield 
 and bending off to the south so as to cross the Mississippi 
 at Sauk Rapids, and thence running northwest to Breck- 
 enridge on the Red River. The two lines converged 
 at the bend of the Cheyenne River in Dakota. Both of 
 these lines crossed the Red River at points considerably 
 south of the crossing afterward adopted within the site 
 of the present towns of Moorhead and Fargo. The line 
 across Dakota crossed the Missouri near Fort Clark, 
 about thirty miles north of the present town of Bismarck, 
 and thence ran west to the Yellowstone, which it crossed 
 
SURVEYING THE LINE. 
 
 149 
 
 not far from the mouth of Glendive Creek. Instead of 
 following up the valley of the Yellowstone, as docs the 
 completed road, this projected line was run on the high 
 plateau, north of the river, and bending to the north- 
 west at a point about twenty miles north of the mouth 
 of the Big Horn River, passed between the Judith and 
 Belt Mountains to the great falls of the Missouri, where 
 it crossed that river. A short branch was indicated to 
 Big Horn City and another to Fort Benton. The line 
 ran through the Gate of the Mountains and up the Mis- 
 souri and the Dearborn rivers to Cadotte's Pass, in the 
 Rocky Mountains. On the western side of the Moun- 
 tains the route was about the same as that subsequently 
 adopted, following down the Hell Gate River, crossing to 
 the Jocko, and descending that stream and the Clarke's 
 Fork of the Columbia to Lake Pend d'Oreillc, from 
 whence it ran straight to the mouth of the Snake River. 
 The route to Puget Sound was by way of the Valley of 
 the Yakima and the Snoqualmie Pass to Seattle. 
 
 This line was largely a theoretical one, and was based 
 chiefly on the reports of the Government Pacific Railroad 
 expedition under Governor Stevens and that of Captain 
 Reynolds which surveyed the Yellowstone Valley in 1859 
 and i860. It differed from the line indicated in an earlier 
 map prepared when the bill chartering the company was 
 before Congress, in crossing from the Missouri to the 
 Yellowstone, instead of following the north bank of the 
 Missouri up to the Great Falls as Stevens had recom- 
 mended. Mr. Johnson's report displayed a knowledge 
 of the country the road was to traverse and the engineer- 
 ing difficulties to be surmounted, which was remarkably 
 thorough. He had seen no part of the route, but he had 
 so carefully studied all the available sources of informa- 
 tion, that his report can be read with interest at this day 
 as a fairly accurate description of the region. Mr. John- 
 
 
I50 
 
 NOHiJ/ER.V PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 son estimated the length of the road, from the head of 
 Lake Superior to Puget Sound, at 1,755 miles, and to 
 Portland at 1,775 miles. He made detailed estimates of 
 cost aggregating $140,377,500 for the road and its equip- 
 ment to Puget Sound, and $16,480,000 for the Oregon 
 branch to Portland, the average cost per mile being $79,- 
 421. In these figures he did not include the general 
 expenses of management, interest upon loans, or discount 
 upon bonds. He dealt only with the question of con- 
 struction and equipment. 
 
 Systematic surveys on both ends of the road were begun 
 in the summer of 1867 under Mr. Johnson's general di- 
 rections. In Minnesota two lines marked out by him 
 were run by Gen. Ira Spaulding and his assistants, W. H. 
 Ruggles and Col. W. H. Owen. One, called the Crow 
 Wing Line, started at Superior Bay, and running north of 
 Mille Lac and south of Gull Lake, crossed the Crow Wing 
 River about sixteen miles northwest of its junction with 
 the Mississippi, and passing near the foot of the Otter 
 Tail Lake, struck the Red River five miles north of the 
 Sioux Wood Iliver. 
 
 The St. Cloud line commenced at Bayfield on Lake 
 Superior and bore off southwest to St. Cloud, whence it 
 ran to a point on the Red River six miles south of the 
 other line. The distance from Superior to the Red River 
 by the Crow Wing line was 232 miles ; from Superior to 
 the State line at Sioux Wood Riyer it was 268 miles. The 
 question of the best point for the eastern terminus on Lake 
 Su|)erior was then an unsettled one, and lines were sur- 
 veyed from Duluth and Pleasant Bay, 13 miles from Bay- 
 field, as well as from Superior. The Crow Wing line 
 from Superior was estimated to cost $2,878 less per mile 
 to build than the St. Cloud line, provided the latter 
 started from Pleasant Bay, and the total difference of cost 
 was placed at $3,848,500. 
 
SURVEYING THE LINE. 
 
 151 
 
 akc 
 
 it 
 
 the 
 
 iver 
 
 3r to 
 
 In favor of the Southern or St. Cloud line was the fact 
 that much of it traversed a rich, cultivated country, and 
 that a St. Paul connection would be easier to secure at 
 Si. Cloud than at a point further north where the other 
 route would cross the Mississippi. The engineers re- 
 I)orted, however, that these advantages would be in a 
 great measure neutralized by the increased cost of the 
 road, and by the fact that all freights must incur the cost 
 of about 60 to 'j'j miles more of railway transportation 
 than if placed on shipboard at the head of the lake, in 
 case the St. Cloud line should start from Pleasant Bay. 
 
 The search for a good harbor for a lake terminus was 
 confined to three points — Chegwamigon Bay and the 
 Lake Shore behind the Apostle Islands ; Superior l?ay at 
 
 ipcrior City, Wisconsin, and Superior Bay at Duluth, 
 Minnesota. 
 
 On the Pacific coast the surveys were placed in charge 
 of Gen. James Tilton, formerly Surveyor General of Wash- 
 ington Territory, with instructions to obtain definite in- 
 formation as to the number and elevation of the Passes 
 practicable for a railway over the Cascade range of moun- 
 tains in that territory between the Columbia River and 
 Puget Sound, and, if time and means permitted, to extend 
 a line of survey up the Columbia River valley from near 
 Portland, in Oregon. 
 
 Gen. Tilton arrived at Olympia, Washington Territory,^ 
 on the 28th of July, 1867, and dispatched two parties under 
 the charge of J. S. Hurd and W. H. Carlton to, explore 
 the Snoqualmie and Cowlitz Passes of the Cascade Range. 
 The surveys made by these parties, and a third one 
 subsequently organized under the charge of A. J. Tread- 
 way, disclosed several practicable passes in that range, the 
 most eligible of which Gen. Tilton reported to be the 
 Cowlitz, the Snoqualmie, and the Wenachee or the Ska- 
 git, situated in the order named, the Cowlitz being the 
 
152 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 most southerly. " This latter pass," said Gen. Tilton 
 in his report, " leads from the Tanum branch of the 
 Nachess River, a tributary of the Yakima, to the 
 Cowlitz River, and is about twelve miles to the south- 
 east of Mount Ranier. The second pass leads from 
 the Kitchelus branch of the Yakima to the Snoqual- 
 mie branch of the Snohomish River, and is about 40 
 miles north of Mount Ranier, and the third pass leads 
 from the Wenachee, a tributary of the Columbia River, 
 in one direction to the Skykomish branch of the Snoho- 
 mish River, and in another and northerly direction to the 
 Sawk branch of the Skagit River Between the Snoqual- 
 mie Pass and Mount Ranier are two Passes, the Cedar 
 River or Yakima, and the Nachess, elevated, the former 
 1,060 feet, and the latter 1,900 feet above the Snoqualmie 
 Pass." Through this latter pass was built the military 
 road from Puget Sound to the Columbia River. 
 
 No action was taken upon these surveys at the time. 
 The money to pay for them was raised, not without diffi- 
 culty, by a committee of the Board of Directors com- 
 posed of President Smith, A. H. Barney, A. S. Diven, and 
 Thomas H. Canfield. The company was then endeavor- 
 ing to secure a grant of money or credit from Congress, 
 and had no resources to commence the construction of 
 the road. It was not until April, 1869, that the reports 
 of General Spaulding and General Tilton were placed 
 before the Board by the Chief E^ngineer. That officer, 
 making a report accompanying those of the actual sur- 
 
 veys. 
 
 said 
 
 "In commencing the construction of the road, there tire particular por- 
 tions which, in view of tlie benefit and convenience to the company and the 
 public, should be first built. In Washington Territory, the line from llie 
 Columbia River to Puget Sound should be first constructed, to accommodate 
 the business of that section and facilitate access to and the speedy sale ami 
 settlement of the company's lands on each side of the sound, the demand 
 for which will be greatly increased on the completion of the Union and 
 
SURVEYING THE LINE. 
 
 153 
 
 Central Pacific Railroad. In Montana, an early connection of the navi- 
 gable waters of the Missouri with those of the Columbia is required, to meet 
 the wants of a large population already gathered and increasing in the 
 mountain portion of that Territory, and to develop its great mineral and 
 agricultural resources. 
 
 "The building of the road through Minnesota, to meet the business 
 wants of that State, and of a large and increasing population to the north 
 and west of it, should not be delayed, and its extension west of the Missouri 
 River, giving, in connection with the navigation of that river, steam com- 
 munication between the lakes and the settled portions of Montana, is also of 
 first importance. This line from Lake Superior to the Missouri River 
 should take precedence of the line in Montana, being needed for the trans- 
 port of materials and men for the work in Montana, and needed also for the 
 more rapid sale and settlement of the company's lands in Minnesota, Dakota, 
 and Montana. 
 
 The surveys of Governor Stevens had established the 
 fact that there were several practicable passes in the 
 Rocky Mountains through which a railroad could be built 
 with ordinary mountain grades, by the help of summit 
 tunnels of moderate length. The selection of one of 
 these passes was left to await more careful examination 
 in the follo^ving years, and the more definite location of 
 the road on either side of the great water-shed. 
 
 The banking firm of Jay Cooke & Co. was proffered 
 the financial agency of the Northern Pacific Railroad, 
 in 1869. But they delayed a definite decision upon the 
 offer until an examination of the route of the road and 
 the character of the country traversed could be made by 
 agents sent out by themselves, in whose reports they 
 could place confidence. In pursuance of this arrange- 
 ment, the firm sent two parties into the field in the sum- 
 mer of that year. One, in charge of W. Milnor Roberts, 
 afterwards Chief Engineer of the company, was directed 
 to proceed to the Pacific coast, examine Puget Sound 
 and the Columbia River — the two western termini of 
 the road — and then go eastward, either over the Cas- 
 cade Mountains through the Snoqualmie Pass, or up 
 
w 
 
 154 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 the Columbia to the great plain of the Columbia, and 
 to the passes of the Rocky Mountains, the Upper 
 Missouri country and the waters of the Yellow- 
 stone. The other party, under Governor Marshall, of 
 Minnesota, undertook to explore the already well-known 
 route from Lake Superior to the Red River of the North, 
 and across the wild Dakota plains to the Great Bend of 
 the Missouri. Both parties were to report on the value 
 of the country for settlement, and the Pacific coast party 
 were to study engineering problems so far as to be able to 
 make an estimate of the cost of construction on the 
 mountain divisions of the line, which alone offered any 
 serious obstacles to railway building. The surveys of Gen- 
 eral Tilton, in 1867, had, as we have seen, included the 
 Cowlitz River route from the Columbia to the Sound, the 
 shores of the Sound, and the passes of the Cascade Range, 
 but had not been pushed farther eastward than that range. 
 The Pacific coast party was made up of VV. Milnor 
 Roberts, Thos. H. Canfield, General Agent of the Com- 
 pany ; Samuel Wilkeson, the Company's Secretary; the 
 Rev. Mr. Claxton, Wm. G. Moorehead, Jr., and Mr. 
 Johnson, a son of Edwin F. Johnson, the Chief Engineer. 
 These gentlemen visited all the little towns and saw-mill 
 ports on Puget Sound, and then returning to Portland 
 went up the Columbia to Wallula, and thence by road to 
 Walla Walla, already a thriving place. There they fitted 
 out a horseback expedition, consis.ting of eight pack mules 
 and ten saddle-horses, and traveling about twenty-four 
 miles a day, crossed the rolling, grassy plains, then quite 
 destitute of population, but now dotted with farms and 
 villages, to Pend d'Oreille Lake. A small steamer was 
 already running on the lake, carrying miners and pros- 
 pectors on their way to the Kootenai country. The 
 party traveled the old Hudson Bay Company trail from 
 the head of the lake up the Clarke's Fork, the route 
 
SURVEYING THE LINE. 
 
 155 
 
 afterward se'ected for the railroad. They followed the 
 Flathead and Jocko rivers, and crossed by the Coriacan 
 Defile to the Hell Gate River, finding at Missoula a small 
 and hopeful town, and at Deer Lodge an active trading 
 center. The Deer Lodge, Mullan and Cadotte's Passes, in 
 the Rocky Mountains, were examined, Helena visited, and 
 the Missouri Valley descended to Fort Benton. Return- 
 ing to Helena, the party went south to Bozeman, and 
 crossed the Bozeman Pass to the Yellowstone River. It 
 had been their intention to go clown the Yellowstone Val- 
 ley, but the hostile attitude of the Indians in that region 
 caused them to turn back to Bozeman. They then trav- 
 eled southward over the stage road to Corinnc, in Utah, 
 on the Union Pacific Railroad. Their failure to penetrate 
 the valley of the Yellowstone was not detrimental to the 
 general objects of the reconnoissance, inasmuch as Gen- 
 eral Hancock, with a military expedition, had explored 
 that portion of the river in the previous year. His report 
 appeared soon after, and gave all the needed information 
 as to the character of the country and its adaptability for 
 railroad operations. 
 
 The results of the Roberts-Canfield-Wilkeson explora- 
 tion were embodied in three publications — a report by 
 Mr. Roberts, giving special attention to engineering feat- 
 ures ; a pamphlet by Mr. Wilkeson, entitled " Wilkeson's 
 Notes," devoted chiefly to a thorough description of the 
 lumber and coal resources of the Puget Sound country 
 and the fisheries; and a report by Mr. Canfield, giving a 
 full account of the Sound harbors, and their respective 
 merits for a terminal city for the railroad, and also descrip- 
 tions of the pasie? of the Bitter Root and Rocky Moun- 
 tains. Mr. Roberts made a detailed estimate of the cost 
 of building and equipping the entire line from Lake 
 Superior to Puget Sound, the total being $85,277,000, or 
 an average of $42,638 per mile. 
 
'fm 
 
 156 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD, 
 
 Gov. Marshall's party included J. Gregory Smith, the 
 President, and R. D. Rice, the Vice-President of the 
 Northern Pacific Company ; Frederick Woodbridge and 
 Worthington C. Smith, members of Congress from Ver- 
 mont ; C. C. Coffin, tlie journalist and author, who wrote 
 a book about the journey; the Rev. Dr. Lord, and Dr. 
 Thayer, of Vermont; George Brackett, of Minneapolis; 
 Mr. Holmes representing Jay Cooke & Co., and Mr. Bay- 
 less, who represented certain New York capitalists. 
 After leaving St. Cloud the expedition followed the Red 
 River trail. They found four houses at Glenwood, on 
 White Bear Lake, a block house at Pomme de Terre, and 
 one house at McCarleyville. These were the only habi- 
 tations they saw until they reached Georgetown, on the 
 Red River, where there were two houses, built by the 
 Hudson Bay Company. At the crossing of the Cheyenne 
 River, President Smith, with a portion of the party, 
 turned back, leaving Gov. Marshall with the remainder, 
 to proceed to the Missouri by way of Devil's Lake. A 
 military escort protected the party from attacks by 
 roaming Indians. Arriving at Fort Stevenson, the expe- 
 dition found it prudent to return at once, to avoid a large 
 body of savages reported by scouts to be iidvancing 
 toward the trail. It reached the settlements of Minne- 
 sota in safety. 
 
 The reports of these several expeditions convinced the 
 Philadelphia banking firm that the land grant of the 
 Northerr Pacific Railroad was of great value, and there- 
 fore afforded a legitimate basis for credit. The country 
 the line would traverse west of the pine forests of North- 
 ern Minnesota was inviting to settlement. On the Pacific 
 slope a fertile region was found between the Cascade 
 range and the Rocky Mountains, and the high valleys of 
 Montana were shown to be exceedingly productive with 
 the use of irrigation, while the mines had already 
 
SURVEYING THE LINE. 
 
 157 
 
 caused prosperous towns of considerable size to spring 
 up. 
 
 The topograph}'' of the country and the trails followed 
 by the Indians and by miners and traders suggested three 
 routes westward from the main range of the Rocky 
 Mountains: one by the Salmon River to its junc- 
 tion with the Snake, and thence down the latter 
 stream to the Columbia ; one across the Bitter Root 
 Range to the head waters of the Clearwater River, 
 and down the Clearwater to the Snake and Columbia, 
 the route taken by the Lewis and Clarke expedition ; 
 and a third following the Valley of the Deer Lodge, 
 Hell Gate, Missoula, and Clarke's Fork Rivers — all in 
 reality one stream under different names — to Lake Pend 
 d'Oreille, and thence across the Columbia Plains to the 
 junction of the Snake and Columbia. All three were 
 thoroughly surveyed by the engineer corps of the North- 
 ern Pacific Company in the years 1870, 1871, and 1872. 
 These surveys resulted in showing that there was no pass 
 in the Bitter Root Range, south of Lake Pend d'Oreille, 
 less than 5,000 feet above the sea; the passes ranging 
 generally from 5,400 to nearly 8,000 feet in height. The 
 r^ untain route, via Salmon River, proved to be some 
 miles longer than the valley route, via Lake Pend 
 d'Oreille, besides being much mor*^ difficult to construct. 
 The mountain route, via the Clearwater River, was five 
 miles shorter than the valley route, but was greatly in- 
 ferior in all other respects, having a summit more than 
 3,000 feet above Lake Pend d'Oreille and much more 
 curvature, and being more difficult and more costly to 
 construct. It was ascertained that not only the routes 
 via the Salmon River and the Clearwater River, but any 
 route crossing the Bitter Root Range, must encounter 
 serious trouble from snow, which would be avoided on 
 the valley route. 
 
 i 
 
158 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 t 
 
 It seemed so desirable to the Board of Directors to 
 build down the Clearwater and Snake Rivers, because of 
 the fertile character of the rolling table lands drained by 
 those streams, that a final effort was made to discover a 
 practicable pass. After it was determined to begin con- 
 struction eastward from the Columbia River the definite 
 choice of a route was left open till the results of a new 
 survey made by Engineer McCartney were known. Not 
 till a telegram was received from Mr, McCartney announc- 
 ing that he had found no feasible pass across the Bitter 
 Root Mountains did orders go out from New York to 
 General Sprague, the Superintendent on the Pacific Coast, 
 to begin grading on the Pend d'Oreille route. 
 
 On the map the road as completed seems to make a 
 long detour to the northward to go around by Lake Pend 
 d'Oreille ; and many people in Lewiston, disappointed 
 that it was not built through heir town by the Clear- 
 water route, are still in the habit of saying that it goes a 
 hundred miles out of its way. Nevertheless, the measure- 
 ments of the engineers showed that the northern bend 
 made the road only five miles longer than a line would 
 be up and down the crooked, narrow, streams heading in 
 the lofty Bitter Root Range. 
 
 
irectors to 
 >ecause of 
 rained by 
 liscover a 
 egin con- 
 le definite 
 of a new 
 vvn. Not 
 announc- 
 the Bitter 
 r York to 
 fie Coast, 
 
 o make a 
 ake Pend 
 ppointed 
 he Clear- 
 it goes a 
 measure- 
 em bend 
 le would 
 eading in 
 
 ,ii 
 
OKI Faithful Geyser, National I'aik. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 AMENDMENTS TO THE CHARTER. 
 
 Weary Wailing upon Congress — Various Schemes for Obtaining Govern- 
 ment Aid — Opposition to the Land Grant and Subsidy System — The 
 Northern Pacific Company goes to Sleep for Two Years — No Board 
 Meetings from i36S to 1870 — Congress Extends the Time for Beginning 
 Work on the Road, and for Completing it — A Wise Change of Policy — 
 Congress Autliorizes the Issue of Bonds — Branch from Portland to Puget 
 Sound Authorized. 
 
 The history of the Northern Pacific enterprise for the 
 years 1868 and 1869 is for the most part a narrative of 
 weary waiting upon Congress for pecuniary aid, which 
 was never given, and which the directors had no good 
 reason to expect. Various schemes were broached 
 before the Pacific Railroad Committees of the two 
 Houses. At one time the effort was to procure a Gov- 
 ernment guaranty of interest on an issue of bonds at 
 the rate of $40,000 per mile of road ; at another to obtain 
 the bonds of the United States on the same conditions 
 upon which such bonds were given to the Union and 
 Central Pacific companies by the legislation of 1864. Mr. 
 Thos. H. Canfield took charge of the interests of the com- 
 pany at Washington, and President Smith and some of the 
 other directors occasionally reinforced him for a short 
 time. Favorable reports were obtained from committees 
 and bills were placed upon the calendar, but there they 
 died. Many influential men in both Houses took the 
 position that the Northern route had a fair claim to the 
 same assistance from the Government which had been 
 accorded to the middle route. It was argued on the 
 other hand that a double grant had been given the 
 
t: 
 
 4 
 
 i6o 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 t '' ; 
 
 Northern Pacific in lieu of a subsidy in bonds. The 
 friends of the road urged in rej)ly that the land grant was 
 unavailable as a basis for credit, and that the company 
 would be glad to restore half of it to the public domain if 
 Congress would put them on the same basis as the two 
 companies then building the middle line. They had to 
 encounter, however, a determined opposition to the land 
 grant and subsidy system. A considerable number of 
 members would gladly have voted to abrogate the North- 
 ern Pacific charter, believing that such a course would 
 commend them for re-election to their constituents. 
 Many others would go no further toward aiding the com- 
 pany than to support a bill making a second extension of 
 the limit of time for beginning construction operations. 
 From a habit of careless and lavish generosity in making 
 grants of the public domain to corporations proposing to 
 build railway lines in the West, Congress had changed to 
 an attitude of hostility toward all propositions for new 
 grants, and of suspicious watchfulness of all companies to 
 which lands had already been given. With such a tem- 
 per prevailing in the National Legislature it is strange 
 that the Northern Pacific managers should have wasted 
 two years more in making arguments, appeals, and com- 
 binations in the lobbies and committee rooms of the 
 Capitol, During those two years the Company, as an or- 
 ganization, went to sleep. The surveys were prosecuted 
 in the summer of 1867, but no report was made of their 
 results to the board until 1870, because there were no 
 meetings of the board from February, 1868, to February, 
 1870. A meeting of stockholders and election of directors 
 was not held in December, 1867, as required by the by- 
 laws, nor in the two following years. 
 
 The only favor obtained from Congress prior to the 
 passage of the amendments to the charter in 1869 and 
 1870, authorizing the issue of the bonds of the Company, 
 
AMENDMENTS TO THE CHARTER. 
 
 i6i 
 
 was an act passed in 1868, extending the time for com- 
 mencing work on the road until July 2, 1870, and the 
 time for completing it until July 4, 1877. This was 
 passed after very brief consideration and with very little 
 opposition. The bill, as reported to the Senate, carried the 
 limit of time for finishing the road forward to July 4, 1883. 
 Just as it was about to pass, Mr. Ramsey, of Minnesota, 
 
 mo 
 
 ved to strike out "18S3" au'l insert "1878. 
 
 II 
 
 IS 
 
 amendment was agreed to, and the bill passed May 30 
 without a division. A month later, June 29, the House 
 passed its own bill by a vote of 96 to 32, making the 
 date July 4, 1877, and the Senate the same day, as the 
 session was about to expire, took up that bill and passed 
 it. Had the date as originally fixed by the Senate Com- 
 mittee, 1883, been adopted in the bill as finally passed, 
 the Northern Pacific Company would have been saved a 
 great deal of trouble and much expense, subsequently 
 incurred for the protection of its rights under its charter. 
 In 1869 the managers of the Northern Pacific project 
 finally, and with, great reluctance, made up their minds 
 that it was useless to besiege Congress with applications 
 for Government aid, and began to consider the feasibility 
 of building the road as an ordinary business enterprise, 
 with the proceeds of a loan placed upon the money 
 market. As a first step in his direction, they procured 
 the passage of an act by Congress authorizing the Com- 
 pany to issue its bonds and to secure them by a mort- 
 gage upon its railroad and telegraph line, and construing 
 " Puget Sound " in the Charter Act to mean all the 
 waters connected with the Straits of Juan de Fuca within 
 the territory of the United States. This latter clause 
 was important, because it enabled the Company to make 
 its Avestern terminus at any point between the British 
 boundary line and the head of the Sound, instead of con- 
 fining it to Puget Sound proper, which is the crescent- 
 II 
 
w 
 
 162 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 shaped southern end of the large body of water popu- 
 larly known by that name. It was defective in not 
 including the land grant in the power to mortgage. 
 This defect ".vas perceived as soon as a scheme for a loan 
 was fairly formulated. 
 
 The act in question bore date of March 1st, 1869. 
 Another act was passed and approved April loth, 1869, 
 authorizing the continuation of the Portland branch to 
 some suitable point on Pugct Sound, to be determined 
 by the Company, where it was to connect with the main 
 line across the Cascade Mountains, and requiring the 
 construction of twenty-five miles of the extension before 
 July 2d, 1871, and of forty miles in each year thereafter 
 until it should be completed. 
 
 Both these acts were passed with scarcely any debate 
 on the indorsement of the Pacific Railroad Committees 
 of the Senate and House. The ultra opponents of the 
 Land Grant system attempted to defeat the second bill in 
 the House, but could not muster sufficient votes to 
 demand the yeas and nays. A brief statement of the 
 purpose of the measure by Mr. Wilson, of Minnesota, 
 carried it through. 
 
<JP' 
 
(Jiant Geyser, Nalional Tark. 
 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE JAV COOKE CONTRACT. 
 
 The Banking House of Jay Cooke & Co. — Mi\ Cooke's Character as a 
 Financier — His Contract with the Nortliern Pacific Company — A Hard 
 I'>argain — Five Millions Furnished to Begin Construction in 1870 — A 
 Town Site Company Formed — A New Bill Passes Congress Authorizing 
 ilie Mortgaging of the Road and Land Grant — The Columbia River 
 Eine ^^ade the Main Line to Puget Sound — A P>ri:.k Contest in both 
 Houses — Jay Cooke's Plan for a Foreign Loan — The Bonds Finally 
 Offeretl to the American Public- Defects of the Financial Scheme. 
 
 PreshjENT Smith and the directors were very desirous 
 of sccurin*; the services of the great banking house of Jay 
 Cook'f" & Co. to sell the company's bonds and manage its 
 finances. This house had placed the immense war loans 
 of the Government, and by its success in that line was 
 widely known on both sides of the Atlantic. No other 
 banking institution in America could rival it at the time 
 in the sort of popularity which comes from dashing enter- 
 prise and rapidly earjied success. The head of the house, 
 Mr. Jay Cooke, was an Ohio man, of a family of editors 
 and bankers, who secured the important and profitable 
 trust of selling the bonds of the Government through the 
 friendship of Salmon P. Chase, the Secretary of the 
 Treasury. Tlic chief establishment o( the firm was in 
 Philadelphia, but it had branches in New York and Lon- 
 don, and a bank in Washington called the First National, 
 of which Mr. Cooke's brother, Henry D. Cooke was presi- 
 dent. Jay Cooke had a talent for what the French call 
 grand finance. His operations were on n. iarge scale. 
 Always bold and enthusiastic, and gifted wi^-li the faculty 
 of ii. spiring others with his confidence anu erthusiasm, his 
 
164 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 success in speculative times, when values were appreciating 
 from abundant money, was almost a natural result of his 
 mental organizalion. His great defect was a want of 
 caution and foresight. He failed to unflerstand that alter- 
 nate expansion and contraction is the law of finance, and 
 that the business of the world progresses like the frog in 
 the well in the old arithmetic problem, Avhich leaped up 
 three feet and then fell back two. Mr. Cooke's schemes 
 were based on the delusive idea that the pendulum of 
 trade and finance always swings upward. He did not 
 make provision for the inevitable downward movement. 
 
 He had developed a system of " popularizing " the Gov- 
 ernment loans by means of profuse advertising in the 
 newspapers, supplemented by editorial articles an.', by a 
 lavish distribution of pamphlets and circulars No ;;-c,ii 
 in his day could equal him in the effective usv of pruitcr's 
 ink. This system, with its appliances and local agencies, 
 the Northern Pacific managers wanted to seci;rc. They 
 were sagacious in this effort, for it was unquestionably 
 by far the best machinery in existence at the time for 
 placing a loan. 
 
 Mr. Cooke was in no hurry about closing the bargain. 
 He held the project under advisement for over a year. 
 Meanwhile he sent out exploring parties, as we have seen 
 in another chapter, to examine the vast uninhabited regions 
 to be traversed by the road. He insisted that the mort- 
 gage .should be made applicable to the lands granted to 
 the company, as well as to its railroad line. With th 
 understanding that legislation for this purpose should bi 
 procured, he made a contract with the company on ?.Kty 
 20th, 1869, which was modified by a supplementar\ con- 
 tract on January ist, 1870. Let us see what the main 
 terms of these contracts were. They provided for an 
 issue of bonds to the amount of $100,000,000, bearing 
 interest at the rate of seven and three-tenths per cent, in 
 
THE JAY COOKE CONTRACT. 
 
 165 
 
 gold 
 
 rgain. 
 year, 
 seen 
 gions 
 mort- 
 tcd to 
 th tb- 
 ild be 
 
 con- 
 main 
 or an 
 :aring 
 :nt. In 
 
 This rate was adopted by the government for its 
 last war loan, when its credit was at the lowest ebb, for 
 the reason that it made the interest on a $50 bond, the 
 smallest denomination issued, exactly one cent per day. 
 Mr. Cooke had sold the 7-30 Government loan success- 
 fully, and insisted that the Northern Pacific loan should 
 resemble it in all possible respects. 
 
 The banking firm credited the railroad with eighty- 
 eight cents on the dollar for the bonds it sold, and as 
 it disposed of them at par, its margin was a very liberal 
 one. But the contract gave it $200 of the stock of the 
 company for every $1,000 of bonds sold, which would 
 have amounted for the completed road to about $20,000,- 
 000, and one-half of the remainder of the $100,000,000 of 
 stock authorized by the charter. The twelve original 
 proprietary interests which owned the stock were in- 
 creased to twenty-four, and twelve of them assigned to 
 Jay Cooke & Co. A considerable amount of the stock was 
 given by the banking house to subscribers to the bonds, but 
 in all cases an irrevocable power of attorney was taken, 
 so that the firm, having purchased a thirteenth interest, 
 controlled the management of the company's affairs. 
 Other specifications, in the contract made the firm the 
 sole financial agents of the road, and the sol'" depositary 
 of its funds; provided for the conversion of tj.e $600,000 
 of old stock outstanding into bonds at fifty cents on the 
 dollar, created a land company to manage the town sites, 
 and bound the firm to raise $^, 000,000 within thirty days 
 fi-oni January 2, 1870, with which the company was im- 
 mediately to commence building the road. It was also 
 specified that the road should be at once located from the 
 Montreal River in Wisconsin westward to the Red River, 
 but construction was to begin at the intersection of the 
 Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad, a line already 
 built from St. Paul to Duluth, the junction being near 
 

 1'' 
 
 
 ■■■■Vl- 
 
 i66 
 
 XORTIIERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 the Dalles of the St. Louis River and about twenty miles 
 west of Duluth. As Jay Cooke & Co. owned a controlling 
 interest in the Lake Superior and Mississippi Company, 
 there was a practical unity of interest with the Northern 
 Pacific, and the latter company had the advantage of 
 the use of the twenty miles of completed road, with the 
 lake terminus at Duluth. 
 
 Jay Cooke & Co. raised the five millions required to be 
 ready within thirty days, by forming a " pool " in Phila- 
 delphia, the members of which took the bonds at par 
 and were given the twelve proprietary interests in the 
 stock at $50,000 each. The profit of the firm in this great 
 action was $600,000 on the bonds for which it 
 p> ■ 88, and $600,000 on the stock for which it paid 
 notning; total, $1,200,000. The five millions of bonds 
 carried with them a total of $41,000,000 of stock to be 
 issued ratably as fast as sections of 25 miles of the road 
 were completed. Each of the twelve proprietary shares 
 was entitled to $93,400 nominal of the preliminary issue 
 of stock, and in addition to $83,334 nominal in stock for 
 the 20 per cent, stock, commission on the sale of bonds, 
 provided for in the contract between the bankers and tlie 
 company. By the time the road reached the Red River, 
 the stock issued to each of these shares amounted to 
 $541,234. One-half interest in a company formed to 
 speculate in town sites on the Northern Pacific line also 
 went with these twelve shares. 
 
 A nev/ joint resolution was introduced in Congress 
 in the winter of 1870, at the instance of Mr. Cooke, and 
 passed in the face of a strong opposition. It authorized 
 the issue of bonds secured by mortgage on all the prop- 
 erty and rights of the company, which of course in- 
 cluded its land grant, and the filing of the mortgage in 
 the office of the Secretary of the Interior. It made the 
 Columbia River line the main line to Puget Sound, and 
 
THE JAY CtOKE CONTRACT. 
 
 167 
 
 the Cascade line the branch, and it gave the company 
 the right to select lands within a limit often miles on each 
 side of its grant, to make up any deficiency in the lands 
 within the original grant by sale or from occupation by 
 settlers. This latter provision practically enlarged the 
 area of the grant to thirty miles in the States and fifty 
 miles in the territories on each side of the line. 
 
 This measure, which opened the way for procuring 
 money to begin the construction of the Northern Pacific 
 Road, originated in the Senate Committee on the Pacific 
 Railroads, of which Mr. Howard, of Michigan, was chair- 
 man. It wa;, brought up for consideration on February 
 28th, and occupied a good deal of time in the debates 
 until April 21st. Its opponents might have been divided 
 into two classes — those who conscientiously or for politi- 
 cal effect were opposed to railway land-grants and would 
 gladly have seen the Northern Pacific grant lapse by 
 reason of the failure of the company to raise money to 
 build the line, and those whose interests in the Union 
 and Central Pacific Companies led them to oppose the 
 building of a rival road to the Pacific Coast. Its chief 
 supporters, beside Mr. Howard, were the Minnesota and 
 Oregon Senators. The actual contest was, in the end, 
 not so much over the merits of the measure itself, as over 
 amendments which Mr. Thurman, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Sher- 
 man, and others sought to attach to it. One of these 
 amendments required the company to sell its lands only to 
 actual settlers, and at a price not to exceed $2.50 an acre ; 
 another fixed the price at $1.25 per acre ; a third required 
 all the land of the grant not sold within three years to be 
 subject to settlement and pre-emption at $1.25 an acre; 
 a fourth provided that the railroad should carry troops, 
 mails, and government freight free of charge. All these 
 were voted down, as was an amendment striking c)ut the 
 provision that the railroad company might select in- 
 
1 68 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 demnity lands within ten miles of the limits of the grant. 
 Finally on April 2ist, the joint resolution was passed by 
 a vote of 40 yeas, to 1 1 nays. 
 
 Mr. Wheeler, of New York, chairman of the Committee 
 on Pacific Railroads, brought in the joint resolution on 
 May 5th. A whole day was consumed in filibustering 
 by the opponents of the measure, who were fighting for 
 a chance to have their amendments considered. The 
 next clay the House refused by a vote of 77 to 91 to order 
 the joint resolution to a third reading, which had the 
 parliamentary effect of rejecting it finally, but Mr. Wheeler 
 had voted in the affirmative in order to have the right to 
 move to reconsider, which he did, and then moved to refer 
 the joint resolution with all the amendments which might 
 be offered back to his committee. No fewer than twenty- 
 four amendments were sent up to the clerk's desk. 
 
 Two weeks later Mr. Wheeler reported the joint reso- 
 lution again to the House just as it came from the Senate, 
 and said that his committee desired that every gentleman 
 who had offered an amendment should have an opportu- 
 nity to submit it to vote. The mover of each amendment 
 made a short speech in its behalf. Speeches and roll- 
 calls occupied two days' time. One after another all the 
 amendments were rejected, and the joint resolution was 
 finally passed by yeas 106, nays 81. It is not worth while 
 to give here the numerous amendments. Many dupli- 
 cated each other in essential features, all were in the line 
 of restrictions upon the right of the company to manage 
 its road or dispose of its land giant in its own way, save a 
 few relating to the right of other roads to cross the grant, 
 which were unobjectionable, and were rejected only be- 
 cause their adoption would send the measure back to the 
 Senate, where it might be lost for lack of the time, as the 
 session was near its close. 
 
 Mr. Cooke's first idea was not to place the bonds by 
 
THE JAY COOKE CONTRACT. 
 
 169 
 
 popular subscription in America, but to sell all or a great 
 part of the loan in Europe. In 1869 his partner, Wm. G. 
 Morcheacl, went across the Atlantic with a prospectus in 
 his pocket to be submitted to the Rothschilds, In it Mr. 
 Cooke had set out the conditions of the loan and the p' as- 
 pects of the Northern Pacific enterprise in such an attract- 
 ive shape as to make it appear that there would be eighty 
 millions of dollars of profit to be divided between the 
 Rothschilds and his house if the former would furnish the 
 money to build the road. Morehead lacked faith in the 
 Northern Pacific project from the first, and made so cold 
 a presentation of the proposal that the Rothschilds de- 
 clined it without much consideration. Morehead thc-i 
 telegraphed to Cooke, advising him to have nothing to 
 do with the business, and went off to Egypt to spend 
 the winter on the Nile. The next spring Mr. Cooke 
 met at a dinner party at the house of Baron Gerolt, the 
 Prussian Minister at Washington, two young bankers 
 connected with good houses, one in Amsterdam and one in 
 Berlin. He so far interested them in the Northern Pacific 
 plan that they, after a visit to his home at Ogontz, diew 
 on their banks for half a million dollars, deposited the 
 drafts with Mr. Cooke, and hastened home to organize a 
 combination of forces to take fifty millions of the loan. 
 Arrangements involving leading banking firms in London 
 and continental cities were on the point of being com- 
 pleted when the French Emperor, Napoleon III., started 
 for the Rhine, and began his disastrous attack upon Ger- 
 many. The whole transaction came sharply to an end, 
 and Mr. Cooke was compelled to fall back upon the 
 American market. Then his apparatus of advertising and 
 local agencies was brought into efficient operation. 
 
 Mr. Cooke drove a hard bargain with the railroad com- 
 pany. He made his own terms, and made them so exact- 
 ing, as he afterwards said, that he did not suppose they 
 
M 
 
 it 
 t ■■ 
 
 170 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 IT' 
 
 i 
 
 
 would be accepted. It must be remembered, however, 
 that the Northern Pacific managers sought him, not he 
 them. They regarded him and his bank with its great 
 reputation and influence as a good acquisition at any cost. 
 They conceded to him, first, an unusually high rate of 
 interest payable in gold to make the bonds attractive to 
 the public ; second, a discount of twelve cents on the dol- 
 lar of the face value of the bonds ; third, an ample pro- 
 vision in the way of stock to pay expenses of advertising 
 and selling the loan ; fourth, a half interest in the remain- 
 ing stock. In return the banking firm gave only their 
 promise to raise the money to build the road. The finan- 
 cial scheme was faulty in other respects than the great 
 allowances of stock and commissions. It pushed the 
 company along on the highway to certain insolvency. 
 No extraordinary foresight was needed to see that a 
 railroad could not be built through two thousand miles 
 of absolute wilderness, and settle and develop the vacant 
 country along its line fast enough to provide from its 
 net earnings for $7.30 interest per annum on Sioo for 
 every $88 expended upon it. As soon as the sale of 
 bonds ceased, and the interest on the debt could not be 
 provided for by increasing the principal, bankruptcy was 
 inevitable. The years 1869, 1870 and 1871 were not, how- 
 ever, times when prudence was a common commodity. 
 Men's heads were turned by the apparent prosperity of 
 the United States. It was thought that any draft on tl e 
 future could be met, that the business of the country 
 could go on swimmingly with all sails set, for an indefinite 
 period. Yet the breakers were close at hand. 
 
wevcr, 
 not he 
 1 great 
 y cost, 
 ate of 
 :ivc to 
 lie dol- 
 c pro- 
 rtising 
 smain- 
 y their 
 : fi nan- 
 great 
 :d the 
 vency. 
 :hat a 
 miles 
 vacant 
 Din its 
 00 for 
 ;alc of 
 not be 
 cy was 
 t, how- 
 lodity. 
 rit) of 
 on tl e 
 Duntrv 
 definite 
 
Great Falls of ihe Yellowstone, National Taik. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SALE OF THE 7-30 BONDS. 
 
 Jay Cooke & Co.'s Kflforts to ropulaiize the 7-30 Loan — Extensive and Lib- 
 eral Advertising — Favoralde Opinions from I'rominent rublic Men — 
 Favorable Conilitions fur Selling the IJonds — Cooke's IJraneh House in 
 London — The Ijonds Largely IJouglil by People of Moderate Means — 
 Truthfulness of Jay Cooke's I'ublished Statements About the Northern 
 I'acilic IJelt — Extracts from his Pamphlets. 
 
 Wnil his own terms accepted by the company, with 
 the legislation he desired concerning the mortgage and 
 land grant adopted by Congress, and with his own bank- 
 ing firm accorded the selection of two directors in the 
 Nortliern Pacific Board, and a controlling interest in the 
 stock of the company, Jay Cooke began his efforts to 
 " popularize " the 7-30 loan in the summer of 1870. He 
 employed the same methods he had before successfully 
 used in the sale of the Government loans. Advertise- 
 ments were published in the newspapers far and wide, 
 including the country weeklies as well as the city dailies. 
 Liberal payments for advertising secured favorable edito- 
 rial comments on the loan and on the railroad enterprise 
 generally. For many months it was almost impossible to 
 take up a newspaper in any part of the Northern States 
 without finding something in it concerning the Northern 
 Pacific. Prominent statesmen and army officers wrote 
 letters describing the merits of the country the road was 
 to traverse. Generals, members of Congress, Governors 
 of States, and the Vice-President of the T",<i cd States 
 gave the weight of their indorsement to the project. 
 Their opinions, together with extracts from the reports 
 of engineers and others sent out to survey the line and 
 
 -. I 
 
172 
 
 NOKTI/ERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 reconnoitcr the country were printed in pamphlets and 
 spread broadcast. An effective circuhir was compiled 
 from the arguments of the men in Congress who had op- 
 posed the grant to the company because of its great ex- 
 tent and of its fertility and value for settlement. In these 
 and many other ways popular confidence in the loan was 
 created and maintained. The bonds put on the 
 
 market at a favorable time. The Goveri. .^iit had ceased 
 to be a borrower and had begun to diminish the princi- 
 pal of its debt, while bringing down the rate of its inter- 
 est to five per cent. The profits of business were large. 
 Money was abundant, and new investments which prom- 
 ised large returns were sought with more eagerness than 
 judgment. Unprofitable railways were built, unprofit- 
 able mines opened, and unprofitable factories established 
 in the reckless expansion of business enterprise which 
 characterized the times. 
 
 Jay Cooke & Co. had established a branch banking house 
 in London under the firm name of Jay Co^ke. McCulloch 
 & Co., the resident partner being Hugh '"-ulloch, who 
 had just resigned the Secretaryship of t' ..ited States 
 Treasury. Agencies for the sale of the Northern Pacific 
 bonds were opened in all the chief money centers of the 
 continent of Europe, and pamphlets in German and 
 French were freely distributed. The chief sale of the 
 bonds, however, was in the United States. They became 
 for a time a favorite investment with all classes of people. 
 The small savings of thousands of mechanics, farmers, 
 and tradesmen, as well as the large hoards of capitalists 
 sought investment in these securities. Money for sub- 
 scriptions came in from all parts of the country. Over 
 eight thousand names were put upon the books of 
 the company. There was hardly a State that was not 
 represented by numerous subscribers. In after years, 
 when the land grant of the company was assailed by hos- 
 
SALE OF THE 7-30 BONDS. 
 
 173 
 
 not 
 
 cars, 
 
 hos- 
 
 tile influences in Congress, this wide diffusion of the bonds 
 proved a great clement of strength. The bondholders, 
 who became stockholders after the reorganization of the 
 company in 1874, brought their influence to bear upon 
 their representatives in Congress to protect the com- 
 pany's rights and interests. Scores of Congressmen were 
 surprised to learn by letter after letter from constituents 
 that the Northern Pacific had influential friends in their 
 own districts. 
 
 After the great financial panic of 1873 had precipitated 
 the house of Jay Cooke & Co. into bankruptcy, the firm 
 was accused in the public press of misrepresenting the 
 character of the Northern Pacific Railroad project, and 
 of grossly overrating the value of the land grant upon 
 which it was chiefly based. The maps showing the 
 isothermal lines bending to the North beyond the Miss- 
 issippi, so as to give to the Yellowstone country the 
 climate of Northern Ohio, .iid to the Pugct Sound 
 region that of tide-water Virginia, came in for no end of 
 ridicule, and the whole section the road was to traverse 
 was sneered at and laughed at as " Jay Cooke's banana 
 belt." Yet the statements in regard to climate and soil 
 made in Cooke's publications were not exaggerations. 
 Read to-day, in the light of the present accurate knowl- 
 edge of the country between the Red River of the North 
 and the Pacific, they appear to be truthful descriptions. 
 A few of them may properly be quoted here in justifica- 
 tion of the fiscal agents of the Company and of the Comi- 
 pany itself, in inviting public confidence in the enterprise 
 of a railroad to the Pacific by the Northern route. 
 
 On the subject of climate, the most widely circulated 
 of the pamphlets issued by Jay Cooke & Co. said : 
 
 "The belt of country tributary to the iNr^fthern Pacific road is williiii the 
 parallels of latitude which in Europe, Asia, and America, embrace the 
 most enlightened, creative, conquering and progressive populations. It is 
 
174 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 within the climatic conditions illustrated on the maps by the curvature 
 northward of the isothermal lines of mean temperature which mark on llie 
 Pacific coast in latitude 47 North, the mililness of the climate of the 
 Chesapeake Day on the Atlantic side in latitude 38, and which give to ilic 
 region of this railroad between the Great Lakes and the Pacific a milder 
 atmosphere than is to be found anywhere else at the same distance nortli of 
 the equator, except upon the western coast of Europe. The suniniL". 
 isothermal line of 70 degrees, which in Europe passes through .Soullieni 
 France, Lombardv, and the wheat-growing region of Southern Russia, 
 strikes the Atlantic coast of the United States at the east end of Long 
 Island, and passing tlirough Central Pennsylvania, Northern 01;io, and 
 Indiana, diverges northwesterly, and runs up into the liritisli Possessions to 
 latitude sdP, at least 3C0 miles north of the line of this road. 
 
 "The face of this mildness of climate is abundantly established. Nowliere 
 between the Lakes and the Pacific is the climate colder than in Minnesota; 
 and this great State is not surpassed as a grain-growing region, or in healih- 
 fulness of atmosphere. The seasons of Dakota are very similar to those of 
 Iowa, and from Dakota westward the climate steadily modifies, until, in 
 Oregon and Washington Territory, there is almost no winter at all aside 
 from a rainy season, as in California. In many portions of Dakota, Mon- 
 tana and Northern Idaho, cattle and horses range out all winter, and keep 
 in excellent condition on '.iic nutritious grasses of the plains and valleys. 
 Records kept by Government officers at the various military stations on the 
 upper waters of the Missouri show that tlie average annual temperature for 
 a series of years has been warmer in Northern Montana than at Chicago or 
 Albany. 
 
 " This remarkable modification of climate, the existence of whicli no well- 
 informed person now questions, is due to several natural causes, chief among 
 which are probably these : First, the mountain country lying between the 
 44th and 50th parallels is lower by some 3,000 feet than the belt lying 
 immediately south. The highest point ou the line of the Northern Pacific 
 road is 3,300 feet lower than the corresponding summit of the Union and 
 Central line. Both the Rocky and the Cascade ranges, where they are 
 crossed by the Northern Pacific route, are broken down to low elevations 
 compared with their height four hundred miles southward. This difference 
 in altitude would itself account for much of the difference in climate, as 
 three degrees of temperature arc allowed lor each thousand feet of eleva- 
 tion. Rut, second, the warm winds from the South Pacific which prevail 
 in winter, and (aided by the warm ocean current corresponding to our At- 
 lantic gulf-stream) produce the genial climate of our Pacific coast, pass over 
 the low mountain ridges to the north of latitude 44°, and carry their soften- 
 ing cflTect far inland, giving to Washington Territory the climate of Virginia, 
 and to Montana the mildness of Southern Ohio." 
 
SALE OF THE 7-30 BONDS. 
 
 175 
 
 Long 
 
 This is the exact truth concerning the climate of the 
 Northern Pacific belt ; yet so wedded are most unin- 
 formed people to the ignorant assumption that latitude 
 strictly governs climate, that it is disbelieved by many to- 
 cla\",and was generally scouted when the Northern Pacific 
 Company M'as overtaken by financial disaster. The 
 same pamphlet goes on to say : 
 
 " One of the causes heretofore cited as lielping to produce the mild seasons of 
 the New Northwest — namely, the depression of the mountain ranges toward 
 tlie north — may also account for the cduable rain-fall in nearly all parts of 
 this vast area. The southwest winds, saturated by the evaporation of 
 ihe tropics, carry the rain-clouds eastward over the continental divide, and 
 distribute their moisture over the fertile belt stretching from the mountains 
 to the lakes. Farther south the mountain ridges, with their greater alti- 
 tude, act as a wall against the warm, moist, west winds ; hence the colder 
 winters and the comparative dryness of much of th'^ region south of Mon- 
 tana and east of the mountains. That the country tributary to the Northern 
 I'.icitic Railroad, and embracing its land grant, has, with some exceptions, 
 ail adequate supply of atmospheric moisture for all purposes of agriculture 
 and stock-raising, there is no question. The proof is abundant and con- 
 clusive, and is made up of the concurrent testimony of settlers who have 
 spent years in all portions of the great fertile belt, and of (Government officers 
 wlio have measured and reported the rain-fall for successive seasons." 
 
 There was no misrepresentation in the above paragraph, 
 nor was there in this, relating to soil : 
 
 " Admittedly there are detached portions of the vast region tributary to 
 the Northern Pacific Railroad, where for the present the rain-fall is insuffi- 
 cii'nt for most crops, and irrigation is necessary ; yet even in such localities 
 t!ie grazing is usually good. Rut, makin;; ample allowance for the occasional 
 absence of sufficient moisture, this Land Grant of the Northern Pacific 
 Road is, as a whole, abundantly irrigated by nature. The wonderful net- 
 work of living brooks, lakes, streams, and navigable rivers with which this 
 region is supplied is pcrlir.ps its most striking feature. Those who have 
 traversed the whole of the fertile belt from the Mississippi to Paget Sound, 
 claim that there is no other section of the continent of eipial area which, all 
 tilings considered, surpasses this in natural resources, including a fertile 
 soil ; and the evidence is superabundant in support of this view. That the 
 average of soil in those portions of Minnesota, Dakota, Mcjntana, Idaho, 
 Washington, and Oregon adjacent to the Northern Pacific Railroad is good, 
 there is absolutely no (luestion. Of alkali-plains, sand, and sage-brush there 
 i-> next to none at all on the route." 
 
Ill:' 
 
 176 
 
 NORTHERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 From another pamphlet of a few months' earlier date, 
 these extracts arc taken relating to wheat-raising, pastur- 
 age, timber and minerals: 
 
 " Pages of incontestable evidence could be introduced here to prove that 
 nowhere in the world can such large crops of wheat, barley, rye, oats, pota- 
 toes and other roots be raised as on and about the Land Grant of tlie Xorth- 
 crn Pacific Railroad ; that nowhere in the world are there such apples, pears, 
 plums, and clierries as those grown on and about all the Giant west of the 
 Rocky Mountains ; that fruit-trees there invari; jly bear generally in two, at 
 most in three years, from the graft ; that the curculio and other insects de- 
 structive to fruit here are wholly unknown there ; that nowhere do shade, 
 fuel, and fruit-trees grow so rapidly, vigor-»i'sly, and beautifully, as there : 
 that nowhere in the world is there a gias ue compared to that combina- 
 
 tion of timothy and oats, the ' bunch grass, »vhich covers most of this Land 
 Grant, and which on the ground is perfect hay in July and in January ; that 
 nowhere is such possibility of grazing cattle in vast herds without shelter, 
 prepared fodder, or care, as exists all over the regions to be traversed by die 
 Road on both sides of the Rocky Mountains, whose universally diffused 
 ' bunch grass ' has justly given to it the name of ' the graziers' paradise.' ' 
 
 " The materials for the greatest lumber trade the world has seen 
 exist on and near the Western end of this Land Grant, and maintain with a 
 single interruption to the eastern foot of the Rocky Mountains, Forests of 
 fir of three varieties, of cedar of two varieties, of pine, spruce, hemlock, cypress, 
 ash, curled maple, and black and white oak envelop Puget Sound, and 
 cover the larger jiart of Washington Territory, surpassing the woods of all 
 the rest of the globe in the size, quality and quantity of the timber. The 
 firs in innumerable localities will cut 120,000 feet to the acre. Trees are 
 common whose circumferences range from 20 to 50 feet, and whose heiglits 
 vary from 200 to upward of 300 feet. Tlie paradox of firs too large to be 
 profitably cut into lumber, is to be seen all over Western Washington. 
 These are rejected by tlie choppers, and trees having diameters ranging only 
 from 30 to 53 inches are selected, and these yield from 70 to 200 feet of solid 
 trunk free from limbs and knots. The cedars of Washington are as thick, 
 through, as the firs, but not as tall. So prodigal is Nature in this region, and 
 so wastefully fastidious is man, that lands yielding only 30,000 feet of lum- 
 ber to the acre are considered to be hardly worth cutting over, l-'oresls 
 yielding 100,000 feet and upward are common all around Puget Souiul. 
 The wood of the firs and cedars, unequaled for lightness, straightness of 
 cleavage, and resistance of moisture, and stronger than oak ami more reten- 
 tive of spikes and tree-nails, will supplant all other material for ship-bailding 
 on both shores of the Pacific Ocean. This product of tlie as yet scarcely 
 scarred forests of Washington Territory, was sold in California, South 
 America, Austr.alia, Japan, China, the East Indias and Europe. 
 
■ date, 
 astur- 
 
 ive tliat 
 S pota- 
 Xortli- 
 > pcai-s, 
 ; of the 
 two, at 
 cts (Ic- 
 shadc, 
 there : 
 ■nbina- 
 Land 
 '; that 
 lielter, 
 by the 
 iffiiscd 
 
 seen 
 tt'itli a 
 :sts of 
 press, 
 , and 
 of all 
 
 The 
 ;s are 
 lights 
 to be 
 gtoii. 
 ;onIy 
 solid 
 hick, 
 . and 
 luni- 
 irests 
 iind. 
 
 3S of 
 
 len- 
 ding 
 •cely 
 oulh 
 
Upper Falls of the Yellowstone National Tark. 
 
SALE OF THE 7-30 BOXDS. 
 
 177 
 
 " From the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains to Paget Sound, 
 this Land Grant l)L"lts tlie richest mineral deposits on this continent, con- 
 sisting of gold, silver, platinum, lead, copper, iron and rock-salt. The banks 
 and bars of every stream running from the Rocky range into the Columbia, 
 Yellowstone, Missouri, and Puget Sound will pan out gold. At the eastern 
 end of the Grant, and on or near tlic line of the road, arc inexhaustible de- 
 posits of copper and of the famed Lake Superior magnetic iron ores. 
 
 " This Land Grant has an abundance of fuel — coal, lignite, and wood. 
 Bituminous coal of the best quality outcrops for thirty miles on the eastern 
 riin of Puget Sound. Three veins have been opened which can be cheaply 
 worked, the lowest being sixteen feet thick. West of the Cascade range of 
 mountains coal is found and mined at different points all the way from Wil- 
 lamette Valley to Bellingham Bay. It has been found near the Cowlitz and 
 Snoqualmie Pass of the Cascades. It outcrops on the Yellowstone and the 
 headwaters of the Missouri. It is extensively mined for Government and 
 public use at the great bend of the Missouri. 
 
 "The way-traffic and way-travel on the Northern Pacific Railroad will be 
 that which will inevitably spring from a wide belt of this continent whose 
 soil will yield immense crops of grain, fruit, and vegetables, whose pastur- 
 age is the marvel of travelers, the mildness of whose climate is seemingly 
 a jiaradox, but is superabundantly testified to by man and beast. The 
 domestic cattle of Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Dakota, range out all 
 winter and are fat in March. The Mexican horses, stolen by the Sioux, 
 Chcycnnes, and Assiniboincs, are turned out to shift for themselves on the 
 fall of snow, from latitude 45 up to 53, and come in in the spring fat, sleek, 
 and strong. Unsheltered, unfed, they thrive in the open air on grass 
 readied by pawing olTwith their hoofs the occasional covers of snow. Much 
 of the line of the Northern Pacific road passes through the winter homes of 
 countless herds of buffaloes, elk, deer, and antelopes." 
 
 Making some allowance for the enthusiastic style of these 
 paragraphs, their statements of fact are truthful. Indeed, 
 much more might have been added concerning the grain- 
 growing capacity of the Dakota prairies, and the rolling 
 upland plains of Eastern Washington, and of the fertility 
 of the Yellowstone Valley, had the character of these 
 regions been understood then as now. Enough has been 
 printed here to show that the statements concerning the 
 country tributary to the Northern Pacific Railroad, on 
 which the first bonds issued upon its credit were sold, 
 were not untruthful or unduly colored to stimulate in- 
 vestment. 
 
 n 
 
 12 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 CONDITION OF THE NORTHWEST IN 1870. 
 
 Northern Minnesota a Wilderness — No Farms in the Red River Valley— 
 The Country of the Savage Sioux — The Mining Settlements in Genual 
 Montana — Another Uninhabited Region Beyond — The Vigorous Young 
 Settlements of Oregon and Puget Sound — Their Aid to the Railroad 
 Enterprise — The Obstacles to be Surmounted — 2,000 Miles of Railway 
 to be Built Through a Wilderness. 
 
 Let us now glance at the condition of the Northwest 
 in the summer of 1870, when the managers of the North- 
 ern Pacific Railroad began the work of construction at 
 Thomson Junction in Northern Minnesota. The Lake 
 Superior and Mississippi Railroad had just been built, 
 with the aid of a land grant embracing much valuable 
 pine lands, from St. Paul to the new town of Duluth, laid 
 out on speculation in the woods on the lake shore. Across 
 the Bay of Superior was a straggling little hamlet called 
 Superior City, which could count, perhaps, twenty years 
 of sleepy existence, hybernating in winter when the lake 
 vas tightly frozen, and living at all times chiefly on hope. 
 Beyond these two rival places there was not a town, vil- 
 lage, or hamlet westward on or near the line marked out 
 for the Northern Pacific Railroad for a distance of over a 
 thousand miles. Between the head of the lake and the 
 mining camps among the Rocky Mountains in Montana 
 no abodes of civilized men existed, save two or three 
 military posts and Indian agencies, and a few isolated 
 trading stations. Northern Minnesota was a forest into 
 which the lumberman had not yet penetrated, save for a 
 few miles back of Lake Superior. The beautiful region 
 in the western part of the State, dotted with little lakes 
 
COXD/TIOX OF THE NORTHWEST IN 1S70, 
 
 179 
 
 separated from each other by park-like stretches of wood- 
 land, had but lately been the home of the warlike Sioux, 
 and was then quite destitute of population. On the Red 
 River of the north there were two houses at the old Hud- 
 son's Bay trading post of Georgetown, and further up the 
 stream the ruins of a settlement at Brcckenridge which 
 the Sioux had destroyed. No farms had been opened, 
 and the vast alluvial plain bordering the river and stretch- 
 ing far northward to Lake Winnipeg was believed by most 
 army officers who had traversed it to be worthless for ag- 
 riculture. Where the thriving city of Winnipeg now 
 stands in Manitoba there was only a British fort, under 
 whose walls a few Canadian traders and half-breeds had 
 built their huts. 
 
 Between the Red River and the Missouri the country 
 was still claimed by the Sisseton and W^ahpeton bands of 
 the Sioux Indians, whose title was not finally extinguished 
 until 1872. Beyond the Missouri, and as far west as the 
 Belt range of the Rocky Mountains, the whole v.".st re- 
 gion of valleys, plains and mountains was in the undis- 
 puted occupancy of the savages. It was the buffalo 
 hunting-ground, to which the tribes resorted from the 
 North and the South, and even from beyond the Rockies, 
 for their annual supplies of jerked meat and skins. Near 
 the Falls of the Missouri a little town had grown up at 
 Fort Benton, to which steamboats ran in the season of 
 high water, taking goods for the Indian reservations and 
 for transport by wagon to the distant mines of Montana, 
 and bringing back buffalo robes, bullion and beef cattle. 
 In the high valleys and gulches of the Rocky Mountain 
 system there were a few scattered mining settlements, 
 quite isolated from the rest of the world. The miners 
 had developed a unique, self-sustaining, and self-reliant 
 little community, making their own laws, and executing 
 them by the summary process of Judge Lynch'b court 
 
i8o 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 when cutthroats and robbers threatened to get the upper 
 hand of orderly society. They had been given a ter- 
 ritorial organization by Congress, and had developed such 
 prosperous little towns as Helena (their capital), Boze- 
 man, Deer Lodge, Virginia City, and Bannock. They 
 hauled their supplies from the head of steamboat navi- 
 gation on the Missouri, more than two hundred miles 
 from the principal mining camps, or, still further, from 
 the newly completed Union Pacific Railway in Utah. 
 The Montana settlements dated from 1862, when a party 
 of men came up the river to Fort Benton with horses, 
 wagons and tents, and struck off into the mountains in 
 search of the gold of which hunters had spread report. 
 They found the yellow grains and nuggets in the beds of 
 the little streams that ran out of the mountain gorges. 
 Soon they were joined by parties of adventurous emi- 
 grants, who traveled a thousand miles with ox-teanis 
 across the plains from Western Missouri — deserters from 
 the contending armies there, or people who were con- 
 fused by the din of the Civil War raging around them, 
 and, not wishing to risk their lives on either side, packed 
 their families and movables into wagons and struck out 
 for the new mines in the Rocky Mountains. Detach- 
 ments of gold hunters also came from California, believ- 
 ing, like all of their wandering, reckless tribe, that luck 
 was always just ahead of them in some new " diggings," 
 and with them mingled discharged laborers, gamblers, 
 and adventurers of all sorts, from the Pacific Railroad, 
 whose ends were advancing across the deserts from the 
 Missouri and the Golden Gate to meet in the basin of the 
 Great Salt Lake. It was a strange, wild aggregation of 
 reckless, rascally, daring, enterprising and industrious 
 elements; but with the wonderful self-organizing faculty 
 of the Anglo-Saxon race, order was soon evolved from 
 chaos. Some of the emigrants found that the raising of 
 
COXDITIOy OF THE NORTHWEST IX 1870. 
 
 181 
 
 grain and vegetables in the valleys, by the aid of 
 irrigation, was more profitable than mining, and open- 
 ing farms, grew rich on prices based on the enor- 
 mous cost of transportation from the East. Others 
 began stock-raising ; others engaged in the mechanical 
 trades. Thus it was that by the time the construc- 
 tion of the Northern Pacific Railroad began, there was 
 in the mountains, a thousand miles away, an important 
 community numbering, perhaps, 20,000 souls, greatly 
 interested in its progress. 
 
 West of the Rocky Mountains, on the headwaters of 
 the streams running into the Columbia, were other set- 
 tlements of miners in the Territory of Idaho, similar in 
 character and history to those of Montana. The rugged 
 range of the Salmon River Mountains, having a general 
 cast and west course, divided the Idaho villages and 
 camps into two distinct groups. The southernmost, hav- 
 ing its center at Boise, found an outlet to California by 
 way of the Central Pacific road. The northern group had 
 its depot of supplies at Lcwiston, at the confluence of 
 the Snake and Clearwater Rivers, a point accessible from 
 Oregon by navigable waters. On both sides of these two 
 rivers spread out an extensive stretch of high table-lands, 
 thickly covered with rank, nutritious grasses, and of 
 great grain-producing capacity. These table-lands, here 
 reaching from the bare basaltic plain of the Columbia to the 
 encircling rim of the Bitter Root and Blue Mountains, may 
 be roughly estimated to have a length of three hundred, 
 and a width of fifty to one hundred, miles. This region was 
 wholly destitute of permanent settlement in 1870, save near 
 its southwestern extremity, where the town of Walla- 
 Walla stood, and where farmers had begun the cultiva- 
 tion of wheat. There were a few military posts and a 
 few Protestant and Jesuit missions on the Upper Colum- 
 bia and Spokane Rivers and Lake Coeur d'Alene ; but they 
 
1 82 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD, 
 
 could hardly be called settlements, for their business was 
 exclusively with the Indian tribes. 
 
 Beyond the Cascade Mountains, however, there was a 
 remarkably vital and enterprising young community in 
 Oregon, finding its chief support in the wheat-fields of the 
 Willamette Valley. Numbering less than 100,000 souls 
 at the time, this vigorous little body of people had ac- 
 complished great results in a single generation. They 
 were separated from the rest of the civilized world by 
 many stretches of barren desert and rugged mountains. 
 The nearest large city, San Francisco, was 650 miles dis- 
 tant by sea. Yet in their isolation they built a city of 
 their own ; they conquered and tilled hundreds of 
 thousands of acres of virgin soil ; they placed steam- 
 boats on their rivers ; they built railways around the 
 two obstructions to navigation on the Columbia, the 
 Cascades and the Dalles, and thus established by boat 
 and rail a system of communication with the f^r in- 
 terior ; they attracted the commerce of the world to 
 their shores. North of them, in Washington Territory, 
 was another community nearly allied to, and, in some 
 respects, an offshoot of their own, sparsely grouped 
 around the beautiful, deep waters of Puget .Sound, and 
 largely engaged in cutting and exporting the magnificent 
 timber growing upon its shores. To these two commu- 
 nities the Northern Pacific Railroad meant quick com- 
 munication with the great East, better markets, an in- 
 flux of population, new industries — in a word, growth 
 and prosperity in all ways. From them, and their repre- 
 sentatives in Congress, the enterprise received earnest and 
 valuable support. 
 
 It will be seen from this brief review of the condition 
 of the country across which the Northern Pacific line 
 was to be thrown, that the enterprise of building the road 
 was one of great magnitude, and was beset by peculiar 
 
COXniT/O.V OF THE XORTIIWEST IX 1870. 
 
 183 
 
 difficulties. For the first thousanrl miles there was abso- 
 hitely no civilized population. The line was projected 
 into vacancy, so far as traffic and facilities for construc- 
 tion were concerned. It had to carry its supplies and its 
 laboring force with it, and whatever business it obtained 
 it was obliged to create by attracting settlers to the wild 
 regions it penetrated. Farther west it reached a mount- 
 ain district in Montana, about two hundred miles across, 
 very sparsely settled, in widely separated mining camps 
 and little strips of irrigated valleys, by a community full 
 of energy and of possibility of future growth, but rais- 
 ing no surplus of supplies, and having no unemployed 
 laboring population to furnish for railroad building. Then 
 came another wide stretch of uninhabited country, and 
 then at the extreme western end of the line the new set- 
 tlements of Oregon and Washington, still too feeble in 
 numbers, and too much engrossed in subduing fields and 
 forests and in securing local transportation lines for their 
 immediate home wants, to furnish cither capital or labor 
 for a great transcontinental road. They were of ines- 
 timable advantage to the undertaking, however, in the 
 facilities they had already established for river and sea 
 transit, and for the supply of food products. Small as 
 were then the settlements of the Pacific Northwest they 
 were centers of advanced civilization, and were in con- 
 stant communication by sea with the great cities of the 
 world. They had neither labor nor money to spare for 
 the Northern Pacific enterprise, but they had the con- 
 veniences for the transfer and application of both. Con- 
 struction work at the western end of the line encountered 
 no more serious difficulties than at the eastern end, save 
 those arising from the great cost of material, the high 
 rate of wages for skilled labor, and the necessity of im- 
 porting Chinese labor for grading and tracklaying. It 
 was in the vast interior, without roads, bridges, or pop- 
 
1 84 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ulation, that formidable obstacles were encountered. The 
 problem was to build two thousanc' miles of railroad, 
 within a scanty limit of time, and with uncertain finan- 
 cial resources, throui^h a country known, for the most 
 part, only to the aboriginal savages who roamed over it. 
 
 I r;»falH .1 
 
The 
 Iroad, 
 finan- 
 most 
 LT it. 
 
CHAPTER XXIIl. 
 
 r. 
 
 rt 
 
 BUILDINC; THE ROAD. 
 
 Construction Work begun in 1870 — Surveys in Minnesota — A Committee 
 sent to the Pacific Coast — Purchase of St. Paul and Pacific Stocl-; — Du- 
 hilh and Superior — Completion of the Minnesota Division — Work begun 
 on tlic line from tlie Columbia River to Puget Sound — Controlling Inter- 
 est in Oregon Steam Navigation Comjiany Bought — Scarcity of Funds 
 in 1S72 — President Smith Resigns — A Review of his Administration. 
 
 COXSTRUCTIOX ^vork on the Northern Pacific Railroad 
 began in the summer of 1870. With the five millions of dol- 
 lars received from Jay Cooke and Company and the pros- 
 pective large receipts from the sale of bonds, the President 
 and directors felt that the time had come for energetic 
 efforts to build the line. Detailed surveys were completed 
 dtiring the spring from Thomson's Junction to the cross- 
 ing of the Mississippi River, where a town was laid out, and 
 named Brainerd,in honor of the father of President Smith's 
 wife. In April, Messrs. Rice, Cass and Ogden, of the 
 Board, were appointed a committee to proceed to the 
 Pacific coast and locate t;ie main line and the branch be- 
 tween the Columbia Rive, id Puget Sound, and to select 
 sites for future towns. At the same time the purchase of 
 a controlling interest in the. stock of the St. Paul and 
 Pacific Railroad Company was effected. This Company 
 had a considerable land grant, and was organized to build 
 a system of roads extending from St. Paul to the British 
 line at St. Vincent and also to Breckenridge on the Red 
 River, and to Brainerd. The importance of St. Panl as 
 the first great railroad center northwest of Chicago was 
 fully realized by the Northern Pacific managers, and by 
 controlling the stock of the St. Paid and Pacific Company, 
 they expected to be able to mako its lines virtually exten- 
 
1 86 
 
 NORTHERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 sions and feeders of their own road. They also appreciated 
 the value of the then entirely undeveloped Valley of the 
 Red River of the North as a region likely to furnish 
 heavy traffic in the future, and rightly considered that rich 
 agricultural region as properly a part of the area of coun- 
 try which by its geographical position was naturally trib- 
 utary to the Northern Pacific enterprise. They went so 
 far in the execution of the wise plan thus early matured 
 for controlling the lines chartered to be built from St. 
 Paul to the Red River Valley and the Manitoba boundary, 
 as to furnish large sums of money, and to direct the location 
 and construction of a considerable portion of the St. Paul 
 and Pacific system ; but its realization was afterwards frus- 
 trated by the financial troubles of the Northern Pacific 
 Company, which compelled it to part with the stock of 
 the other company. The St. Paul and Pacific went into 
 bankruptcy, was reorganized under the name of the St. 
 Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad Company, and 
 has since become a successful corporation, paralleling the 
 Red River on both sides with its lines, and competing with 
 its former owner for the traffic of much of that region. 
 
 In June, 1870, a contract was made for the construction 
 of the Minnesota Division of the road, and ground was 
 broken in July, at Thomson's Junction, where the line 
 left the La^:e Superior a; id Mississippi Railroad. A 
 half interest in the road of the latter company from 
 the Junction to Duluth was purchased, and an arti- 
 ficial harbor was created at Duluth by cutting a canal 
 across the low sandy peninsula through which vessels 
 could enter the waters of the bay. The town of Superior, 
 lying in sight from Duluth across the bay, had a natural 
 harbor, and had been waiting for a quarter of a century 
 for the railroad to give it prosperity. Great disappoint- 
 ment was felt in that town at the determination of the 
 Northern Pacific to make its terminus at Jay Cooke's new 
 
BUILDING THE ROAD. 
 
 187 
 
 speculative city of Duluth, and the Governor of Wisconsin 
 was induced to bring suit against the company on account 
 of a dyke constructed in Superior Bay, within the limits 
 of Minnesota, which it was alleged was detrimental to the 
 harbor of Superior. This suit was withdrawn on the 
 promise of the Company to build a line to Superior and 
 to put that place on an equal footing with Duluth for lake 
 traffic ; a promise which the Company was not able to re- 
 deem until 1882. 
 
 During the summer of 1870, and the whole year of 1871, 
 money in abundance poured into the treasury of the 
 Northern Pacific Company from the sale of its bonds under 
 the Jay Cooke contract. In less than two years' time nearly 
 thirty millions of dollars were received. This flow of funds 
 stimulated great activity and far-reaching enterprise, and 
 many projects were set on foot which had to be abandoned 
 when the pressure of hard times came upon the Company. 
 The Minnesota Division was finished to Brainerd in 1870, 
 and to the Red River in 1871. Twenty-five miles of the 
 line in the Valley of the Cowlitz, in Washington Terri- 
 tory, were graded at heavy expense in 1 870, and completed 
 in the spring of 1871. W. Milnor Roberts, of Philadel- 
 phia, was now the Chief Engineer, Edwin F. Johnson hav- 
 ing been partially retired with the title of Consulting Engi- 
 neer. Surveys were prosecuted in Dakota and Montana, and 
 on the Pacific Coast. A line was located from Kalama on 
 the Columbia River to the mouth of the Snake River, and 
 thence to Lake Pend d'Oreille. In February, 1872, the 
 Conipan)' took the road from Brainerd to the Red River 
 off the contractor's hands, and shortly afterwards opened 
 it for traffic. A lease of the entire line of the Lake 
 Superior and Mississippi Railroad was effected, and a 
 controlling interest in the stock of the Oregon Steam 
 Navigation Company was purchased. The Navigation 
 Company operated nearly all the steamboat lines on the 
 
188 
 
 NOR TIIERN PA CIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Columbia, Snake and Willamette Rivers and on Puget 
 Sound, and connected with a line of ocean steamers to San 
 Francisco. It owned, besides, the portage railroads around 
 the obstacles to navigation in the Columbia River, at the 
 Dalles and the Cascades. By the purchase of this stock 
 the Northern Pacific Company acquired possession of 
 nearly all the transportation facilities then existing in 
 Oregon and Washington Territory. This exceedingly 
 valuable property the Company was obliged to give up 
 when overtaken by the financial crisis of 1873, and in new 
 hands it furnished the foundation of the great rail and 
 water transit system, now controlled by the Oregon Rail- 
 way and Navigation Company. 
 
 In the summer of 1872, the Northern Pacific Company 
 began to be pressed for funds to go on with the work. 
 Money had come in rapidly and been spent freely, but 
 the market had taken about as many bonds as it could be 
 persuaded to take, even by the lavish and indiscriminate 
 advertising which Jay Cooke & Co. still kept up. There 
 was dissatisfaction in the board with President Smith's 
 management ; some of the members thinking he had 
 gone too fast, and spent money too rapidly during the 
 two preceding years ; besides his duties to the Vermont 
 Central Railroad, of which he was receiver, occupied much 
 of his time, and appeared to have paramount claims upon 
 him. For these reasons he offered his resignation on the 
 first of August, 1872, and it was accepted to take effect 
 on the first of October. In the latter part of August, 
 Jay Cooke came before thi board of directors with the un- 
 welcome news that the Company was already in financial 
 straits, and must be helped out by a loan raised on the 
 individual credit of the members of the board. The 
 shadow of coming calamity had already fallen upon the 
 enterprise, and the completion of the road to the Missouri 
 River and of the short line from the Columbia River to 
 
BUILDIXG THE ROAD. 
 
 189 
 
 List, 
 
 c un- 
 ncial 
 the 
 The 
 the 
 ouri 
 *r to 
 
 Puget Sound, before the crash came in 1873, was at the 
 cost of a considerable floating debt. 
 
 In reviewing the pa ♦: brief period of active efforts to 
 build the Northern Pacific Railroad, beginning in 1870 
 and ending in 1873, credit must be accorded to President 
 Smith and the directors for zeal, enterprise and far-sighted 
 sagacity. They saw the importance of a terminus at St. 
 Paul, not contemplated by the charter of the road, and 
 of a control of the lines projected in the Red River Val- 
 ley. They determined upon measures for a line to the 
 Michigan boundary to connect with an allif.d line across 
 the Northern Peninsula of that State to the Sault. They 
 contemplated the building of branch local roads in North- 
 ern Minnesota. They understood that the Columbia 
 River line, in reaching Puget Sound by way of Portland, 
 was of primary importance, and wisely subordinated to 
 it the shorter line across the Cascade Mountains origin- 
 ally intended to be the main road. They took prompt 
 measures to prevent the growth of the rival transporta- 
 tion interest in Oregon, which afterwards, when separa- 
 ted from Northern Pacific control, occupied the Columbia 
 Valley and the rich wheat region beyond Walla Walla 
 with independent lines of road, and was a powerful com- 
 petitor until practically united with the Northern Pacific 
 in 1881 through the efforts and the joint presidency of 
 Henry Villard. The faults of their management were a 
 too lavish use of money, and a too hopeful view of the 
 future. They acted as if they believed their treasury to 
 bo a widow's cruse of oil which would never run dry. 
 The thirty millions they expended, if carefully employed, 
 even in that day of hif^h prices, would have produced a 
 better result than 600 miles of road burdened with a 
 floating debt of nearly five millions. They floated with 
 the current of the confident and extravagant times, with- 
 out hearing the roar of the breakers ahead. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 PRESIDENCV OF GENFRAI. CASS. 
 
 A Parenthesis in tiic Affairs of the Company — General Cass's Education and 
 Career in the Army, and in nir-inci; — lie lUiilds the First Iron Diidge 
 in the Country — Eslablislie.-i tlie Adam.i Express Company — rresidcnt of 
 tlie ritlsburt^, Fort Wayne, and Chicago Railroad — Joins tlie Sniidi 
 Syndicate to Acquire tlie Northern Pacific Franchise — Selectin'j a Si;c 
 for a Terminal City on Pugtt Sound — Why Tacoma was Preferred — A 
 Commission Appointed to Settle 'he Oue.tion — The Tacoma I-aud Com- 
 pany — General Cass's Speech to the IVurd — His Investment of Stock in 
 Red River Valley Lands — The Coii-Cheney Farms— Features of his 
 Administration. 
 
 General Cass's admini-stration is described by him- 
 self as a parenthesis in the affairs of the Northern Pacific 
 Company. It began in October, 1872, and lasted until he 
 accepted the receivership of the Company in the bank- 
 ruptcy proceedings begun in March, 1875, thus covering 
 the period of depression in the corporation's affairs fol- 
 loH'cd by insolvenc}-, and ending in a complete and 
 wholesome reorganization of its financial basis. During 
 this period the only effort in the way of construction was 
 to push forward to a temporary terminus and resting- 
 place at the ^lissouri River, the controlling policy being 
 to retrench expenses, and to wait for better times. 
 
 General Cass was born in Muskingum County, Ohio, in 
 18 10. His parents were of New England birth. When 
 he was fourteen years old he was sent to live with his 
 uncle, Lewis Cass, in Detroit, and go to school. Lewis 
 Cass was then Governor of Michigan Territory. Probably 
 the young nephew from the backwoods of Southern Ohio 
 acquired his political convictions, as well as his education, 
 while under the root of the great Democratic statesman. 
 
1-s fol- 
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 being 
 
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 Ml 
 
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 10 
 
 at ion, 
 
 iman. 
 
 Natural Bridge, Nalioiial I'ark. 
 
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 out 
 Th( 
 Sta 
 the 
 spn 
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 him 
 assi< 
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 men 
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 thee 
 
PRESIDENCY OF GEiYERAL CASS. 
 
 191 
 
 The influence of the yncle secured him a cadctship in the 
 United States Military Academy at West Point, where he 
 was contemporary with Jefferson Davis, Lee, Johnston 
 and others, who afterwards played great parts in the 
 Southern rebellion. He graduated with high honors in 
 1832, being one of the five in his class opposite whose 
 names was placed the star of special merit. 
 
 Reporting to General Sco',.. **\ New York, he was sent 
 out to the Lakes in commai. ' - c company of recruits. 
 The first case of cholera which occurred in the United 
 States, in that fatal year, was in his company, on board 
 the steamer Henry Clay, on Lake St. Clair. The disease 
 spread so rapidly that the company was broken up by 
 death and desertion, and the young lieutenant, finding 
 himself without a command, went to Washington, and was 
 assigned to duty with the Topographical Engineers. His 
 first work was the survey of Provincetown Harbor, Mass. 
 In 1833 he was transferred to the Military Engineer De- 
 partment, and put in charge of the rebuilding of the Na- 
 tional Road through Maryland,Yirginia and Pennsylvania, 
 then the great highway between the East and the West. 
 He resigned from the army in 1836, but continued in the 
 service of the Engineer Department upon the National 
 Road, west of Columbus, Ohio, until 1840; returning to 
 Pennsylvania, in 1837, to construct upon the road the 
 first iron bridge built in the United States. It spanned 
 a branch of the Monongahela River. 
 
 In 1840, Mr. Cass entered commercial life in the little 
 town of Brovv^nsville, on the Monongahela River, in South- 
 western Pennsylvania. He was successful in his business 
 ventures, and soon began to turn his attention to the 
 transportation enterprises which grew out of the develop- 
 ment of the railway system. He established the Adams 
 Express Company, running west from Baltimore, and, on 
 the consolidation of its lines in 1853, became its president. 
 
192 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Afterwards he was made president of the Ohio and Penn- 
 sylvania Railroad, the eastern link of what soon becan.L- 
 the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad. Of 
 this latter Company he was president for twenty-five years, 
 building the western \Jortion of its road, and aiding in tlic 
 construction of the Richmond ami Fort Wayne Railroad, 
 in Indiana, and the Grand Rapids and Indiana Road, 
 leading from Fort Wayne to the Straits of Mackinaw. 
 
 General Cass was one of the Commissioners named by 
 Congress to organize the Union Pacific Railroad Com- 
 pany in Chicago, and was a member of the first Board of 
 Directors of that corporation. He declined the offices 
 of treasurer and president. He shared at the time the 
 popular distrust of the enterprise, and supposed that the 
 Government would be obliged for many years to make ap- 
 propriations to keep the road in repair. Very few men 
 were far-sighted enough, at that daj', to form an idea of 
 the magnitude of the traffic which would be developed by 
 the first railway line across the American continent. 
 
 General Cass became a member of the Smith syndicate 
 which took possession of the franchise and debts of the 
 Northern Pacific Company (it had no property) in 1866, the 
 organization of which has been sketched in a precedingchap- 
 ter. As president of one of the trunk lines running out 
 of Chicago, he felt a warm interest in the development of 
 the Northwest, and was willing to aid any promising en- 
 terprise looking to that end. He did not think, however, 
 that the Northern Pacific road could be got through to 
 the Pacific coast in his lifetime. It seemed rather an affair 
 of the next generation. With his old-fashioned, anti- 
 Federalist views of the powers of the general Government, 
 he did not look with much favor on the plan of getting a 
 Government subsidy, upon which his associates in the new 
 board built their hopes of being able to proceed with the 
 undertaking. Still he was willing to take the chances of 
 
PRESIDENCY OF GENERAL CASS. 
 
 193 
 
 the project in company with other leading' railway mana- 
 ^^crs, and advance money to keep it aHve. 
 
 General Cass's term of office, as president of the Com- 
 pany, began October 1st, 1S72. He was on Puget Sound 
 at the time as a member of the committee of the Board 
 appointed to visit the Pacific coast, to select a location for 
 a terminal city, and regulate the affairs of the Company. 
 The other members were Messrs. Ogden, Billings, Can- 
 field, Wright, and Windom. The committee cruised 
 about the Sound for a week on the steamer North 
 Pacific, accompanied by the company's chief engineer, 
 W. Milnor Roberts, looking for a good location for the big 
 city which it was expected would spring up wherever the 
 company elected to fix its tide-water terminus. There 
 were no towns on the Sound at the time worthy of the 
 name ; the only settlements, beside the village of Olym- 
 pia, the capital of Washington Territory, being a few 
 saw-mill hamlets. They first examined 01ympia,and de- 
 cided against it, because the receding tide left its port a 
 wide expanse of mud and mussel shells for half of every 
 twenty-four hours. Steilacoom seemed to be upon a 
 strait rather than on a good roadstead. Seattle, then a 
 petty lumbering place of, perhaps, two score of houses, 
 was objectionable because of its steep hill and lack of 
 level ground for depot, yards and sidings. The other 
 places lower down the Sound were too far distant from 
 the Columbia River. The road from Kalama, on the 
 Columbia, was then under construction northward up the 
 valley of the Cowlitz, and the question to be settled was 
 where it should strike the Sound. Considerations of 
 economy had already begun to press upon the board. They 
 wanted to start building at the nearest point on the Sound 
 where they could find a good harbor, good shore facilities 
 for wharves, and plenty of cheap land to acquire for the 
 future city. So they pitched upon Tacoma, on Corn- 
 ea 
 
194 
 
 XORTJIERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ': ■ '1 
 
 menccmcnt Hay, as the place best fulfilling all these con- 
 ditions. There were a saw-mill and a few houses called b) 
 the name, with a background of primitive forest, faciti;j; 
 upon a beautiful broad bay, on which the gleaming summit 
 of magnificent Mount Rainier looked down like a pyramid 
 of ivory from the blue heavens. A final decision on 
 the terminus question was reserved until the committee 
 returned to New York. Then the board narrowed down 
 the choice of a terminus to Mukiltco, Seattle and Tacoma, 
 and sent a commission out to carefully examine and report 
 on the three points. The commissioners were R. D. Rice, 
 then the vice-president of the Company for the Pacific 
 coast, and J. C. Ainsworth, who shortly afterwards was 
 made managing director for the Pacific coast, with the 
 functions then exercised by Judge Rice. They reported 
 in July, by telegraph, in favor of Tacoma, where they 
 had acquired, by purchase and donation, a large body of 
 land, and had bargained for the purchase of the saw-mill. 
 Their decision was confirmed by the executive commit- 
 tee, and they were directed to secure the property se- 
 lected. On the loth of September, the Board of Directors 
 finally adopted Tacoma as the western terminus of the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad. A company was formed with 
 a nominal capital of $2,000,000, in which the Northern 
 Pacific Company was given one share more than one-half 
 the s*-ock, to lay out the new city and sell its lots and 
 wharf privileges. Subsequently the capital of the Tacoma 
 Land Company was reduced to $1,000,000, and the stock 
 not owned by the railroad company was sold at about 
 fifty cents on the dollar. 
 
 Let us go back now to the committee on the Pacific 
 coast. They traveled over ordinary roads to the Colum- 
 bia River after their cruise on the Sound, went up the 
 Columbia to the mouth cf Snake River, and, returning to 
 Portland, hastened back to New York. The tour, to- 
 
PRESIDENCY OF GENERAL CASS. 
 
 195 
 
 gcthcr witli a trip ho had made out to the Red River 
 Valley, convinced General Cass that tiie Northern Pacific 
 enterprise was more promisin<j than he had supposed ; and 
 when he entered on the actual duties of the presidency in 
 December, 1872, he made an enthusiastic address to the 
 board, in which he said : " The Northern Pacific Rail- 
 road can be constructed at a reasonable cost ; it can be 
 operated and maintained at a less ':ost than any other 
 railroad ad-oss the continent north of the parallel of 33 
 degrees for obvious and well-known reasons, and it will 
 have, when constructed, and at once, a larger local traffic 
 than any other road can have, west of the looth meridian 
 of longitude. * '^ '■'' * There is no problem to solve as 
 to the success of the road after it shall have been com- 
 pleted. The only question after that event will be how 
 any intelligent man of this age should ever have had any 
 doubt about it." 
 
 General Cass afterwards gave striking proof of his faith 
 in the Northern Pacific road and country, by converting a 
 large amount of the bonds of the Company which he had 
 purchased, into land in the Red River Valley, and begin- 
 ning farming operations there on a large scale for the 
 raising of wheat. The valley had been looked upon as 
 worthless for agriculture. It was popularly supposed 
 to be all subject to overflow as far back, at least, as the 
 Maple River, and to be covered with ice and water until 
 late in the spring. The half-breeds and Canadian traders, 
 who were acquainted with the region, so impressed this 
 opinion upon the railroad ^..gineers, that the first sur- 
 veyed line of the Northern Pacific was run far northward to 
 Devil's Lake, to avoid the supposed swamps between the 
 Red River and the Sheyennc, instead of going straight 
 west to the Missouri. Even later, after a sensible 
 chief engineer had leave to run the straight line, and 
 the Company had adopted it, construction was long de- 
 
•I 
 
 196 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 laycd beyond P^argo by a division engineer insisting on 
 putting in seven miles of trestle. General Cass bought a 
 large tract of land seventeen miles west of Fargo. He 
 was the first purchaser with a view to cultivating wheat 
 in that region. Mr. Cheney, of Boston, one of the di- 
 rectors of the Northern Pac'nc Company, bought lands 
 adjoining. Jointly they engaged the services of Oliver 
 Dalrymple, the most noted wheat farmer in Minnesota, 
 to superintend the united estate which became known 
 as the Cass-Cheney farm. The experiment was very suc- 
 cessful, and its result was a matter of great importance t(; 
 the No'-ther'.i Pacific Company; for as soon as it was (Ic- 
 monsfated tl:at laige crops of wheat could be raised 
 upon tiic level lands of the valley, lying ready for the 
 plow, settlers poured in, towns sprang up, and the region 
 soon furnished a hea\y traffic to the road. 
 
 Of the general measures of the Cass administration of 
 Northern Pacific affairs not much need be said here. Tlic 
 Company was already in financial straits when \\z entered 
 upon the duties of the presidency. The sale of its 
 bonds had almost ceased. Jay Cooke would sell loo.ocxj, 
 and quietly buy back 90,0(X) to keep up the market. 
 More than once the directors were compelled to put their 
 hands in their pockets and loan the Company considerable 
 sums to rescue it from embarrassment. The Company 
 was like a ship in a gale ; its president's task was to save 
 it from wreck if he could. Retrenchment and economy 
 were the rule of action. The Dakota Division was com- 
 pleted to the Missouri River with the funds furnished b\' 
 Jay Cooke before the crash of 1873, and the Pacific 
 Division was built from Kalama to Tacoma. There 
 was no money to pay interest after the sale of boinls 
 ceased, and the bondholders were obliged to take a new- 
 form of obligation convertible into lands. It was I lob- 
 son's choice with them — that or nothing. 
 
PRESIDENCY OF GENERAL CASS. 
 
 19; 
 
 Of the bankruptcy proceedings, and the reorganization, 
 \vc shall speak in the following chapters. President Cass 
 resigned in April, 1875, to take the receivership of the 
 Company, and, after the reorganization in August follow- 
 ing, he went to Europe for rest. He first disposed of all 
 his interest in the Northern Pacific, acting on a princ'nle 
 which had always governed his business conduct, never 
 to put money or leave money in any enterprise where he 
 was not on the inside of the management. 
 
CHAPIER XXV. 
 
 Tin-: TAMC f)F 1873. 
 
 An Unexpected Disaster — Suspension of the House of Jay Cooke cS: Co.— 
 'I'lie Panic and its Results — Ciosins; of the Stock I^xcliangc — Suspension 
 of li.inks, Railroads, and Manufacturing; Companies — Numerous Fail- 
 ures in all I'arts of the Country — I'rolonjjed Effects of the I'anic — Seri- 
 ous Shrinkage in \'alucs — Many Ilranchcs of Industry I'aralyzed — 'I'lic 
 Norlhern I'acific Railroad not the Cause of the Failure of Jay Cooke iV 
 Co. — Mr. Cooke Loses One Fortune and Makes Another. 
 
 Tin; financial panic of 1S73 destroyed the bankin;^ 
 house of Jay Cooke & Co., and severely crippled the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad Compan)'. It was the mosi 
 serious disaster to the business and industry of the 
 United States that had occurred since the crisis of 1837. 
 Sagacious men foresaw its coming, but it burst ;;■ .\ the 
 general public like a sudden and terrific thunder-:.! (;i;:i on 
 a bright summer da}-. The general prosperity of the 
 countrj' was undiminished during the first three-cpiarters 
 of the year 1S73. The revenues of the Government 
 were large, and the public debt was rapidh' reduced ; 
 manufactories were running at their full capacit}- ; lail- 
 road building was prosecuted on an extensive scale in all 
 [)arts of the countr\', and trade was brisk and buoyant. 
 All at once, with no other warning than a little strin- 
 genc)' in the moriey market, an extraordinary [lanic began 
 in New York. It commenced on the i8th of Se[)tembrr, 
 with the fiilure of the New York house of Jaj' Cooke iK: 
 Co., followed immediately by the suspension of tlu' 
 
 V 
 
 liladelphi.i house 
 
 and of the I'irst National Bank 
 
 d 
 
 Washington. It lasted about a month, aiid in that short 
 space of less than thirty days it prostrated thousands of 
 
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THE PAXIC OF 1873. 
 
 199 
 
 commercial establishments, stopped the wages of hun- 
 dreds of thousands of laborers, and spread gloom and 
 terror over the entire land. It overthrew the Stock Ex- 
 change and numerous banking houses, trust companies, 
 railroad companies, and manufacturing firms. In one 
 dav it broke off negotiations of American securities in 
 the money market of Euroi)e, and suspended the con- 
 struction of all public works dependent on such sales. It 
 s\vei)t down the entire banking system of the country, and 
 paralyzed credit. Even the saving banks were obliged 
 to close their tloors. The reduction of the public debt, 
 which had been going on at the rate of one million per 
 (lay, ceased abruptly ; the balance turned against the 
 Treasury, and in a single month eighteen millions were 
 added to the debt. 
 
 On the first day of the panic the rush to the Stock 
 Exchange was so great that it was feared the galleries 
 would give way under the weight of the multitude. The 
 wildest excitement prevailed in Wall street. The panic was 
 increased next day by the failure of the important banking 
 firm of Fisk& Match, long identified with the negotiation 
 of Government securities, and, on the day following, by 
 the susi)ension of the Union Trust Company, caused by 
 the failure of the Lake Sliorc Railroad Company to pa\' a 
 call loan of $1,750,000. Thirty houses in New York and 
 Philadelphia failed on the 19th. On Monday, the 2 1st, 
 there were eleven more important failures, including 
 three banks. I^'ailures were also numerous in Western 
 cities. On the 20th the New York Stock Exchange was 
 closed l)y oriler of its president, and remained closed for 
 ten days. The Gold Exchange also shut its doors. The 
 fever of speculation, on a market which seemed to have 
 no bottom, was checked by the closing of its usual ch.m- 
 iicls of activit)'. To relieve the market the Clearing 
 House issued §10,000,000 of loan certificates, and the 
 
200 
 
 XORTHERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Government made $io,cxx),ooo more in greenbacks avail- 
 able in New York by an offer to buy bonds to that 
 amount. In three davs over nine millions of bonds were 
 sold. A pressure was brouj^ht to bear on President 
 Grant to induce liim to loan to the banks the reserves of 
 currency in the Treasury. Commodore Vanderbilt pro- 
 posed to the President to lend the banks $io,OOO.CXX) if 
 the Government would lend them $25,000,000. He was 
 asked in reply why lie did n<.'t pay the call loan due the 
 Union Trust Company by one of his railroads and allow 
 it to resume, and this answer he accepted as a declination 
 of his offer. l*"ailures were numerous during the second 
 week of the panic, among llie fallen houses being that of 
 Henry Clews & Co., financial agents of the Government. 
 All stocks and securities shrunk largely in marketable 
 price, and holders found a considerable part of the sup- 
 posed value of their property wiped out as with a sponge. 
 Although the immediate disasters of th.e panic endured 
 onI\' for about a month, the effects continued for sever;il 
 years. Money was scarce, although the volume of the cur- 
 rency was much larger than it iias since been in prosper- 
 ous times. 1 Kindreds of manufactories stopped operations 
 for the want of a market for their goods. Values of all 
 kinds of propert)' underwent a heavy .shrinkage. The 
 growth of cities was checked. Railroad building was al- 
 most wholly suspended, an<l this suspension, together 
 with the stagnation of the building trades, parahv.ed the 
 iron industry in all its branches. Farmers hesitated to 
 take the lower prices for their produce, and held on tn 
 their crops, thus cutting down the revenues of the trans- 
 portation lines. Thousands wf mechanics, operatives, 
 and laborers were thrown out of employment, and ih^- 
 tressed to obtain the means of life. Recovery from t la- 
 panic was very slow and tedious. The efforts of the 
 country to get back to its former position of prosperity 
 
THE PANIC OF 1873. 
 
 201 
 
 resembled the painful struggles of a man who has fallen 
 over a precipice, and who, bruised and frightened, toils 
 wearily up the steep. 
 
 Let us turn now from this brief glimpse of the panic 
 and its consequences to see what happened to the house 
 of Jay Cooke & Co.; to which the fortunes of the Northern 
 Pacific Railroad Company were so closely liiiked. The 
 Northern Pacific Railroad owed the firm about a million 
 and a half for advances made to carry on the work o^ 
 construction. These advances the firm had expected to 
 get back from the sales of the bonds, but long before 
 the crisis the sales had proceeded very slowly; indeed, 
 they slackened to such an extent in 1872, that the direc- 
 tors of the Company, as we have seen in the last chapter, 
 were obliged to furnish a large sum borrowed on their per- 
 sonal credit to meet its pressing necessities. It was popu- 
 larly supposed at the time that the Northern Pacific Rail- 
 road had wrecked Jay Cooke & Co.'s bank, and the gen- 
 eral tenor of newspaper writing was in this direction. 
 Some of the friends of the railroad insisted that it had 
 been wrecked by the wild financiering of the bank. The 
 hasty judgment of the time, unjust as such judgment 
 usually is, held that the railroad had overturned the bank, 
 and that the fall of the bank had brought on the panic. 
 The truth was, that no one cause produced the great 
 slirinkage and crash of 1873, nor did any one financial 
 operation break down the house of Jay Cooke & Co. It 
 could have stood up under its heavy loans to the North- 
 ern Pacific if it had not recklessly thrown its money and 
 crcilit out in many other directions. When the pressure 
 came upon it, it found itself loaded down with a varied 
 mass of pajjcr assets, upon which little or nothing could 
 be realized in a time of trouble. 
 
 As to the railroad Comp.my it probably could not have 
 withstood the storm of 1 873, even if its fiscal agents had 
 I3» 
 
202 
 
 NORTIIJLR.\' PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 held up under the fury of the general disaster. Like 
 many other railway enterprises trusting to the future de- 
 velopment of the country tributary to them for their net 
 earnings, it must have gone into temporary insolvency. 
 Many similar undertakings were abandoned during the long 
 period of doubt and disaster which followed the panic ; 
 many were suspended, many went into bankruptcy and 
 remained for years in the hands of receivers. There is no 
 reason to suppose that the Northern Pacific could have es- 
 caped a fate which so generally befell other companies then 
 endeavoring to construct railroads in the newer portions 
 of the country. Its declared insolvency was delayed a few 
 months after the panic by the leniency of its creditors, 
 but was inevitable. The legal processes which brought it 
 about were commenced and carried through, as we shall 
 see in the following chapter, by its friends and directors, 
 and resulted in the end in saving it from ruin and placing 
 it upon a secure basis. 
 
 The firm of Jay Cooke & Co. made about three millions 
 of dollars out of its agency for the first Northern Pacific 
 loan. Before the financial crash of 1873, Mr. Cooke re- 
 garded himself as one of the richest men of the country. 
 He built in the beautiful suburbs of Philadelphia a palace 
 which, for size and costliness, had scarcely an equal on this 
 side of the Atlantic. In this palace, called " Ogontz," he 
 dispensed a lavish hospitality. He had also a summer 
 residence named " Gibraltar," on a rocky cape at the en- 
 trance to Sandusky Bay on Lake Erie, which, for the 
 larger part of the year, he placed at the disposal of num- 
 bers of clergymen who recuperated their health by boating 
 and fishing, and breathing the pure air of the lake. Mr. 
 Cooke was a generous patron of churches and charities, 
 and had a strong religious bent to his nature. After the 
 crash came he lived for a long time in retirement in a lit- 
 tle cottage, in the country, near Philadelphia— to all ap- 
 
THE PAXIC OF 1873. 
 
 203 
 
 long 
 
 pcaranccs a broken man. But after getting through the 
 bankruptcy courts, he reappeared iu business circles in 
 I'hihidelphia, occupied hisold office on South Third Street, 
 and began to build up a second fortune. Stock tratisac- 
 tions and the successful sale of a silver-mine to English 
 capitalists gave him a large sum of money which he so 
 increased by other ventures that he is now currently re- 
 ported to be worth two millions. Mis career offers the 
 rare instance of a man losing one fortune and making 
 another when past the meridian of life. 
 
 Mr. 
 
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 the 
 lit- 
 
 1 ap- 
 
CIIAPTKR XXVI. 
 
 REOKtiAMZATIoN OV TIIK NORTIIEKN rACIlIC COM- 
 PANY. 
 
 A rciinil of Doubt and DespoiKk-ncy in llic Affairs of the Company — 
 Milca_i;o Completed at tlic Time of the I'anif — A Road 'l'lirouj,li Xac.iiu 
 Spaces — l-'allinj; off of Western Immigration — The Conijiany in I)r-- 
 jicrale Straits — Its Kescue by a Saj^acious I'laii of Keori^anization — '1'Ik' 
 
 I'londs Coiivirled into Preferred Slocis — Piai 
 
 niptty 
 
 roceeduiiis 
 
 lin 
 
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 l)y the Directors — Jiidi;c Shipman's Valuable Assistance — The Road 
 and I'raiichise Sold to a Purchasinj^ Committee of the liondliolders. 
 
 After the failure of Jay Cooke & Co., there came ;i 
 long period of doubt and distrust, of inactivity and prac- 
 tical insolvency in the affairs of the Northern Pacific. 
 The sale of bonds had entirely ceased. The days of con- 
 fidence and enthusiasm, when rapid building was going 
 on, and money lor the enterprise was abundant, seenicil 
 gone forever. J"'unds in small amounts for the immedi- 
 ate necessities of the Com[)any could only be borrowed 
 by pledging two or even three dollars of bonds for one of 
 cash. Many of the friends of the enterprise turned 
 against it in its adversity. The newspapers ridiculed it, 
 and said it was " a wild scheme to build a railroad from 
 Nowhere, through No-Man's-Land to N«) Place." Jay 
 Cooke was denounced for his connection with the sale of 
 the bonds — in some quarters as a hot-headed visionary, 
 in others as a cold-blooded schemer. There was nothing 
 to do now but to shorten sail, and wait for the storm to 
 blow over. The operating force on the road was largely 
 reduced ; all salaries were cut down ; there was a gener.il 
 abandonment of leases and stock in other companies, and 
 everything was subordinated to the effort to hold on to 
 the main line of road. 
 
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REORGAXIZATIOiV OF THE NORTHERN PACIFIC CO. 20$ 
 
 The road had been built westward from Lake Superior 
 to the Missouri River, a distance of about 450 miles. It 
 ran first through a forest, and then over vast plains rich 
 in natural fertility, but destitute of population to afford 
 traffic. The little towns that had sprung up during its 
 construction were largely speculative in their cliaracter, 
 and had no developed country to sustain them. There 
 had not been time enough for the railroad company to 
 educate the public as to the merits of the region it 
 traversed, and thus secure a large movement of settlers to 
 it. Besides, the financial crash of 1873 checked Western 
 Emigration as well as railway building. The expansive 
 forces of the nation seemed paralyzed. Emigration from 
 Europe almost ceased, and that far more important factor 
 in Western colonization, the native American element, 
 hesitated to seek new fields for its restless energies. The 
 railroad practically ended nowhere. There was little 
 traffic at its terminus at Bismarck, and little to bo had at 
 anvof the new towns it had created in Minnesota and Da- 
 kota. Running expenses could with difficulty be earned. 
 On the Pacific coast the Puget Sound Division, extend- 
 ing from Kalama on the Columbia River to New Tacoma, 
 a raw town in the woods on the shore of the Sound, had 
 just been completed, and was with difficulty made to pay 
 operating expenses ; a single mixed train of freight and 
 passenger cars serving for its daily business. The river, 
 sea and Sound transportation lines controlled by the Com- 
 pany through its ownership of stock in the Oregon Steam 
 Navigation Company were abandoned, and the stock, 
 first pledged for loans, was sold in default of payment. 
 
 All this time a high rate of interest {y^^ per cent.) was 
 running on the bonds, and causing the Company's debt 
 to grow at the rate of over two millions a year. Interest 
 was funded in principal semi-annually. Matters bright- 
 ened a little in 1874 out on the line of the road. The ex- 
 
206 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 periments of Mr. Cheney, Mr. Cass and others in raising 
 wheat by farming on a large scale proved successful, and 
 settlers began to go into the Red River Valley. The 
 Company was able to earn a little money by hauling lum- 
 ber to them from the pineries of Minnesota, and taking 
 their grain for shipment at the lake port of Duluth. 
 Still there was no surplus over running expenses, and no 
 prospect of meeting the just demands of the bondholders, 
 who, though patient and forbearing, could not be ex- 
 pected to long rest contented under what looked like an 
 annihilation of their capital. The Company seemed 
 about to plunge into the mire of hopeless insolvency. The 
 great enterprise of a natural highway to the Pacific by 
 the Northern route, marked out by nature for the pur- 
 pose, appeared to be fast nearing a disastrous end. 
 
 From this desperate strait the Company was rescued by 
 a financial scheme of great sagacity and soundness, for 
 which credit was due chiefly to Frederick Billings, then 
 and now a director, and for c. time the President of the 
 Company. He conceived what was known as the " Plan 
 of Reorganization," and urged it vigorously and persist- 
 ently upon all persons interested in the road whom he 
 could reach. What that plan was, and how it was carried 
 into effect, can be well told in the language used by Mr. 
 Billings in subsequently explaining it to a committee of 
 Congress : 
 
 " When the crash came there were three parties in interest : those who 
 had bought the bonds, the holders of the stock, and the owners of what is 
 called the ' proprietary interest.' The bondholders were scattered from 
 Maine to Texas, and at that time numbered about 11,000. This large 
 amount of bonds w.is outstanding, and there was a considerable floating debt, 
 and the road was but litle more than paying its expenses. The enterprise 
 had reaciied no objective point , it was necessary to carry it further to make 
 what had been invested in it valuable. l)ut in its then condition no addi- 
 tional funds could be raised, and so, early in the spring of 1875, it was thought 
 best to foreclose the mortgage, to rid the road of its debt, and to place it in 
 condition for further development. All parties in interest were brought 
 
I^EORGAiVIZATIOA' Of THE NORTHERN PACIFIC CO. 
 
 207 
 
 together, and in order that there might be no prolonged litigation, all inter- 
 ests were harmonized, and in a few months the property was sold under a 
 plan of reorganization which was made part of the decree of foreclosure, and 
 thus speedily taken out ofcourt. 
 
 " The agreement which harmonized all ])arties was this : the capital stock, 
 which by the charter was authorized to be $100,000,000, was divided into 
 $5 1 ,000,000 of preferred stock and $49,000,000 of common stock. The bond- 
 holders were to have $30,000,000 of preferred stock for the-r $30,000,000 of 
 bonds, and as their bonds drew 7,''„ per cent, in gold, the interest was called 
 8 per cent, currency ; two years' interest had already accrued, and it was de- 
 cided to give to the preferred stockholders the two years' interest that had 
 accrued and 3 years' in advance — 5 years of interest at S per cent., making 
 40 per cent., so that each holder of a bond of $1,000 received $1,400 of pre- 
 ferred stock. This absorbed, say, $42,ooo,(X)0 of the jireferred stock, and 
 the remaining $9,000,000 was to be in the treasury for the general purposes 
 of the company. The stockholders were to receive common stock, share for 
 share, were not to be allowed to vote for several years, and were never to 
 have dividends until, in each year, the preferred stock had received 8 per 
 cent., and the remainder of the capital stock, after deducting the $51,000,000 
 of preferred and the common stock, issued to tho stockholders, was to be dis- 
 tributed to the owners of the proprietary interest." 
 
 When the plan of reorganization was suggested it 
 was opposed in a great many quarters on the ground that 
 a foreclosure of the mortgage would carry with it the con- 
 structed road, the lands earned, and any personal property 
 the Company might have, but not the right to go on un- 
 der the charter with all the Company's rights unimpaired ; 
 that additional legislation and a new grant by Congress, 
 which then it would have been impossible to obtain, would 
 be absolutely necessary. Mr. Billings, who proposed and 
 inaugurated the scheme of reorganization, and Col. 
 George Gray, who after the legal proceedings w jre com- 
 menced became, and has ever since been, the general 
 counsel of the Company, insisted that Congress having 
 authorized the Company to make a mortgage covering 
 everything, including its franchise to be a corporation, 
 there was no doubt that the purchasers under the fore- 
 closure would be just the same Northern Pacific Company, 
 
208 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 SO far as all rights under the charter were concerned, as 
 the organization before the foreclosure ; that the right to 
 be, the entity, the spiritual life, would go with the sale just 
 as certainly as the material property ; that, in fact, the fore- 
 closure sale and purchase simply sloughed off the mort- 
 gage ; that if the purchase could be made for the parties 
 in interest, the bondholders, stockholders, and propric- 
 tary-interest holders, on some agreed relations, the bond- 
 holders taking preferred stock for their bonds, everything 
 would be saved to those to whom it belonged — the Com- 
 pany would be rid of all incumbrance and be ready to 
 raise more money on a good security at the first dawn of 
 goocT times, and go on with the road to completion — and 
 everybody who would be patient would get his money 
 back with interest, and more too. The case was a some 
 what novel one, and Mr. Billings' proposal was assented 
 to, but not altogether believed. Those who believed and 
 those who doubted saw that unless the Company could 
 be cleared of its debt of $33,000,000 it could not raise 
 more money and go on, and unless it did go on, it was 
 sunk in hopeless bankruptcy. The legal question involved 
 has long since ceased to be a question. The courts, and 
 the Government in its executive and legislative depart- 
 ments, have recognized the Company under the reorgan- 
 ization as having all the rights of the original corporation. 
 A meeting of the bondholders was held on the i8th of 
 March, 1873, and a committee appointed to harmonize all 
 interests. The bankruptcy proceedings were commenced 
 on the i6th day of April, 1875, in the United States Circuit 
 Court in New York, and General George W. Cass, who was 
 then President of the Company, was appointed receiver. 
 It happened when the papers were filed, and the appli- 
 cation for a receiver was made, that Judge Nathaniel 
 Shipman, of Connecticut, was sitting in place of Judge 
 Blatchford, and so by accident the case came before him, 
 
REORGANIZATION OF THE NORTHERN PACIFIC CO. 209 
 
 and he liad charge of it until its final disposition. The 
 friends of the Northern Pacific enterprise have always 
 felt grateful to Judge Shipman for his thorough ap- 
 preciation of the situation and prompt disposition of the 
 case. Lawyers seeking to intervene for various bondhold- 
 ers were told that their interests were all guarded and pro- 
 tected by the trustees ; and when efforts for delay were 
 made, he said from the bench to the lawyers : " I can 
 only say that if you are anxious and determined to come 
 in as parties in the case, it will make no difference with its 
 disposition. I clearly see that the salvation of this prop- 
 erty, and any return to those who have put their money 
 in it, depend upon a prompt foreclosure of this mortgage 
 and a reorganization by all the parties interested, and I 
 am determined, gentlemen, that there shall be no delay in 
 the proceedings here, and no waste of this property. We 
 will now take a recess, but I may inform you that the 
 decree of foreclosure will be signed this afternoon." 
 The decree was accordingly signed, and the sale under 
 it within the shortest time allowed by law was adver- 
 tised, but postponed for an amendment to the decree, 
 which was given by the judge. 
 
 Then the plan of foreclosure and reorganization was 
 carried out by a purchasing committee appointed by the 
 bondholders at a meeting held on June 30th, the committee 
 being composed of Messrs. Johnston Livingston, Freder- 
 ick Billings, George Stark, James K. Moorhead, John N. 
 Hutchinson, and Jolin M. Denison. On the 12th of 
 August, all the property of the Northern Pacific Railroad 
 Company, except the patented and certified lands, to- 
 gether with all its rights, liberties and franchises, in- 
 cluding the right to be a corporation, was sold under the 
 decree of the court, and purchased for the bondholders 
 by the committee. Thus the bondholders, represented 
 by the purchasing committee, became the body politic 
 14 
 
210 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 and corporate known as the Northern Pacific Railroad 
 Company. 
 
 By the end of September, powers of attorney represent- 
 ing twenty-six millions, or more thr.n five-sixths of the 
 bonds, were received by the committee and converted 
 into preferred stock; and it was not long before the 
 whole debt was wiped out by this simple and equitable 
 method. Thus all interests were fairly dealt with, and 
 the Company, as reorganized, found itself in possession 
 of about 575 miles of road, free from incumbrance, with 
 an attaching domain of ten millions acres of land, and 
 the right to earn thirty millions more by the completion 
 of the road. The proceedings in bankruptcy were carried 
 forward so expeditiously and with such sagacity and har- 
 mony, that the horde of wreckers and plunderers who 
 hang about the courts to pounce upon fallen corpora- 
 tions, armed with petty claims and demands for legal 
 services, were baffled. The cost of these proceedings was 
 trifling. The Company was now upon its feet again, a;;d 
 in a position slowly to regain public confidence. 
 
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 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 CIIAKI.KS r.. wriciit's ad.mimstratiox, 
 
 Cliaile^ P.. Wiiylit llkclcil I'lcsideiU in 1074 — His Early Career in Ihisincss 
 and Railroad ManaLjcnient — Cl1o^ell a Uirccloruf the Northern raeific 
 in 1S70 — Chairman of llie Finanee Cominiltee in 1S72, and \'ice-rresi- 
 deiit in 1S73 — Financial Straits of tiio Company afier the Rcorijani/a- 
 tion — MaUintj the Road Pay I-xpenses — Construction Work Rcconi- 
 mcnced m 1S75, on llie Pacific Coast — A Connection with St. Paul 
 Secured — Renewed Activity in the Company's Affairs — The Miss(niri 
 Division Loan — Construction P>e;^un West of the Missouri River in 1579 
 — Mr. Wright's Resignation — Complimentary Resolutions, 
 
 When General Cass resigned the presidency of the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad Company in 1874, to act as its 
 receiver in bankruptcy, Ciiarles li. Wright, of Philadel- 
 phia, was elected in his place. Mr, Wright was of Quaker 
 ancestry, and born at Wysox, at the head of the Wyo- 
 ming Valley, in Pennsylvania. In early life he was a mer- 
 chant and banker in Erie, Pennsylvania. Afterwards he was 
 actively concerned in the building and management of the 
 Philadelphia and Erie Railroad; and later, he was general 
 manager of the united railway companies in the oil regions, 
 in the flush times of the oil excitement, before the days of 
 pipe lines, and when the roads made a great deal of money 
 by hauling oil in barrels and in rude wooden tanks. In 
 these and other enterprises, Mr. Wright had accumulated 
 an ample fortune before he entered the board of directors 
 of the Northern Pacific in 1870, as a representative of his 
 own and other large Philadelphia stock interests. As 
 director and afterwards as Vice-President, he wielded 
 considerable influence in the management of the Com- 
 pany's affairs before he was called to the presidency. The 
 
2i: 
 
 AVJ? TV/A A'.\ J'.l Cll'IC K. I JLKOA D. 
 
 financial management of the corporation was to a large 
 extent in his hands. Especially was this the case when 
 the coming financial crisis began to be felt, ami 
 when, with the falling off of the sale of bonds i'.ic 
 Company began to be pressed for money to take care of 
 its floating debt and go on with the work of construc- 
 tion. On more than one occasion, by drawing on his in- 
 dividual means and credit, Mr. Wright rescued the Com- 
 pany from serious embarrassment. He was a member 
 of the coinmittee of the Board which, in 1872, went to 
 the Pacific coast to select a location for a terminal cit)- 
 on Puget Sound, and concurred in the decision to make 
 Tacoma the terminal point. In December, 1872, he 
 was placed at the head of the finance committee, and 
 in March, 1873, was elected Vice-President, resident in 
 New York. 
 
 The Company's affairs were at the lowest ebb when Mr. 
 Wright became President. Tiie bankruptcy proceed- 
 ings began at that time, and ended in the following August, 
 leaving the road wholly without credit in the money mar- 
 kets of the country. Its bonded debt had been wiped 
 out by the conversion of its bonds into preferred stock, 
 but it could not borrow money to go on with the building 
 of the road. Worse still, there was a floating debt of 
 five and a half millions hanging over it. To take care of 
 this debt ; to persuade creditors not to sue the Company at 
 law ; to make the most out of such assets as the Company 
 had, and at the same time to manage ^^"^ hundred miles 
 of railroad, running through what was then little better 
 than a wilderness, Avas the task Mr. Wright undertook. 
 He was well fitted for it by character and experience. 
 Prudent, cautious, and economical, lie was at the same 
 time active and enterprising, and always hopeful under the 
 most discouraging circumstances. He succeeded by a 
 policy of rigid economy in making the road pay expenses. 
 
CHARLES B. WRIGHT'S ADMIXISTRATIOX, 
 
 213 
 
 The track ended at liismarck, on the Missouri River ; 
 but for two winters trains ran only to Fargo, and during 
 the third winter the terminus was at Jamestown, The short 
 link of 105 miles on the Pacific coast was finished to Pu- 
 L;ct Sound, in 1S73, witii the money received from the sale 
 of the stock of the Tacoma Land Company. At the close 
 of 1S76, the directors had the satisfaction of finding that 
 the road had not only paid its way, but had netted a sur- 
 plus of $300,000. In 1 877, the ret earnings increased a 
 little ; in 1878, they ran up to §^ 'o,000. 
 
 Thus the income of the Company grew slowly but 
 steadily from year to year, as the country in Northei 1 
 Minnesota and Dakota began to be occupied by settlers. 
 It could not be said that the road was financially success- 
 ful at this time, because it paid no interest on the t' '■ :y 
 millions invested in its construction, but its affairs began 
 to assume a hop .1 . ' phase. There was no doubt no^ 
 as to the ^'alue of the groat north-western praiiies 
 drained by liie Red River and its tributaries. The enor- 
 mous farms opened by Mr. Cass and Mr. Cheney, and 
 managed by Mr. Dalrymplc, had demonstrated that wheat- 
 raising in that region was an industry which could be de- 
 pended upon to produce regular and profitable returns. 
 Those so-called Bonanza farms advertised the country and 
 attracted thousands of settlers. So did the smaller farms 
 for stock-raising, dairying and general agriculture, opened 
 in what is called the Lake Park region in Minnesota, on 
 the line of the Company's road. 
 
 After the failure of the efforts to obtain aid from 
 Congress, described in the following chapter, financial 
 plans for the further building of the road began to 
 be talked over in the board. There was, however, little 
 confidence that the public would look favorably upon 
 any securities which the Company might put upon the 
 market ; and when the project of a new loan was uis- 
 
214 
 
 NORTHERN- PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 cussed it \yas mainly vith a view to what the directors 
 themselves and their friends who had stood by the enter- 
 prise from the beginning might be wilHng to subscribe. 
 Two circumstances caused the first construction work 
 after the bankruptcy and reorganization to be done 
 on the Pacific coast. Coal was discovered in 1875, 
 in the foot-hills of the Cascade Mountains, about 
 thirty miles east of Tacoma, and on the line which 
 would be adopted for the Cascade Branch, in case 
 Tacoma should be its terminus. Benjamin Fallows, of 
 Pittsburg, a mining engineer, was sent out to investigate 
 these coal-fields, and his favorable reports led to the belief 
 that a profitable business could be developed for a railroad 
 running to them. Accordingly surveys were made for a 
 road in the fall of 1875, and on May 6th, 1876, the route 
 was formally adopted and a map filed in the Interior De- 
 partment in accordance with the law. At this time the 
 people of Washington Territory, and especially of Eastern 
 Washington, impatient at the delay in the prosecution of 
 the Northern Pacific enterprise, began to cast about for 
 other means to secure railroad transportation to tide-water. 
 Their Delegate to Congress, Mr. Jacobs, brought forward 
 a plan to take away the land grant of the Northern Pa- 
 cific Company along its projected Cascade Branch, and give 
 it to another corporation having only an existence on 
 paper. 'Senator Mitchell, of Oregon, was also pushing a 
 bill in Congress hostile to the interests of the Company in 
 relation to the road down the Columbia River. Matters 
 looked critical. President Wright met the emergency 
 by ordering work to be begun at once on the road to the 
 Puyallup coal mines, which was to be regarded as a por- 
 tion of the Cascade Branch. The directors at first de- 
 cided to attempt to place a loan, but afterward recon- 
 sidered their action, an 1 determined to build the line 
 
 without a 
 
 mortgage 
 
 by 
 
 usmg 
 
 the net 
 
 earnings 
 
 of tht 
 
CHARLES B. WRIGHT'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 215 
 
 Minnesota and Dakota Divisions. In order to show 
 that the Company was going to commence construc- 
 tion at once, Mr. Wright bought a cargo of railroad 
 iron on his own credit, and shipped it to Tacoma. It 
 took the ship three months to get around Cape Horn, 
 and in the meantime the threatening opposition to the 
 road in Congress and on the Pacific coast was disarmed. 
 The town at the coal mines on the Puyallup Branch 
 was, by vote of the board of directors, named Wilke- 
 son, in compliment to the Company's secretary. 
 
 In 1877, the question of a direct connection with St. Paul 
 began to assume greater importance with the increasing 
 freight movement on the Company's main line. . Traffic 
 between St. Paul and points on the Northern Pacific had 
 10 go around by Thomson Junction over the Lake Supe- 
 rior and Mississippi River Railroad, a route forming sub- 
 stantially two sides of a right angle triangle, the base of 
 which would be a line from St. Paul to Brainerd. The 
 St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company had already con- 
 structed a line from St. Paul to Sauk Raoids, about half 
 the way to Brainerd, in which the Northern Pacific had a 
 controlling stock interest. A charter was in existence for 
 a company to build from Sauk Rapids to Brainerd, and a 
 few miles of grading had been done. Poinding that the char- 
 ter was likely to expire by default, Mr. Wright hastened 
 to St. Paul, bought the charter of its owners, organized a 
 new company called the Western Railroad Company of 
 Mirnesota, secured for the Northern Pacific Company five 
 hundred and one of its one thousand shares, and with 
 other members of the board raised the money to build 
 the road. An account of the energetic manner in which 
 Mr. Wright managed this new undertaking is given in 
 another chapter. 
 
 With prosperous times in the country and the constant 
 increase in the net earnings of the road, a new spirit of 
 
 M 
 
2l6 
 
 NORTHERN PA UFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 enterprise and confidence began to animate the board of 
 directors. In January, 1878, the project of George W. 
 Wright for a branch railroad from Wadena to Fergus 
 Falls and Pelican Rapids, in Minnesota, was adopted. In 
 May of the same year the President was authorized to 
 have a line surveyed from a point near Bismarck to Dead- 
 wood in the Black Hills. Congress was asked to give a 
 charter and a right of way to this line as a branch of the 
 Northern Pacific, and a bill for this purpose passed the 
 Senate, but failed in the House, owing to the unreason- 
 able hostility of many of the members of that body toward 
 all projects for building railroads through the public 
 lands. At the same time a survey was ordered to be 
 made for a branch from the main line of the Northern 
 Pacific, at a point west of the Red River, to the interna- 
 tional boundary line. This line was run, and twenty miles 
 of the road subsequently known as the Casselton Branch 
 were built the next year. 
 
 During the fall of 1878, numerous financial schemes 
 were discussed for extending the road from the crossing 
 ( "the Missouri to the Yellowstone, and also for commcnc- 
 i , work on the main line on the Pacific coast. In De- 
 cember a plan of construction for the Missouri Division 
 was brought before the board by Frederick Billings, 
 and adopted. It provided for an issue of bonds to 
 an amount not exceeding $2,500,000, secured by a 
 mortgage on the Division from the Missouri River to 
 the mouth of Glendive Creek, on the Yellowstone, and 
 upon all the land of the grant appertaining to that 
 portion of the line. It also provided for an issue of pre- 
 ferred stock of equal amount to the Issue of bonds. Sub- 
 scriptions were to be made to the stock at par, and each 
 share of stock of $100 taken carried with it a $100 bond 
 without any further payment. The subscribers to this 
 loan thus obtained for every §100 they invested securities 
 
CHARLES B. WRIGHT'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 217 
 
 which have since become worth $300. The Missouri Di- 
 vision loan was speedily taken, and the work of construc- 
 tion west of the Missouri River began early in the spring 
 of 1879. Hostile Sioux Indians roamed over the country 
 at the time, and surveying and grading had to be carried 
 on under the protection of troops. General Rosser, a 
 dashing Confederate cavalry leader in the war of the re- 
 bellion, was the company's chief engineer at the time, 
 and was not the sort of man to hesitate at any danger. 
 He made the first survey from tlie Missouri to the Yel- 
 lowstone with no military escort, when it was dangerous 
 to cross the river at Bismarck, and when the fort on the 
 opposite bank was constantly guarded by sentries and 
 pickets. The division was more costly to build than the 
 engineer's estimates indicated, owing chiefly to the nu- 
 merous bridges required over the Heart, Curlew and 
 Green Rivers. Before it was completed the whole amount 
 of the loan was exhausted, and a floating debt incurred 
 of nearly a million more. 
 
 On the 24th of May, 1879, M"*- Wright resigned the presi- 
 dency on account of ill health, feeling that the finances 
 of the Company were at last placed upon a sound basis, 
 and that the further construction of the road was assured. 
 The Company had been rescued from bankruptcy, and 
 brought through a long period of business depression. Its 
 future looked bright, and Mr. Wright thought that the 
 time had come when he could retire from its active man- 
 agement and take needed rest. The directors, on accepting 
 liis resigpation, passed a series of complimentary resolu- 
 tions, to mark their appreciation of his services, declaring 
 that " To have successfully brought the Company to its 
 present position has been a task which required talents 
 of no common order; to rebuild the fallen edifice of 
 credit which, when once shaken, is the most difficult of 
 all things to restore ; to combine, as he has done, a 
 
'ii' 
 
 2l8 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 thorough and searching economy with the full main- 
 tenance of efficiency ; to have preserved friendship where 
 it existed, and to have conciliated almost every hostile 
 element that was to be encountered — these are indeed 
 laurels to any administrator." 
 
 i'i, 
 
ull main- 
 lip where 
 ry hostile 
 ■e indeed 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 RENEWED APPEALS TO CONGRESS. 
 
 3 
 O 
 
 Unwillingness of Cai" '.alists to Furnisli Money for Completing the Northern 
 Pacific Road — Preferred Slock Sells for 25 to 30 — The Directors make 
 a Fresh Appeal to Congress in 1874 — Benj. F. Wade's Services — A Bill 
 Guaranteeing Interest on the Company's Bonds — A Hopeless Effort from 
 the Start — Public Opinion Strongly Opposed to Further Aid to Railroads 
 — Failure of the Bill--Bills for an Extension of Time Pass the Senate but 
 Fail in the House — The Company Determines to Rest on Its Charter 
 Rights — Validity of the Entire Land Grant Affirmed by Attorney-General 
 Devens. 
 
 The reorganization of the Northern Pacific Company, 
 although one of the most brilliant achievements known in 
 the history of great corporations, did not regain public 
 confidence for the undertaking. The debt of the Com- 
 pany was wiped out, and it was left in the unembar- 
 rassed possession of 550 miles of completed road with 
 the valuable land grant attached to it, and with all 
 the possibilities ahead of the growth of traffic result- 
 ing from the settlement of the great wheat belt of 
 Northern Minnesota and Dakota, and of the immense 
 business to result from the ultimate completion of the 
 line across the continent. Nevertheless the capitalists 
 of the money centres looked askance at the enterprise, 
 and the community in general regarded it as Quixotic. 
 iM-om 25 to 30 cents on the dollar was all that could be 
 got in Wall Street for the preferred stock into which the 
 seven-thirty Jay Cooke bonds had been converted under 
 the plan of reorganization. The country was slowly 
 passing through a period of hard times and business de- 
 pressions following the panic of 1873. Money was scarce, 
 to use the common phrase ; though in fact money was 
 
220 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD, 
 
 plenty, but confidence was scarce. People hung on tightly 
 to their funds, and had no mind to invest them in the se- 
 curities of railways running out into the wilderness of the 
 far West. 
 
 In this state of affairs the managers of the Northern 
 Pacific were at a loss what to do. They could not go on 
 with the road, and to stop for a considerable time seemed 
 likely to gravely imperil the future success of the enter- 
 prise as a great continental line. In their dilemma they 
 could think of nothing better than to fall back on 
 Congress for help. They went over to Washington in the 
 spring of 1874, and engaged the services, as counsel, of 
 Benj. F. Wade, of Ohio, who had lately completed his 
 long service in the Senate, and was one of the most con- 
 spicuous and influential men at the national capital. In 
 May, a memorial was presented to the Senate and House 
 of Rcnresentatives, signed by President Wright, stating 
 the Company's inability to complete the road with the 
 means at its disposal, and asking for such additional leg- 
 islation as -\'ould render available the aid already given 
 by Congress, and secure the accomplishment of the great 
 work for which the charter was granted. There was no 
 tim^ , as the end of the session was close at hand, to get 
 consideration for the memorial and the bill accompanying 
 it ; but at ihe ensuing session, beginning in December, 1874, 
 a strong effort was made to secure the passage of the bill. 
 Governor Potts, of Montana, a Territory vitally interested 
 in the completion of the Northern Pacific road, came on to 
 Washington and put his name with Mr. Wade's to a doc- 
 ument entitled " A brief Statement concerning the pro- 
 posed Legislation to secure the early Completion of the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad." This document was headed 
 " Revival of Industry — Employment of Labor — Develop- 
 ment of the Country." It argued, on high patriotic 
 grounds, that it was the duty of Congress to step in with 
 
RENEWED APPEALS TO CONGRESS. 
 
 221 
 
 ; was no 
 
 a loan of the credit of the Government to secure the com 
 plction of the road. The bill was the old project of a 
 guarantee of interest on the Company's bonds which had 
 been urged unsuccessfully in 1867 and 1868. Its provis- 
 ions were as follows : 
 
 "First. That the Company may issue, in addition to bonds heretofore 
 iijucd, its 5 percent, 30-year gold bonds, to the amount of $50,000 iJermile 
 of its authorized line of road, the entire issue to be delivered by the Com- 
 pany to the Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 " S:coiuh Tliat as often as the Company shall complete and equip a sec- 
 tion oftwenty or more miles of new road, and the same shall have been accepted 
 as first-class by Government Commissioners, the Secretary of the Treasury 
 sliall deliver to the Company $40,000 of its authorized 5 per cent, bonds for 
 each mile of the section thus completed ; each bond so delivered to the Com- 
 pany to bear a guarantee by the United States Government of the payment 
 of the interest thereon. The remaining $iO,coo of authorized 5 per cent, 
 bonds per mile (equivalent to 20 per cent, of the entire amount to be issued 
 to complete the road) shall be retained in the United States Treasury as a 
 reserve interest fuini, to be used as hereafter named. 
 
 " Third, That as often as the Company shall complete a 2omi'e section 
 and apply for a corresponding Instalment of its guarant^vd bonds, it shall 
 deposit with the Secretary of the Treasury .$50,000 of its 7 3-10 first 
 mortgage bonds for each mile of the section thus completed. These 7 3-10 
 first mortgage bonds are to remain in the United States Treasury, in trust, 
 to secure, y?rj"/, the United States Government for its guarantee of interest ; 
 and, second, the bondholders of the new 5 per cent, bonds, the prineipal qI 
 wliich will not bear the Government guarantee. 
 
 "Fourth. That, to provide and secure the payment into the United 
 States Treasury of a sum of money equal to the guaranteed interest, as it 
 sliall fall due : ist, the Company shall, within sixty days after the approval of 
 tliis Act, convey and surrender to the Uni'»:d .States Government its entire 
 biid-grant, earned and to be earned, aggregating about fifty million acres, 
 in trust, to be sold, subject to existing equities, under the direction of the 
 Secretary of the Interior, and to actual settlers on agricultural lands at the 
 minimum price of $2.50 per acre, the entire net proceeds of sales each six 
 months to be paid into the Treasury of the United States fifteen days before 
 tiie maturity of the next semi-annual instalment of guaranteed interest ; 2d, 
 every six months the entire net earnings of the road for the previous si.x 
 months, or so much thereof as may be necessary, shall be paid into the 
 Treasury of the United States, accompanied by a sworn statement of the 
 business of the road during the same period ; 3d, if at any time the proceeds 
 of sales of land, together with the net earnings of the road, and any other 
 
222 
 
 NORTlIERiY PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 . ! ■. i ' 
 
 sums paid over by llic Company, shall be insufficient to meet tlic next pay- 
 ment of guaranteetl interest, then the Secretary of the Treasury shall sell 
 sufficient of the Company's 5 percent, guaranteed bonds, retained by liim as 
 security (mentioned in paragraph Sicoiid), and apply the proceeds to meet 
 the deficieiu;y. 
 
 " I-i/l/i. That all surplus funds in the United States Treasury arising 
 from the sale of land, in excess of current interest payments, shall, from the 
 outset, be paid into a Sinking Fund for the [layment of the jjriiicipal and in- 
 terest of the bonds authorized by this act ; and from and after the year iSSS, 
 the Company shall make the yearly payment into the Sinking Fund equal to 
 one per cent, of the entire issue of guaranteed bonds. 
 
 *' Sii/h. That any holder of the outstanding 7-30 first mortgage bonds 
 of the Company, issued prior to the passage of this Act, may exchange them 
 for the Company's 5 per cent, guaranteed bonds, bearing interest from Janu- 
 ary I, 1878, on the terms to be fixed in the Act. 
 
 " Si-it-itlh. That Congress may fix and determine fares, tolls and cliargcs 
 on the Northern Pacific Railroad, ]irovidcd that such government control 
 shall not impair nor defeat the security sought to be given by this Act." 
 
 Arguments and appeals, statistics and statements, 
 letters, newspapers and documents were brought to bear 
 upon Congress, with no result. The offer to practically 
 surrender the whole land grant produced little effect. 
 Public opinion was stubbornly hostile to any further aid 
 being given by the Government to railroads in the West, 
 and Congress did not dare to face the current of this 
 strong sentiment. The bill did not even reach a position 
 for discussion in either house. It was, in effect, smoth- 
 ered at its birth. 
 
 Further efforts at Washington were now confined to 
 urging an extension of time for completing the road. In 
 February, 1S76, a bill passed the Senate, without much 
 opposition, prolonging the limit eight years, which, under 
 the interpretation placed by the Interior Department 
 upon the existing legislation, would have carried it to July 
 4th, 1887. A favorable report was made upon the bill 
 by the House Pacific Railroad Committee, and it went 
 over as unfinished business to the next session. The ex- 
 citement over the disputed presidential election and the 
 
REXEIVED APPEALS TO COXGRESS. 
 
 223 
 
 next pay- 
 shall sdl 
 by liim as 
 is to meet 
 
 iiy ailsin;^ 
 , from tlic 
 lal ami in- 
 year iSSS, 
 (I equal to 
 
 ;a{;e bonds 
 nngQ them 
 'rom Jami- 
 
 11(1 eharges 
 ■nt eontiol 
 Act." 
 
 :cmcnts, 
 : to bear 
 :ictically 
 ; effect, 
 ther aid 
 West, 
 
 of this 
 position 
 
 smoth- 
 
 ncd to 
 i\(\. In 
 much 
 , under 
 
 rtment 
 
 to July 
 the bill 
 
 t went 
 The ex- 
 and the 
 
 electoral count in the winter of 1876-7, made it difficult to 
 bring any new measures before the 1 louse. The bill could 
 not be got on the calendar so as to be reached in regular 
 order. A decision of the Speaker, that under the rules a 
 two-thirds vote was necessary to take it up for final pas- 
 sage, was, in this condition of affairs, fatal. It was late 
 at night of the last day of the session. The bill, just as 
 it had been passed by the Senate, was reported and moved. 
 There was very little, if any, opposition to it. It asked 
 for nothing but time. It asked for neither money nor 
 bonds. A great majority of the members elected to the 
 House were unquestionably in favor of the bill as a 
 measure of public policy, and an act of justice to a large 
 body of innocent stockholders who had been prevented by 
 the financial panic from completing the road on time. 
 These stockholders, over 10,000 in number, constituted a 
 strong influence in the constituencies of twenty-one States 
 and Territories. On the call of the roll 120 members did 
 not answer their names. They were absent from the 
 House, worn out by protracted sessions and excitement. 
 The bill failed to get the two-thirds vote necessary to take 
 it up, though it received a large majority of the votes of 
 the members present. 
 
 The President of the Company, with the general coun- 
 sel, the special counsel, and a number of the directors, 
 made another effort at the succeeding session, beginning 
 in December, 1867. Exhaustive hearings were had before 
 the committees of both houses. A bill passed the Senate 
 granting an extension of ten years, but containing some 
 provisions objectionable to the Company concerning the 
 line down the Columbia River. This bill went to the table 
 of the House. An attempt was made, near the close 
 of the session, to take it up for consideration and 
 amendment, out of its regular order, but the required 
 two-thirds vote could not then be obtained. The House 
 
224 
 
 JVOA'T//£A\V PACirJC RAILROAD. 
 
 iS.i'i:. 
 
 Committee, after great delays, and hearings protracted to 
 a vexatious extent, by parties desiring to seize tiie Co- 
 lumbia River jjortion of the line, for the benefit of a 
 branch to the Union Pacific road, finally reported a bill, 
 extending the time for constructing the main line, which 
 bill went upon the calendar of the House, and so over 
 to the next session. It was not feasible to reach this 
 bill during the short session, which ended on the 4th of 
 March, and another attempt was therefore made to sus- 
 pend the rules and to take from the Speaker's table for 
 amendment and passage the extension bill, which liad 
 passed the Senate. The session was so near its end the 
 bill could not be reached in the ordinary course of busi- 
 ness. The motion for a suspension of the rules, requir- 
 ing a two-thirds vote, Avas lost, though 133 voted in its 
 favor, to 104 against. 
 
 During the session of 1879-80, the Pacific Railroad 
 Committees in both houses reported extension bills, but 
 no further action was taken upon them. Tl:e time for 
 the completion of the road had now expired, and also 
 the year of grace allowed by the charter before Congress 
 could take any action in reference to the land grant. 
 The Company was energetically pushing the road for- 
 ward from both ends. The gap remaining to be built 
 June 30, 1880, was at that time about 1,000 miles. It was 
 wisely determined to rest on the Company's rights under 
 the charter, and in future to ask nothing from Congress, 
 and to do nothing in Washington beyond taking proper 
 measures to defend those rights. The Attorney-General 
 of the United States, General Devens, now on the Su- 
 preme Bench of Massachusetts, had decided, in 1879, 
 "That the time specified for the completion of the road 
 would not expire until July 4th, 1879; '^"^j further, that 
 if such were not the true construction of the various pro- 
 visions of the Acts of Congress, it must be held that until 
 
RENEWED APPEAL TO CONGRESS. 
 
 225 
 
 Congress takes steps to declare a forfeiture of the grant 
 it remains in full force and effect ; and that in either 
 event the grant to-day must be held to be the same as 
 it existed on the day when it was made and accepted by 
 the Company." 
 
 The Company was satisfied that no action adverse to 
 its interests would be taken by Congress, so long as it 
 was energetically at work completing its line. Besides, 
 Congress was precluded by the charter from taking 
 possession of the land grant and restoring it to the 
 public domain. Its power in the premises was limited 
 to doing " any and all acts and things which may be 
 needful and necessary to insure a speedy completion 
 of the road." There could manifestly be no reason for 
 interfering when the 'oad was being built as fast as prac- 
 ticable. This was the attitude of the Company in the 
 years following until the completion of the road. It was 
 fully endorsed by a report from the Judiciary Committee 
 of the House in 1882, and none of the numerous bills in- 
 troduced to declare the grant forfeited have ever obtained 
 from either Senate or House any consideration other 
 than the formal one of a reference to a committee under 
 the rules. 
 
 15 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 PRESIDENCY OF FREDERICK BILLINGS. 
 
 Mr. Killings' Birth and Education — lie Becomes a California rioneer of 
 i84(j — A Lawyer in San Francisco — His Early Interest in the Northern 
 Pacific Project — Declines a Nomination for Congress — Returns to llie 
 East — Chosen a Northern Pacific Director in 1870 — Organizes the Land 
 Department — Chairman of the Executive Committee — Elected President 
 in 1879 — A General First Mortgage Executed — Agreement with a Syndi- 
 cate of Bankers — The liismarck Bridge — St. Paul Terminal I'acililies — 
 General Offices and Brainerd Shops — Mr. Billings' Resignation — Im- 
 proved Condition of the Company. 
 
 Frederick Billings, who succeeded C. B. Wright in 
 the presidency of the Northern Pacific Railroad, was born 
 at Royalton, in Vermont, September 27th, 1823. Twelve 
 years later his father moved to Woodstock, Vt., where 
 the family home has been ever since. He entered the 
 University of Vermont at Burlington, in 1840, and, grad- 
 uating in 1844, immediately commenced to study law, and 
 was admitted to the Bar early in 1848. In January, 1849, 
 Mr. Billings started for California by way of the Isthmus 
 of Panama, arriving at San Francisco April 1st of that 
 year. He began at once the practice of law by himself, 
 but was soon joined in partnership by Archibald C. 
 Peachy, and the firm became Peachy and Billings. When 
 California adopted a State Constitution, and in January, 
 1850, passed out of the military government, General IT. 
 W. Hallcck, who had been secretary of that government 
 under General Mason, resigned from the army, and was 
 taken into the firm, having specially in charge the matter 
 of Spanish and Mexican land titles, with which he had 
 made himself familiar. Still later, Trcnor W. Park became 
 a partner, and the firm was afterwards Halleck, Peachy, 
 
Pioneer of 
 c Xorthein 
 urns to llic 
 s the I, ami 
 I rrcsick'iU 
 th a Syiidi- 
 I'acililies — 
 alioii — Im- 
 
 /right in 
 
 ,vas born 
 
 Twelve 
 
 t., where 
 
 prcd the 
 
 id, grad- 
 
 law, and 
 
 ry, 1849, 
 
 Isthmus 
 
 of that 
 
 himself, 
 
 bald C. 
 
 When 
 
 anuary, 
 
 cral H. 
 
 rnment 
 
 md was 
 
 matter 
 
 he had 
 
 became 
 
 'cachy, 
 
 Alice Falls, Montana. 
 
Bi 
 
 an 
 
 Ai 
 
 Mr 
 he 
 
PRESIDENCY OF FREDERICK BILLINGS. 
 
 227 
 
 Billings and Park. The firm was a very successful one, 
 and continued until the early part of 1861, when Mr. Bil- 
 lings went to England as the attorney of General Fremont 
 in connection with the Mariposa estate. Returning to 
 America in 1862, he was married in New York City in 
 March of that year, to Miss Julia Parmly, and returned to 
 California, where he remained till November, 1863. With 
 impaired health, he then came back to New York, but in 
 March, 1865, taking a voyage by the Straits of Magellan, 
 he again tried California, and in pursuit of health went by 
 land to Oregon and Washington Territory, making a trip 
 up the Columbia River and through Puget Sound. He 
 became so impressed with the greatness and resources of 
 that region, and with the necessity for a more direct com- 
 munication with the eastern side of the continent, that 
 subsequently, when he gave up his home in California in 
 March, 1866, and came back to Vermont, he went to 
 Washington to aid the Northern Pacific Railroad Com- 
 pany in its effort to obtain a bond subsidy from the govern- 
 ment. This was in 1867. Mr. Billings had at that time 
 no business interest whatever in the enterprise, and was 
 simply carrying out the promises he had made to people in 
 Oregon and Washington Teritory, to aid as far as he could 
 the construction of this overland route. No one could 
 have lived as long as Mr. Billings had on the Pacific coast> 
 and made the journey so many times between New York 
 and San Francisco by way of the Isthmus of Panama, 
 without becoming profoundly interested in everything 
 tending to bring the world east of the Rocky Mountains 
 nearer, whether it was by an overland stage, a pony ex- 
 press, or a railroad. Mr. Billings was one of the original 
 promoters of the Overland Stage Company, and in 1866 
 became largely interested, financially and otherwise, in the 
 Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company, chartered June 
 17th, 1866, by the United States Government, to build 
 
228 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 %• 
 
 from Springfield, Missouri, to the Pacific Ocean on the line 
 of the 35th parallel. Its charter was very similar to that 
 of the Northern Pacific, and Mr. Billings was a director 
 in this company for many years. 
 
 Mr. Billings left California with profound regret. He 
 was one of the pioneers, had been the legal adviser of Gen- 
 eral Mason's military government, was identified with the 
 growth of San Francisco and the State, connected with 
 many public institutions, and prominent in public affairs. 
 His professional and business life had been a success, and 
 when he came away there was no one at the Bar of San 
 Francisco who had been there as long as himself. He 
 had been offered a nomination for Congress, but had de- 
 clined it, and was urged by the Pacific Coast delegation 
 in Congress for a seat in the Cabinet of Mr. Lincoln, 
 who had said, just before he was shot, that he should 
 appoint him. In 1866, by a unanimous vote of the leg- 
 islature, he was urged for a seat in President Johnson's 
 Cabinet. California had been Mr. Billings' home for tlie 
 best part of his life, and he lo!"',ged to remain there, but 
 under the advice of physicians he came back to Wood- 
 stock, Vermont, which he has since made his home, 
 although spending most of his time for fourteen years in 
 New York in the service of the Northern Pacific Com- 
 pany, 
 
 In 1869, Mr. Billings purchased of Hiram Walbridge 
 one of the original twelve interests in the Northern 
 Pacific enterprise, and at \.\\i first election thereafter, 
 and after the contract was made with Jay Cooke 
 & Co., he came into the board of directors, March 
 9th, 1870, and was made chairman of the land com- 
 mittee. By this time the Company had obtained the 
 legislation amending its charter so as to give it the 
 right to mortgage the road and land grant and fran- 
 chises, and with Jay Cooke & Co. as its fiscal agents, 
 
PRESIDENCY OF FREDERICK BILLINGS. 
 
 229 
 
 in the line 
 ar to that 
 a director 
 
 jret. He 
 cr of Gen- 
 1 with tlie 
 :cted with 
 lie affairs, 
 ccess, and 
 lar of San 
 isclf. He 
 it had do- 
 Jclcgation 
 . Lincoln, 
 he should 
 )f the leg- 
 Johnson's 
 TIC for the 
 there, but 
 to Wood- 
 US home, 
 n years in 
 :ific Com- 
 
 Valbridge 
 Northern 
 hereafter, 
 y Cooke 
 rs, IMarch 
 and corn- 
 lined the 
 \^e it the 
 and fran- 
 1 agents, 
 
 was able to go ahead with ti e active work of building its 
 
 ro 
 
 ad. 
 
 Mr. Billings went with President Smith and several other 
 directors in August, 1871, to locate the crossing of the 
 Red River of the North. The road was then finished 
 only to the Crow Wing River, about twenty miles beyond 
 Brainerd. There was then no settlement where the 
 crossing was fixed, and where Fargo and Moorhead are 
 now. The excursion was extended to the second cross- 
 ing of the Cheyenne, fifty-eight miles beyond the Red 
 River. Mr. Billings also went with President Cass and 
 several other directors to Oregon and Washington Ter- 
 ritory in September, 1872, for the purpose, among other 
 things, of locating the Northern Pacific terminus on Puget 
 Sound. In March, 1873, he went with R. D. Rice, of 
 Maine, then Vice-President, and W. G. Moorhead, a 
 director, to San Francisco. The three had been ap- 
 pointed a committee to confer with persons relative to 
 enlistment of new capital, and to receive and dispose of 
 any proposals for constructing road on the Pacific side. 
 They were accompanied bj' William Milnor Roberts, the 
 Company's engineer-in-chief. 
 
 Mr. Billings organiz^-a the land department, and, as 
 chairman of the land committee, or managing director 
 of the land department, remained in charge of the land 
 grant until the reorganization in September, 1875. He 
 has continued in the board of directors ever since his first 
 entry, and only one member of the present board, Benj. 
 P. Cheney, of Boston, has held office as long. At the 
 time of the reorganization, in 1875, ^^^ ^^as appointed 
 chairman of the executive committee, of which he had 
 been a member since 1872, and remained in that position 
 till his election as president, May 24th, 1879, ^"^ the 
 resignation of Mr. Wright. Mr. Billings' connection with 
 the reorganization scheme, of which he was the author, 
 
^^ 
 
 230 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 has been described in a preceding chapter devoted to 
 that important event in the history of the company. 
 
 On his advice the directors determined to recommence 
 construction operations on the Pacific coast. They first 
 thought of building from Portland to Kalama, in order to 
 secure an all-rail route from the Oregon metropolis to 
 Puget Sound, but they wisely deferred the execution of 
 this part of their general project. There was evidently 
 no hurry about paralleling a navigable river with a rail- 
 road while so much of the interior line remained to be 
 built. They, therefore, determined to begin at the junc- 
 tion of the Snake and Columbia rivers, and build cast- 
 ward across the great plain of the Columbia to Lake Pcnd 
 d'Oreille. 
 
 The plan for raising money to build the Pend d'Oreille 
 Division differed somewhat from that adopted for the 
 Missouri Division loan, Mr. Billings being the «athor 
 of both, and was more favorable to the Company. The 
 mortgi^ge covered the road and the land grant apper- 
 taining to it. Bonds to the amount of $20,000 per mile 
 — the Division being 225 miles long — svere authorized, 
 bearing interest at six per cent., and subscribers at first 
 received a gratuity of $70 in preferred stock for each 
 $100 of bonds they took at par, but before the loan closed 
 better terms were obtained by the Company. In the case 
 of the Missouri loan $200 of bonds and stock issued pro- 
 duced $100 in cash ; in the case of the Pend d'Oreille loan 
 $170 of bonds and stock produced §100 in cash. The 
 difference in the terms of the two loans was probably a 
 fair index to the improving credit of the company. The 
 total amount of bonds issued under the Pend d'Oreille 
 Division mortgage was $4,500,000. Construction work 
 on this Division began in October, 1879, under the super- 
 vision of General J. W. Sprague, the Company's general 
 agent, and manager on the Pacific coast. 
 
PRESIDENCY OF FREDERICK BILLINGS. 
 
 231 
 
 In the fall of 1880, while the Missouri and Pend 
 d'Oreillc Divisions of the Northern Pacific main line were 
 under construction, it seemed wise to commence build- 
 ing on the Yellowstone, and to be prepared for work on 
 the whole line. President Billings had already caused 
 grading to be begun in Hell Gate Cafion, west of the Rocky 
 Mountains, in order to occupy that important defile in 
 advance of the Utah Northern Company, which was 
 building in that direction, and also between Wallula 
 and the Snake River crossing in Washington Ter- 
 ritory. While previously it had been considered that 
 a general mortgage upon the whole line and property 
 and franchises, including the franchise to be a corpora- 
 tion, would not be a success for the reason that the pub- 
 lic would be afraid that in so large a scheme disaster 
 might come again, and that therefore it was almost an ab- 
 solute necessity to adopt the policy of division mortgages, 
 it now seemed that the Company was so accredited with 
 the public, and the enterprise was so much better under- 
 stood, that the policy of a general mortgage covering the 
 entire line and the whole property of the Company would 
 be the true one to adopt. 
 
 The first banking firm which took an active interest in 
 the matter of a loan to provide means for the completion 
 of the road, was that of Winslow, Lanier & Co., of New 
 York. Mr. John W. Ellis, of that firm, had been 
 asked by Jay Cooke in 1869, to join him in placing the 
 first loan. Mr. Ellis, who then lived in Cincinnati, had 
 been connected with Cooke in the sale of Government 
 bonds, and, while on a visit to him at his summer home at 
 Gibraltar, on Lake Erie, was urged to take hold of the 
 financial scheme for building the Northern Pacific. He 
 declined, believing that the project was premature, al- 
 though he then thought its ultimate outcome would be a 
 great success. After the Northern Pacific broke down, 
 
232 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 financially, in 1873, Mr. Ellis kept up a quiet and watchful 
 interest in its affairs until the railroad revival, which be- 
 gan in 1878. In the summer of 1880, his particular atten- 
 tion was drawn to it by a conversation with Mr. Wads- 
 worth, the Vice-President of the Chicago, Milwaukee and 
 St. Paul Railroad, who had a high opinion of the future of 
 the enterprise. At about the same time he had, on dif- 
 ferent occasions, conversations with two prominent army 
 ofificers. Generals Terry and Ruggles, who had been sta- 
 tioned in the northwest, and who spoke in very favorable 
 terms of the value of the Northeni Pacific land grant. 
 General G. W. Cass, formerly President of the Northern 
 Pacific Company, also commended the enterprise to the 
 firm. Winslow, Lanier & Co. then made up their minds 
 to look closely into the matter, and to that end President 
 Billings was invited to call at the bank. He did so, and 
 several hours were spent in consultation on the subject 
 of a general first mortgage loan. After further investiga- 
 tion this firm concluded that the project was a sound 
 one, and determined to request the house of Drexel, 
 Morgan & Co. to join them in it. That firm did not at first 
 regard the matter favorably. Mr. Fabbri, one of its part- 
 ners, said that Mr. J. B. Williams, then second Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the Northern Pacific Company, had already called 
 his attention to the subject, but that he had not thought 
 it worth examining. After considering the matter for a 
 {^\f weeks, however, Drexel, Morgan & Co. determined to 
 join Winslow, Lanier & Co. in their own behalf, and in 
 that of their allied houses. Drexel & Co. of Philadelphia, 
 and J. S. Morgan & Co., of London. In the meantime 
 numerous consultations had taken f'.ice with President 
 Billings, the result being that Mr. Ellis and Mr. Fabbri 
 spent a great deal of their time, for over a month, in per- 
 fecting the details of a mortgage loan of forty millions. 
 They were assisted in preparing the legal documents by J. 
 
watchful 
 I'hich be- 
 lar atten- 
 r. Wads- 
 ukee and 
 future of 
 J, on dif- 
 :nt army 
 seen sta- 
 favorable 
 id grant. 
 Northern 
 e to the 
 nr minds 
 'resident 
 1 so, and 
 s subject 
 ivestiga- 
 a sound 
 Drexel, 
 3t at first 
 its part- 
 ce-Presi- 
 Jy called 
 thought 
 :ter for a 
 nined to 
 f, and in 
 idelphia, 
 leantime 
 'resident 
 . Fabbri 
 , in per- 
 millions. 
 its by J. 
 
u 
 
PRESIDENCY OF FREDERICK BILLINGS. 
 
 233 
 
 &: 
 
 , ', 
 
 C. Bullitt, of Philadelphia, while Mr. Billings was aided in 
 the negotiations which he commenced and carried through 
 on the part of the Company by A. H. Barney, one of the 
 directors, and in the preparation of the legal documents 
 connected therewith by the Company's counsel, Colonel 
 George Gray. After the negotiation was brought to an 
 end and the terms of the loan v/ere fully agreed upon, an 
 offer was made by Winslow, Lanier & Co. and Drexel, 
 Morgan & Co. to the firm of A. Belmont & Co., to join 
 them in their contract with the Northern Pacific Company, 
 which was accepted. These three firms, the contractors 
 for the loan, then formed a syndicate for the sale of the 
 bonds, including among their associates many of the 
 leading bankers of New York and other cities. 
 
 The mortgage was dated January 1st, 188 1, and pro- 
 vided for the issue of $40,cxx),ooo of bonds bearing six 
 per cent, interest, payable semi-annually, the principal 
 falling due in 192 1. The terms of the mortgage only 
 permitted the issue of the bonds at the rate of $25,CXX) 
 per mile on sections of completed road which had been 
 examined and accepted by the Government — a limitation 
 which gave rise to serious embarrassment in the prosecu- 
 tion of construction work, and would have delayed the 
 completion of the road one or two years, had not the 
 difficulty been overcome at a later day, as related in de- 
 tail hereafter, by the creation of a new company, which 
 used its credit to obtain large advances of money for 
 the management of the Northern Pacific Company. In 
 order to prosecute the work of construction with any 
 degree of rapidity, it was necessary to have at command 
 funds to do heavy grading and blasting, build bridges and 
 open tunnels far in advance of track laying. It was as- 
 sumed that the bonds issuable against the unencumbered 
 mileage east of the Missouri River and on the Pacific 
 coast would amply provide for these wants, but this 
 
234 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 proved a miscalculation. The agreement with the 
 syndicate of bankers who took the loan was, in its 
 main featuics, as follows: The syndicate took $io,- 
 0(X),ooo of bonds at 90, as of January ist, 1881, and 
 were given options to take $10,000,000 more during 
 the year 1881, at 92^, to take a third $10,000,000 during 
 1882 at 92!/^, and to take the fourth $10,000,000 at the 
 same rate during 1883. These options they exercised. 
 The Company further gave the syndicate, as a part of the 
 consideration for taking the bonds, five per cent, upon 
 the amount taken in preferred stock. The contract 
 proved a very profitable one for the syndicate, which sold 
 the bonds above par, but at the time it was made it was 
 thought by the Northern Pacific directors to be a favor- 
 able one for the Company, considering the state of its 
 credit. 
 
 President Hayes, General Sherman, General Hancock 
 and many other prominent men of the country, wrote let- 
 ters of congratulation to Mr. Billings, on the success of the 
 financial scheme which ensured the completion of the 
 road. From this time the work went on vigorously. 
 The actual prosecution of construction on the road was 
 of the greatest service to the Company in warding off the 
 hostile attacks in Congress and elsewhere. The Com- 
 pany claimed, as we have already shown, not only that 
 its land grant was not subject to forfeiture, but even if it 
 were, on grounds of equity and fair dealing there should 
 be no attempt to take it away. 
 
 In 1880, it was determined that ;? bridge should be built 
 across the Missouri River, at Bismarck. The river shoaled 
 badly, particularly on the west side, was constantly 
 making shifting sand-bars, and the crossing by a transfer 
 boat was circuitous, difficult and expensive, and in 
 winter often impossible by reason of ice. George 
 S. Morison, an expert in bridge building, was employed 
 
PRESIDENCY OF FREDERICK BILLINGS. 
 
 235 
 
 ransfcr 
 nd in 
 ieorge 
 )loyed 
 
 to examine and report upon the wliolc subject, in con- 
 nection witii General Adna Anderson, who had been 
 selected by the President as enginecr-in-chicf, and ap- 
 pointed by the board in February, 1880. After the re- 
 ports were presented to the board, President Killings was 
 authorized to contract for a uridge and approaches such 
 as they recommended, and to employ Mr. Morison to 
 superintend its erection. The contract for the sub- 
 structure of the bridge was made January 28th, 1881. 
 
 In 1880, under the authority of the board, Mr. Bil- 
 lings made a traffic contract dated October 20th, with 
 Henry Villard, President of the Oregon Railway and 
 Navigation Company, by which the Northern Pacific 
 secured, on favorable terms, connection with Port- 
 land, Oregon, down the Columbia River from its Pend 
 d'Oreille Division then under construction. The O. R. & 
 N. Company running boats on the river, cmd building a 
 railway from Portland to the Northern Pacific atWallula, 
 agreed to so take care of the Northern Pacific Company's 
 business between those two points as to justify the post- 
 ponement of the construction of that expensive part of the 
 Northern Pacific line, until the entire line east had been 
 completed. 
 
 It was during Mr. Billings' administration also that a 
 traffic conti -ct was made with the St. Paul, Minneapolis 
 and Manitoba Company, by which the Northern Pacific 
 Company acquired the right to use the tracks of the St. 
 Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Company for 75^ miles 
 from Sauk Rapids to St. Paul, and so obtained an en- 
 trance into Minneapolis and St. Paul with its o^vn trains ; 
 the provisional agreement having been made November 
 i8th, 1878, and the formal contract August isl, 1879. In 
 the arrangement, the Northern Pacific secured, with- 
 out cost, about seventeen acres of valuable land in St. 
 Paul for depot purposes and terminal facilities. This con- 
 
^Pffl* 
 
 236 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 tract failed in many respects of accomplishing its purpose, 
 ?nd the Northern Pacific Company afterwards found it 
 .advisable to secure an independent line from Sauk Rapids 
 to Minneapolis 
 
 During Mr. Billings' administration the general office 
 buildings in St. Paul were commenced and planned on 
 such a scale as to accommodate under one roof the various 
 departments. The extensive general machine shops at 
 Brainerd, Minn., which, now completed, are not excelled 
 in efficiency by any railroad shops in the country were, 
 also commenced. There was also a contract made with 
 the proprietors of the city of Superior, in Wisconsin, by 
 which they were to convey one third of their interests in 
 the city to the Northern Pacific Company, in consideration 
 of the extension of the main line eastwards from Thomp- 
 son Junction as far as Superior within the year 1881. The 
 work was commenced and finished as agreed. Mr. Billings 
 commenced and finished forty miles of the Casselton 
 Branch, commenced the Fargo and South-western, and 
 secured the ownership of the charter, land grant, and 
 county subsidy of the Northern Pacific, Fergus Falls and 
 Black Hills Railroad. 
 
 It may be noted, further, that during Mr. Billings' ad- 
 ministration the immense Indian Reservations, existing 
 by order of the President of the United States, made in 
 April, 1875, for the benefit of various tribes of Indians 
 (Arickarccs, Gros Ventres, Picgans, Mandans, and Black- 
 feet), extending far north and south of the Missouri 
 River, and on both sides of the Yellowstone, were re- 
 duced, by an order of President Hayes, on July 13th, 
 1880. Nearly all of the land south of the Missouri, and 
 east and west of the Yellowstone, embracing nearly 300 
 miles in length and nearly 200 miles in width, and cover- 
 ing about 150 miles of the line of the Northern Pacific, 
 was thrown open to civilization. It was shown that 
 
PRESIDENCY OF FREDERICK BILLINGS. 
 
 237 
 
 and 
 s and 
 
 ad- 
 
 the Indians rarely came into this great tract, and then 
 only for hunting, and that the reservations north of the 
 Missouri were more than ample for their uses. But 
 for this timely act of President Hayes, settlers would 
 have been kept out of this great area, the railroad could 
 have acquired no title to its lands within it, and, so far 
 as local business is concerned in the region in question, 
 might as well have run through a desert. 
 
 Mr. Billings, before and during his administration as 
 President, made several arguments before the Pacific Rail- 
 road Committees of the two houses of Congress, one of 
 which on the " History and Equitable Rights of the North- 
 ern Pacific Railroad," delivered April 15th, 1880, before the 
 House Committee, was printed for general circulation. 
 
 Mr. Billings resigned the presidency in June, 1 881, when 
 a controlling interest in the company's stock passed into 
 the hands of Hei ry Viilard and the capitalists he repre- 
 sented, and it was thought desirable by them to secure 
 a unity of management between the Oregon trans- 
 portation lines directed by Mr. Viilard and the North- 
 ern Pacific sysl:m. His health had been seriously 
 impaired by hard work, and he was glad of the op- 
 portunity to follow the advice cf his physician and 
 
 He continued in the board, 
 
 member of the executive com- 
 
 Billings left the presidency, the 
 
 had Iv en recL'-arnized as vali l 
 
 take a long rest, 
 
 however, and as a 
 
 mittee. Before M*- 
 plan of 
 
 reorganization 
 
 by courts and the Government, and liad become a co .- 
 plete success. Of the old boiuls, nearly every one had been 
 exchanged for preferred stock. The old stockholders had 
 received common stock, as agreed, and the proprietary- 
 interest holders had received the stock provided for them. 
 About the latf-er there had been litigation, but it was at 
 an end. Th" oreferre i, which sold once as low as $8 per 
 share, had nocn to $80, atid the old bondholders, who 
 
238 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 had converted their bonds into preferred stock, and held 
 on, could sec they were to lose nothing of principal 
 and interest. The common stock, which had sold at 
 $1.50, was quoted at about §50. Such had been the 
 change of opinion towards the Company that capital was 
 ready to invest in its bonds and stock, and arrangements 
 had been made to provide funds for its completion. Thus, 
 at last, the Northern Pacific, which had seen so many 
 dark days in its history, had become so strong in its po- 
 sition, so firmly seated in the faith of the public., and 
 so sure of its future, that its steadfast friends felt that 
 their patience had been rewarded and their faith in the 
 great enterprise fully justified. 
 
 On the retirement of Mr. Billings his associates in the 
 directory signified their appreciation of the value of his 
 services by the formal adoption of a resolution providing 
 for the engraving of his portrait for the new certificates 
 of stock, and in other ways. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 TEMPORARY PRESIDENCY OF A. II. BARNEY. 
 
 Mr. Barney's Birth and Education — Visit to Michigan — Early Interest in 
 Transportation Problems — Deputy Collector of the Port of Sacketts 
 Harbor — The Patriot War — Engages in the Commission and Shipping 
 Business at Cleveland and Buffalo — Organizes the United States. Express 
 Company — A Member of Several Railroad Purchasing Syndicates — Di- 
 rector and Treasurer of the Northern Pacific Railroad — His Connection 
 with the Original Interests Agreement — Elected President in iSSi to 
 Fill a Temporary Vacancy — The Agreement with the Crow Indians. 
 
 M.^. 3lLLINGS' resignation of the presidency was has- 
 te.ied, > wc have seen, by ill-health and the desire and 
 r.ecr: sity for rest. Mr. Villard was not ready to take 
 the direction of the Company's affairs into his own 
 hands before the next annual meeting of the stock- 
 holders, tc b^ held in the latter part of the ensuing 
 September. It was accordingly determined in the 
 board that A. H. Barney, long a director and one of 
 the participants in the Original Interests Agreement of 
 1867, should act as president to fill the vacancy, and 
 that Thomas F. Oakes, who had just come into the 
 board to repres.^nt the Villard interest, should be chosen 
 vice-president, a^d enter at once upon the executive 
 duties of th. ofikc, which included the prosecution of 
 the constr cilon vork on the line and the general di- 
 rection of tiie t:..f(ic and land departments. 
 
 Mr. Bj.ney v.. to u»orn in Ellisburg, Jefferson County, 
 New Yjrk, in 18 16 — the youngest son of John Barney, 
 who emigrated from Brattlcboro, Vermont, in 1800. He 
 was educated at the Belleville Academy at the same time 
 that Judge G. F. Comstock, late of the Court of Ap- 
 peals, Joseph Mullen, Judge of the Supreme Court, and 
 
"^^ 
 
 240 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Hiram Barney, late Collector of the Port of New York, were 
 preparing for college at that school. At the age of nine- 
 teen he went to Michigan, returning the following year 
 to Jefferson County, New York, where he was appointed 
 deputy collector of the Port of Sacketts Harbor. At 
 that time all of the surplus of wheat, corn, flour, pork, 
 and beef of North-eastern New York was shipped by 
 steam and sail from Sackett? Harbor to Oswego, and 
 thence by canal to New York. During his term of office 
 as deputy collector, what was known as the Patriot War 
 was inaugurated — a movement first organized by a secret 
 society, formed {q • die purpose of enlisting men and 
 money for an invasi "anada. The invaders believed 
 
 that thousands would j vheir standard as soon as it was 
 planted upon Canadian soil, and that the British Prov- 
 inces would eagerly welcome the opportunity for annexa- 
 tion to the United States. They were immediately de- 
 feated. The American troops guarding the frontier, to 
 prevent reinforcements from joining the Patriots, were 
 largely controlled in their movements by the collectors 
 of the ports on the Lakes, and the young collector at 
 Sacketts Harbor suddenly found his post one of great 
 importance. 
 
 In 1843 Mr. Barney's brother, D. N. Barney, and him- 
 self formed a copartnership with Eldridge Merrick, of 
 Clayton, Jefferson County, for a general forwarding and 
 commission business, purchasing timber and staves, and 
 shipping them to Quebec and Liverpool for a market. 
 At that time Mr. Merrick owned a large fleet of vessels, 
 which were sold to the firm, and a business house was 
 opened at Cleveland, Oiiio, under the name of D. N. 
 Barney & Co. The firm v/ere the owners of about 
 twenty sailing vessels ar:d two steamers, the Chesa- 
 peake and Empire. The Empire was the largest steamer 
 ever run upon the Lakes up to that time, and was 
 
Drk, were 
 : of nine- 
 ing year 
 ^pointed 
 oor. At 
 ur, pork, 
 pped by 
 igo, and 
 
 of office 
 riot War 
 
 a secret 
 lien and 
 believed 
 as it was 
 ill Prov- 
 
 annexa- 
 itely dc- 
 ntier, to 
 )ts, were 
 ollectors 
 ector at 
 of great 
 
 nd him- 
 rrick, of 
 ling and 
 ves, and 
 
 market. 
 
 vessels, 
 use was 
 f D. N. 
 f about 
 Chesa- 
 steamcr 
 ,nd was 
 
Lake Pend d' Oreille] 'Idaho. 
 
TEMPORARY PRESIDENCY OF A. H. BARNEY. 24I 
 
 the first modeled after the sharp steamers, fore and 
 aft, that were then running between New York and 
 Albany. After years of successful business, D. N. Bar- 
 ney removed to Buffalo, establishing there the house 
 of D. N. Barney & Co., and also organizing the Bank of 
 Lake Erie. J. B. Waring was admitted as a member of 
 the firm at Cleveland, doing business under the name of 
 Barney, Waring & Co. D. N. Barney and E. G. Merrick 
 were the Company, and A. H. Barney was the senior 
 partner of the Cleveland house. During the second 
 year of the copartnership, Mr. Barney invented and con- 
 structed the first grain warehouse built of plank, upon 
 a model plan that has since been followed in the construc- 
 tion of all grain warehouses of large dimensions in this 
 country. The Buffalo and Cleveland branches of the 
 firm did an extremely profitable business, measured by 
 the standard of profits of those days. 
 
 Mr. Waring withdrew from the Cleveland and Buffalo 
 copartnerships, and D. N. Barney removed to New York, 
 where soon after he became largely interested in the ex- 
 press business. In 1854 he organized the United States 
 Express Company, and was elected its president. Soon 
 thereafter he was elected president of Wells, Fargo & 
 Co.'s Express, doing business between New York and 
 San Francisco by way of the Isthmus of Panama. After 
 two or three years of profitable business, the carrying 
 trade upon the Lakes became unsatisfactory, and A. 
 H. Barney sold the smaller vessels of his firm, loaded 
 the larger vessels with American timber, staves, oil-cake, 
 and such other articles as he believed could be sold at a 
 profit, and sent them with their cargoes to England. In 
 company with D. C. Pierce, he built the brigs Kershaw 
 and D. C. Pierce, and sent them with the others to Eng- 
 land for a market. At the English ports the vessels ob- 
 tained cargoes for the Danube. The trade did not prove 
 16 
 
24."^ 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 I'^aisfeii 
 
 very profitable. Some of the vessels were sold in Eng- 
 land, and some returned to the Lakes. The D. C. Pierce 
 was taken by a Confederate cruiser during the Civil War, 
 and destroyed. 
 
 In 1854 Mr. Barney was elected vice-president of the 
 United States Express Company, and took upon himself 
 the entire executive management. He was one of the 
 parties who purchased a controlling interest in the 
 New York Central Railroad, and elected W. G. Fargo 
 vice-president. After about a year, two of the parties 
 sold their stock to Commodore Vanderbilt, which gave 
 him, with the stock he then held, the control of the road. 
 He was elected president and immediately doubled the 
 stock of the road, constructed the bridge at Albany, and 
 succeeded thereafter in paying regular semi-annual divi- 
 dends. 
 
 Mr. Barney was one of a small party that purchased 
 the control of the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad. He 
 was offered the presidency of the road, but declined, 
 and secured the election of his personal friend John W. 
 Newell. Soon after the road was consolidated with the 
 Buffalo and Erie and Cleveland and Erie roads and the 
 Michigan Southern, making what is now known as the 
 Lake Shore Railroad. Mr. Newell was elected general 
 manager, and has held that position until the present 
 time. In October, 1862, Mr. Barney was one of a party 
 of five gentlemen that purchased the franchise of the 
 Winona and St. Peter Railroad of Minnesota. To save 
 the charter, ten miles of road were to be constructed be- 
 fore the first day of January, 1863. He was placed in 
 charge of construction. The road ran through mount- 
 ains and roclcs, and over deep ravines, one of which re- 
 qu: "'d over eight hundred feet of bridging, forty feet in 
 height. Nevertheless, the ten miles were completed, and 
 accepted in time to save the charter. The road was built 
 
TEMPORARY PRESIDENCY OF A. If. BARXEY. 
 
 243 
 
 the following year for a distance of sixty-two miles, 
 bonded, and then sold to the Chicago and Northwestern 
 Railroad, Mr. Barney's party holding the bonds at the 
 rate of $20,000 per mile on the sixty-two miles con- 
 structed, and the title of the lands earned. Mr. Barney 
 was afterwards one of a syndicate composing what was 
 called the United States Telegraph Company, which 
 purchased the control of the Western Union and of 
 the organization called the Overland Telegraph Com- 
 pany, with a franchise to construct a line of telegraph 
 to the Pacific coast. All these companies were con- 
 solidated, and Wm. Orton was made president of the 
 new corporation, which preserve!^ the name of Western 
 Union. In 1872 Mr. Barney joined William B. Ogden, 
 General G. W. Cass, J. Gregory Smith and others, in the 
 Original Interests Agreement, which created twelve pro- 
 prietary shares controlling the franchises of the North- 
 ern Pacific Railroad. In 1870 he was elected a director 
 and treasurer of the Company. He resigned both positions 
 in April, 1873, on the approach of the financial difficulties 
 which soon afterwards beset the Company and threw it 
 into insolvency. When the storm had passed over and 
 better times came, he was a member of the syndicate that 
 furnished the money to construct the Missouri and Pend 
 d'Oreille Division. In 1881 he again became a director in 
 the Nonhern Pacific Company, and was appointed chair- 
 man of the finance committee, and, in connection with 
 President Billings, negotiated the general mortgage loan 
 which ensured the further construction of the road. He 
 was also chairman of a special committee on lands, and 
 succeeded in persuading the board to advance the price of 
 theCompany'slandseast of the Missouri and on the Pacific 
 slope from $2.60 to $4 per acre. The most important 
 proceeding during his brief term as president was the ne- 
 gotiation with the Crow Indians for the right of way 
 
244 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 through their reservation, fronting on the Yellowstone 
 River for a distance of over two hundred miles. The 
 Company had the right under its charter to build through 
 the reservation, and the Interior Department recognized 
 that right, but the Company thought it wise to satisfy the 
 Indians by the payment of $25,000. Mr. Barney was suc- 
 ceeded as president by Henry Villard, on September 1 5th, 
 1881, but remained a member of the board of directors. 
 
 -%l 
 
owstonc 
 IS. The 
 through 
 :ognizccl 
 tisfy the 
 was suc- 
 )er 15th, 
 ircctors. 
 
o 
 
 -3 
 
 3 
 u 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 HENRY VILLARD AS JOURNALIST AND RAILWAY MANAGER. 
 
 
 a 
 
 3 
 
 8 
 u 
 
 Mr. Villard's Dirth anil Education in Germany — He Emigrates to the United 
 Slates at the Age of i3-:-Studics Law and ^^'rites for tlic German Papers 
 — Masters tlic English Lanfjiiage and becomes ajonrnalist — Goes to the 
 I'iUe's Peak Gold Mines — His Career as a War Correspondent from i86l 
 to 1S64 — Secretary of the American Social Science Association — Visits to 
 Europe — Returns to America to Represent German I5ondholders of De- 
 faultincr Railronds — Receiver of the Kansas Pacific Railroad — President 
 of the Oregon ami California Railroad — Actjuires Control of the Oregon 
 Steamship Company and the Oregon Steam Navigation Company — Prop- 
 osition to the T/nion Pacific Company — Organization of the Oregon 
 Railway and Navigation Company — Prosecution of ^Ir. Villard's General 
 Transportation Plan. 
 
 Henry Villard was born in the old imperial city of 
 Spcyer, on the Rhine, in 1835, and was the second of 
 three children, the other two being sisters. His father 
 was in the judicial branch of the civil service of Bavaria, 
 and at the time of his birth was stationed in a small town 
 near Speyer. The father received successive promotions, 
 necessitating frequent changes of habitation in Rhenish 
 Bavaria. He finally became presiding judge of the dis- 
 trict court in the town of Zweibrilcken, where the son 
 spent the greater portion of his childhood, from 1839 ^^ 
 1849. ^" the interval between his sixth and eighth years 
 he attended the public elementary school in that town, 
 and then at the age of eight entered the Latin school, 
 or Gymnasium, in which he remained for six years, going 
 through its several classes. The revolutionary outbreak, 
 which temporarily disturbed not only public, but also 
 school life, in Southern Germany in 1848 and 1849, ^^' 
 cided his father to send him for a time to a French college 
 at Pfalzbourg, in Lorraine. There he remained a year, 
 
s"!^' ; ' 
 
 246 
 
 NORTHEPN PACIFIC KAILROAD. 
 
 and ill the fall of 1850 entered the Gymnasium at Spcyer, 
 from which Jic graduated in the summer of 1852. He 
 next visited the universities of Munich and Wurzburg. 
 
 In consequence of the poHtical oppression, and the rev- 
 olutionary agitation growing out of it, which prevailed in 
 Germany in 1S31 and 1832, an uncle and several brothers 
 of his father (the former of whom held a high judicial 
 position) emigrated in those years to the United States, 
 settling near St. Louis, in and about the town now known 
 as Belleville, St. Clair County, Illinois. They were fol- 
 lowed by members of other branches of the family, so 
 that gradually the greater number of relatives on his 
 father's side became settled in the United States. Through 
 the regular correspondence of these relatives, he became 
 much interested in this country, and being possessed of a 
 lively imagination and a restless temperament, he made up 
 his mind, while pursuing his University studies, to seek his 
 fortune on this side of the Atlantic. He accordingly came 
 to America in October, 1853. It was his intention at once 
 to seek his rek'tives in Illinois; but, from a variety of 
 circumstances, he did not carry out this purpose for a 
 year. Ho remained some time in New York, and then 
 found his way to Chicago, whence in November, 1854, he 
 went to St. Louis, and thence to Belleville, spending the 
 winter on a large farm belonging to one of his father's 
 brothers, near Belleville. While in Belleville he amused 
 himself by writing occasional contr'ibutions to the local 
 German paper, which were so favorably received by the 
 editor as to impress him with the belief that he might 
 earn his bread as a journalist. In the spring he decided 
 to read law, and with that purpose entered an attorney's 
 office in Belleville. He soon found, from the fact that 
 Belleville was almost exclusively inhabited by Germans, 
 and only the German language was used in the society in 
 which he moved, that he would not readily acquire the 
 
HEKRY VILLA RD AS RAILIVAY MAJVAGER. 
 
 247 
 
 English language if he remained there. Througli the 
 influence of a relative he obtained an opportunity to 
 continue his law studies in Peoria, Illinois. After re- 
 maining a few months there, the recollection of his 
 former stay in Chicago induced him to return to that 
 city, which he looked upon as a promising field for a 
 young man. 
 
 The dry methods by which he was to acquire a knowl- 
 edge of the law did not attract the young man, but 
 rr^her repelled him, and the recollection of his journal- 
 istic elTorts iii Belleville led him to try his hand at writing 
 letters for the newspapers. He first sent his letters, 
 descriptive of Chicago and the West, to some German 
 weeklies in New York, and they were readily accepted. 
 He continued his journalistic labors at various western 
 points, but the conviction settled upon him that the 
 German press offered but a limited opening for success, 
 and that if he wished to achieve distinction, he could only 
 do so by qualifying himself to become a writer for the 
 English press. He had acquired the verbal use of the Eng- 
 lish language with comparative rapidity, but still had very 
 little practice in writing it. He worked very hard to perfect 
 himself in the written use of it, however, and in the spring 
 of 1858 he first sought admission to the columns of eastern 
 papers printed in the English language. The result was 
 an engagement to report the course of the political 
 campaign between Lincoln and Douglas in Illinois, in the 
 summer of 1858. Mr. Villard traveled over the State till 
 late in the fall with the two candidates, reporting their 
 joint discussions. Upon the conclusion of the campaign 
 he proceeded to Indianapolis to report the proceedings of 
 the Indiana Legislature, in which an exciting senatorial 
 contest was in progress, and wrote letters to the Cincin- 
 nati Commercial and other papers from that point. He 
 was expelled from the reporters' gallery of the Indiana 
 
248 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ,;i! 
 
 House on account of some severe comments in his letters 
 on the conduct of one of the members. During the same 
 winter he spent some time at Springfield, the capital of 
 Illinois, writing letters about the Legislative proceedings 
 there. 
 
 In the spring of 1859 ^^''- Villard went to Cincinnati, 
 and made an engagement with the editor of the Commer- 
 cial \o go to the newly-discovered .gold region of Colo- 
 rado, and write a series of letters for that paper. He 
 reached Leavenworth in time to take passage on the fi'"-^ 
 stage across the plains, run by the Leavenworth ; 
 Pike's Peak Express Company, which left early in April 
 for Denver. He explored during the summer the Ter- 
 ritory of Colorado, as far as it was accessible at that 
 time — a portion of the time in company with Horace 
 Greeley and Albert D. Richardson, who visited the Ter- 
 ritory that summer, the former being on his way over- 
 land to California. He made two trips to the Missouri 
 River that summer, and on finally leaving Colorado, 
 started late in November with a party on horseback for 
 the East. The party were caught in violent snow-storms, 
 and after severe privations, reached the settlements of 
 Eastern Kansas. Mr. Villard spent the winter of 1859- 
 60 in St. Louis preparing for publication a volume, which 
 was issued the next spring, on the new Pike's Peak 
 mining region, compiled chiefly from his letters in the 
 Commercial. 
 
 Mr. Villard attended the National Convention at Chi- 
 cago which nominated Abraham Lincoln for President, 
 and spent the summer and fall of i860 in active work as 
 a correspondent, traveling, attending mass-meetings, and 
 reporting the progress of the political campaign in the 
 West. Late in the fall he found time to work up statis- 
 tics concerning the extent of the trade across the plains to 
 Colorado and New Mexico, with a view of influencing the 
 
HENRY VILLA RD AS RAIL WAY MANAGER. 
 
 249 
 
 course of the projected railroad to the Pacific, which were 
 published in the New York Herald in the fall of i860. 
 Mr. Frederick Hudson, then managing editor of the 
 Herald, learning of Mr. Villard's personal acquaintance 
 with Lincoln, engaged him to go to Springfield and spend 
 there the time between the election in November and the 
 departure of the new President for Washington in the 
 following February, in observing the movements of poli- 
 ticians. He telegraphed his reports daily to the Herald, 
 and under the rules of the Associated Press they were 
 sent to the papers throughout the country. Mr. Villard 
 was enabled to get an inside view of the intrigues for 
 cabinet positions, and for the control of the policy of the 
 new administration. Ey invitation of Mr. Lincoln he 
 accompanied him as far as New York, on his journey 
 to Washington. After spending a few days at New York, 
 he went to Washington, and established himself there 
 as a political correspondent of eastern and western 
 papers, his personal acquaintance with the President giv- 
 ing him a conspicuous position at once among the 
 newspaper correspondents stationed at the capital. 
 
 He remained in Washington as a correspondent until 
 the first Bull Run campaign, when he accompanied the 
 army to the field, and in its retreat after the battle. After 
 returning to Washington, he proceeded to the West, and 
 joined the forces in Kentucky under the command of 
 General Buell, whose campaign in Kentucky, Tennessee, 
 Mississippi and Alabama he witnessed till the fall of 1862. 
 He next joined the army of the Potomac and reported 
 the unfortunate campaign of General Burnside, which 
 culminated in the disastrous battle of Fredericksburg. 
 He then joined the Hilton Head expedition to South 
 Carolina, and remained there three months. When the first 
 attack was made ui^on Charleston in April, 1863, Mr. 
 Villard was on Admiral Dupont's flag-ship the Ironsides, 
 17 
 
■^ 
 
 25b 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 and was the only correspondent in the battle. He went 
 North immediately after the engagement. 
 
 His success at Charleston earned him a three-weeks' 
 leave of absence, during which he went to Boston, and 
 made the acquaintance of the lady who afterwards became 
 his wife. Miss Fanny Garrison, a daughter of the great 
 anti-slavery agitator and leader, William Lloyd Garrison. 
 He again went West, joining General Rosecrans. Here 
 he became acquainted with General Garfield, who at that 
 time was Rosecrans' chief of staff. While with the army in 
 Tennessee, he contracted a severe malarial fever which 
 came near costing him his life, and incapacitated him for 
 along time from work of any kind. Going to the Yellow 
 Springs of Ohio, and afterwards to Cincinnati, he finally 
 became convalescent, and hastened back to the field, re 
 joining Rosecrans at Chattanooga, before the battle of 
 Chickamauga. From Chattanooga he went to Washing- 
 ton, and, in connection with Horace White and Adams S. 
 Hill, started a newspaper correspondence bureau, to fur- 
 nish news from the capital, and A'om the seat of war in 
 Virginia, to a combination of important papers outside 
 the New York Associated Press. This was the first in- 
 stance of an arrangement, which afterwards became quite 
 common in Washington, by which a number of papers in 
 cities widely distant from each other are served with the 
 same dispatches and letters from important news centres. 
 Mr. Villard's combination consisted of the Boston Adver- 
 tiser, Springfield Republican, Cincinnati Couuncrcial, Chicago 
 Tribune, and St, Louis Democrat. This was in December, 
 1863. He remained at Washington till Grant began the 
 Wilderness campaign, when he took the field at Culpepper 
 Court House as a correspondent, representing the news 
 bureau above referred to, and witnessed the battles of the 
 campaign, and the siege of Petersburg. 
 
 In September, 1864, Mr. Villard returned to Europe for 
 
 
HENRY VILLA RD AS RAILWAY MANAGER. 
 
 251 
 
 He went 
 
 e-wecks' 
 ton, and 
 3 became 
 he great 
 jrarrison. 
 s. Here 
 
 at that 
 e army in 
 er which 
 
 1 him for 
 c Yellow 
 le finally 
 
 field, re 
 battle of 
 kVashing- 
 \dams S. 
 u, to fur- 
 if war in 
 outside 
 first in- 
 me quite 
 capers in 
 with the 
 centres. 
 n Adi'cr- 
 f, Chicago 
 ccember, 
 cgan the 
 ulpepper 
 the news 
 cs of the 
 
 I rope for 
 
 the first time since coming to this country, and visited his 
 relatives in Germany. On the 1st of April, 1865, he sailed 
 from Liverpool, designing to take part in the spring cam- 
 paign in Virginia. On landing at Boston he learned of 
 the collapse of the rebellion, and of the assassination of 
 President Lincoln. For a time he furnished correspond- 
 ence from the East to the Chicago Tribune, of which his 
 former associate, Horace White, had become the manag- 
 ing editor. Going to Washington, he spent some weeks 
 in the preparation of the mortality statistics of the war, 
 from the records of the Government archives, intending 
 to make them the basis of a book, which, however, was 
 not completed. 
 
 Mr. Villard was married in Boston, on January 3d, 1866. 
 Returning soon after to W'ashington, he wrote for the 
 Chicago Tribune during that winter. In July, 1866, he 
 accepted an offer from the N'cza York Tribune to go to 
 Europe and report the Austro-Prussian war, which had 
 then just broken out. By the time he had crossed the 
 Atlantic, however, the six weeks' struggle had come to a 
 close, and there was nothing left for him to do but to visit 
 the battle-grounds of Koeniggratz and Sadowa, and also 
 the cities of Vienna and Berlin, to observe the effects of 
 the war, and the political changes resulting from it. He 
 stayed in Germany till April, 1867, and then went to 
 Paris to furnish correspondence from the International 
 Exhibition, remaining till its close. He was joined in 
 June, 1867, by hi. father-in-law, William Lloyd Garrison, 
 who soon afterwards made a tour through Great Britain, 
 in the course of which distinguished honors were showered 
 upon him as the leading representative of the anti-slavery 
 movement in America, which had brought about the free- 
 dom of the colored race in the Southern States. 
 
 From Paris Mr. Villard went to Switzerland, and after- 
 wards to Munich, to attend the death-bed of his father, 
 
.'<;2 
 
 NOJ^TIIEKN' PACIFIC RAILROAD, 
 
 who had in recent years become a judge of the Supreme 
 Court of the Kingdom of Bavaria. The following winter 
 he spent in Paris, writing letters for the Chicago Tribune. 
 In the winter of 1868, he made a journey, in the interest 
 of that paper, to visit John Stuart Mill at Avignon and 
 to Italy to describe the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. 
 He returned in June to the United States, where, for a time 
 he was engaged in writing editorial articles for the Boston 
 Advertiser. Shortly afterwards he was elected Secretary 
 of the American Social Science Association, to which he 
 devoted his energies until 1870. The war of 1870 between 
 France and Germany greatly interested him, and he went 
 back to his native country, partly to observe the struggle, 
 and partly for the benefit of his health, which was con- 
 siderably impaired. Returning to America in February, 
 1871, he resumed his position as Secretary of the Ameri- 
 can Social Science Association. In September of the 
 same year he again went to Europe, and renjained till 
 April, 1874. It was during this period that his connec- 
 tion with railroad enterprises began. While living at 
 Wiesbaden, he interested himself in the negotiation of 
 American securities in Germany, and became acquainted 
 with leading bankers in Frankfort and Berlin. After the 
 financial panic of 1073, many American railroad com- 
 panies became bankrupt, and default was made in the pay- 
 ment of the interest on their bonds held in Germany. 
 Committees were organized for the protection of the 
 bondholders. Mr. Villard was asked to join several of 
 these committees. Consenting, after some hesitation on 
 account of the condition of his health, he soon found 
 that most of the work was thrown upon his shoulders, 
 because of his knowledge of the English language, and of 
 American affairs. In April, 1874, he returned to America 
 to represent the interests of his constituents. His special 
 purpose was to go to Oregon and close a contract, the pre- 
 
c Supreme 
 ing winter 
 fi? Tribune. 
 lie interest 
 'ignon and 
 
 Vesuvius. 
 , for a time 
 the Boston 
 
 Secretary 
 
 which lie 
 o between 
 d he went 
 - struggle, 
 
 was con- 
 February, 
 he Ameri- 
 er of the 
 lained till 
 is connec- 
 
 living at 
 itii:;tion of 
 cquainted 
 After the 
 oad com- 
 n the pay- 
 Germany, 
 •n of the 
 several of 
 itation on 
 on found 
 ihoulders, 
 jc, and of 
 
 America 
 [is special 
 t, the pre- 
 
M 
 
HEiXRY VILLARD AS RAILWAY MAX ACER. 
 
 '53 
 
 H 
 
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 11 
 
 11 13 
 
 ill 
 
 ill 
 
 11 -^ 
 
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 V. 
 
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 E 
 
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 i 
 
 ii 
 
 liminarics of u'hich had been arranged at Frankfort by a 
 special agent sent thereby Ben. Holladay, the then presi- 
 dent of the Oregon and California Railroad Company, 
 which Company had made default on its first mortgage 
 bonds in the summer of 1873. He took with liim a 
 competent German engineer, R. Koehler, who afterwards 
 became general manager of the Company. On his way to 
 the Pacific coast, Mr. Villard, in connection with his com- 
 panion, examined a number of western railroads. 
 
 He reached Oregon in August of 1874, and was at once 
 very much impressed with the beauty of the scenery and 
 the great natural resources of the country. He was 
 struck, moreover, with the peculiar natural divisions of 
 the country, which clearly defined and prescribed the only 
 possible transportation lines. He observed that West- 
 ern Oregon consists mainly of one great valley, that of 
 the Willamette River, and that Eastern Oregon and East- 
 ern Washington are only accessible, owing to the impass- 
 able character of the Cascade Range — the continuation ol 
 the Sierra Nevada of California — by the Columbia River. 
 He perceived that the control by transportation lines of 
 the valleys of these two rivers would insure the substan- 
 tial control of the traffic of the entire vast region watered 
 by them and their tributaries. In the light of the natural 
 conditions he conceived the plans, which he found the op- 
 portunity to carry out, however, only in the course of years. 
 
 The Oregon and California and the Oregon Central 
 Railroad Companies, on behalf of whose mortgage cred- 
 itors Mr. Villard visited Oregon, had already virtual 
 possession of the Willamette Valley by their existing lines 
 on each side of the river. It happened, moreover, that 
 the same banks and bankers that had negotiated in Eu- 
 rope the bonds of the Oregon and California Railroad 
 Company had also a hold as mortgage creditors upon the 
 steamer line, then forming the only connection between 
 
254 
 
 NORTHERN- PACfl'IC RAILROAD. 
 
 Oregon and the rest of the world. Mr. Villard, of course, 
 saw the desirability of the control of this outlet by sea in 
 combination with that of the interior transportation lines. 
 His connection with the controlling European capitalists 
 naturally opened the way for the realization of his plans. 
 
 The contract to close which Mr, Villard went to Ore- 
 gon was a compromise between the Oregon and Califor- 
 nia Railroad Company and the bondholders, based on a 
 reduction of the current interest charge. In less than a year 
 it became apparent that the Company would not be able 
 to comply with the agreement, in consequence of which 
 Mr. Villard was deputed to proceed again to the 
 United States, and to enter into a new arrangement, under 
 which the Company was to surrender absolutely the con- 
 trol of the properties to the bondholders. This was 
 effected, and Mr. Villard thereupon became president of 
 the Oregon and California Railroad Company and the 
 Oregon Steamship Company, in 1875. 
 
 In 1873 Mr. Villard was also elected a member of a 
 committee at Frankfort-on-thc-Main, representing the 
 bondholders of the Kansas Pacific Railway Company, 
 which the crisis of that year had also forced to make de- 
 fault in the payment of interest on its bonds. A com- 
 promise was entered into between the Company and the 
 committee under which the interest on the bonds was to 
 be funded for three years. In 1876 the Company was 
 unable to resume payment of interest, and requested Mr. 
 Villard to act as one of the receivers, whose appointment 
 then became necessary. On receiving the assent of the 
 Frankfort committee of bondholders, he accepted the 
 position in connection with Carlos S. Greeley, of St. 
 Louis. He continued in that capacity until the fall of 
 1878, when both receivers were removed by order of the 
 court which had appointed them. The cause of their re- 
 moval was the discord that had broken out between them. 
 
HENRY VILLA KD AS RAILWAY MANAGER. 
 
 2'; 5 
 
 As stated, Mr. Villardhad been originally appointed as the 
 representative of the mortgage creditors, and Greeley as 
 that of the Company. Mr. Villard felt in duty bound to 
 protect, in his official capacity, the interests of his con- 
 stituents, and to prevent unreasonable and unnecessary 
 sacrifices of the principal and interest of their bonds. The 
 directors of the Company, from financial straits, entered 
 into a sort of alliance with the Union Pacific Railway 
 Company, or, rather, its then controlling spirit. Jay Gould, 
 who soon managed to have matters entirely his own way 
 in the Kansas Pacific. He made several contracts with 
 the New York committee, representing the Kansas Pacific 
 bondholders, but broke them as fast as they were made, 
 in the hope of frightening the bondholders into larger 
 concessions. Having failed to win Mr. Villard over to 
 his plans, he made war upon him by abuse and slander, 
 but Mr. Villard stood resolutely by the bondholders. A 
 proti acted struggle ensued in the courts, the outcome of 
 which was that the bondholders obtained much more 
 than under the successive compromises which Gould had 
 disregarded. When Mr. Villard was appointed receiver, 
 the price of the bonds, in whose behalf the foreclosure 
 suit had been commenced, was about 40 ; when the set- 
 tlement with the Company was made, they stood much 
 above par. This result gave him great prestige, which 
 proved of much advantage to him in his subsequent 
 financial enterprises. 
 
 He held fast to his general project of uniting all the 
 transportation lines of Oregon, both rail and water, 
 under one control, but was not able to make much prog- 
 ress towards the execution of the plan until 1879, owing 
 to the great depression in financial and industrial affairs 
 prevailing in Europe as well as the United States. His 
 first effort was to obtain money to replace with new 
 steamers the old vessels of the Oregon Steamship Com- 
 
256 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 pany, and to continue the construction of the Oregon and 
 California Railroad. He did not succeed in the latter 
 direction, but gradually secured the funds for new iron 
 steamships. This had hardly been accomplished when 
 an opposition line was started, which so cut down the 
 earnings of the Company that its European owners be- 
 came discouraged, and urged Mr. Villard to find American 
 purchasers for it if possible. He made up a syndicate 
 composed of a small number of personal friends, who 
 had been with him in other enterprises, and bought the 
 properties of the Company for it at a moderate price. 
 
 Mr. Villard's next step was in the direction of securing 
 for Oregon what he thought would be of the greatest 
 benefit to all its interests — railroad communication with 
 the East. He did not at first look to the Northern Pacific 
 line for this, because of its discredited condition, but 
 turned his attention to a connection with the Union 
 Pacific line. He was well acquainted with the parties 
 controlling the Union Pacific Railway Company. He 
 knew that that Company originally intended building a 
 line to Oregon, and that it had surveyed a line ten years 
 before. He put himself in communication with the 
 managers of the Union Pacific, and made a formal propo- 
 sition to them to join him in carrying out his general 
 plan. He offered to raise half the money that he thought 
 necessary for it, if they would raise the other half. An 
 agreement was reached and executed ; a million of dollars 
 was subscribed as a start, and Mr. Villard left with the 
 subscription paper in his pocket for Oregon in April, 
 1879. 
 
 His first purpose was to occupy one or the other bank 
 of the Columbia River, with a view to the construction of 
 an extension of the Union Pacific to Portland, ^ 
 He had already, the year before, instituted a oiy 
 
 examination of the banks of the Columbia River, ith a 
 
HENRY VILLARD AS RAILWAY MANAGER. 
 
 257 
 
 view to ascertaining the character and cost of the re- 
 quisite work. The engineer in charge had made a rather 
 unfavorable report as to the possibility of a road on the 
 south bank of the river. Hence, on arriving at Portland, 
 Mr. Villard put another surveying party in the field to 
 examine the north bank. The result was also discourufr- 
 ing, in that it indicated the great difficulty and cost of a 
 line on that side likewise. 
 
 At that time the transportation business of the Col- 
 umbia Valley was entirely in the hands of the Oregon 
 Steam Navigation Company, and carried on by separate 
 fleets of steamboats, running respectively on the lower, 
 middle, and upper Columbia, and connecting with each 
 other by means of portage railroads around the principal 
 natural obstructions to the navigation of the river at the 
 Cascades and the Dalles. The Company was then just 
 entering upon a stage of great prosperity in consequence 
 of the increase of down river freights b/ the develop- 
 ment of wheat farming on a large scale in the upper 
 Columbia country. Its stock was worth about forty 
 cents on the dollar in the spring of 1879. A controlling 
 interest in its stock had been purchased in 1872, as has 
 been stated in a former chapter, by the Northern Pacific 
 Company, and on the bankruptcy of Jay Cooke & Co., 
 tills stock, having been largely hypothecated for loans, 
 was relinquished to creditors of the railroad, or divided 
 as an asset among the creditors of the banking firm, and 
 thus passed into the hands of a large number of holders. 
 The Oregon Steam Navigation Company was managed 
 by Captain J. C. Ainsworth, S. G. Reed, and R> R. 
 Thompson, all then residents of Portland. Mr. Villard 
 the ught it best to see first the upper Columbia country, 
 and especially the Walla Walla region, before deciding 
 lefinitely upon his course. His observations on the trip 
 resulted in the conclusion that it would be wisest to ob- 
 17 
 
IP' 
 
 258 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 tain, first of all, control of the Oregon Steam Naviga- 
 tion Company in order to keep the railroads, to be built 
 in the valley of the Columbia, free from competition from 
 the start. Accordingly, he entered into negotiations for 
 this purpose with the president of the Navigation Com- 
 pany, Captain J. C. Ainsworth, for the purchase of the 
 stock of himself and associates. An agreement to this 
 effect was speedily reached, immediately after the execu- 
 tion of which Mr. Villard returned to New York, arriv- 
 ing on June 9th. He reported his doings to the Union 
 Pacific parties, and, true to the understanding with them, 
 offered them half an interest in his contract for the pur- 
 chase of the control of the Oregon Steam Navigation 
 Company's stock, and in the new Company, under the 
 name of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, 
 by which he intended to absorb both the Oregon Steam 
 Navigation Company and the Oregon Steamship Com- 
 pany, of which latter he had already acquired control, as 
 heretofore explained. After much hesitation and delay, 
 his offer was declined — the greatest mistake ever made 
 by the parties controlling the Union Pacific 
 
 Mr. Villard had six months' time in which to comply 
 with the terms of the Ainsworth contract. But he felt 
 the need of a long rest in Europe, and was determined 
 that all the conditions — including the payment of $2,000,- 
 000 in cash, the organization of the Oregon Railway and 
 Navigation Company, the creation of a mortgage, the 
 issue of stock and bonds, and numerous other details — 
 should be complied with by July 1st, so that he could sail 
 soon thereafter. Though he had thus but three weeks, 
 he accomplished all in that short time, with the intelligent 
 and devoted aid of numerous influential friends. 
 
 The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company was in- 
 corporated on the 13th of June, 1879. It had authority to 
 issue $6,000,000 of bonds and $6,000,000 of stock, the 
 
HENRY VILLARD AS RAILWAY MANAGER. 
 
 259 
 
 Naviga- 
 be built 
 on from 
 tions for 
 on Com- 
 e of the 
 : to this 
 le execu- 
 irk, arriv- 
 lie Union 
 ith them, 
 
 the pur- 
 avigation 
 inder the 
 Company, 
 Dn Steam 
 ship Com- 
 rontrol, as 
 md delay, 
 
 ver made 
 
 o comply 
 [it he felt 
 letcrmined 
 f $2,000,- 
 ilway and 
 gage, the 
 details — 
 could sail 
 ee weeks, 
 ntelHgent 
 
 greater portion of the proceeds of the former of which 
 served to acquire the properties of the Oregon Steamship 
 Company, and to carry out the contract with Captain 
 Ainsworth. All the stock then issued went as a bonus with 
 the bonds. Mr. Villard was elected president of the new 
 Company, and J. N. Dolph, of Portland, vice-president. 
 Its first Board of Directors was composed of Henry 
 Yillard, Artemus H. Holmes, William H. Starbuck, and 
 James B. Fry, of New York, and George W. Weidler, J. C. 
 Ainsworth, S. G. Reed, Paul Schulze, H. VV. Corbctt, 
 C. H. Lewis, and J. N. Dolph, of Portland. 
 
 Mr. Villard sailed on July loth, and returned early in 
 November. A friend boarded the steamer to welcome 
 him, and, in reply to a question, pulled out a broker's 
 statement showing that the Oregon Railway and Naviga- 
 tion stock, which had been given away as a bonus in 
 July, was already then selling at 95. 
 
 Mr. Villard, before sailing, had made all necessary 
 arrangements for commencing the realization of the 
 general project, fully matured in the meantime, fcr build- 
 ing a trunk railroad line along the south bank -^f the 
 Columbia River, and, in connection with it, a fa., kc 
 system of feeders covering Eastern Oregon and Wash- 
 ington Territory. During the summer the preliminary 
 engineering work was accomplished, and construction had 
 actually commenced on his return. 
 
 The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company has 
 since made a proud record as the 'most successful trans- 
 portation company in the country. It started with net 
 earnings in 1879 of about three-quarters of a million. It 
 is expected that in the fourth year of its existence it will 
 earn four times that amount. It has expended more 
 than $20,000,000 of actual money in building over ^00 
 miles of standard gauge road, and in largely increasing 
 its other — real and floating — properties. It is the only 
 
■^nr 
 
 260 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD, 
 
 railroad and navigation company in this country that 
 since its first issue of bonds has never borrowed a dollar 
 for any purpose, but has raised all its capital by selling 
 its stock at par to its stockholders. 
 
jntry that 
 id a dollar 
 by selling 
 
Along the.Cliffsfof the Columbia. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 PRESIDENCY OF HENRY VILLARD. 
 
 Relations of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company with the North- 
 ern Pacific —A Tlireatened Conflict of Interests — Traffic Contract Agreed 
 Upon — Villard's Plan to Acquire Control of the Northern Pacific — 
 Hibtory of the Blind Pool — A Romance of Wall Street — Formation of 
 the Oregon nnd Transcontinental Company — Its Objects — A Legal 
 Controversy over an Issue of Northern Pacific Common Stock — Henry 
 Villard ^lected President of the Northern Pacific — Thomas F. Oakes 
 Elected > ^-President — Important Financial Aid Afforded by the 
 Oregon and Transcontinental — Building of Branch Lines. 
 
 In the preceding pages an account has been given of 
 Mr. Villard's efforts and aims in organizing the Oregon 
 Raihvay and Navigation Company, and of the financial 
 measures taken in order to insure its rnpid development 
 from a mixed transportation system consisting of steam- 
 ships, steamboats, and a small disconnected railroad mile- 
 age into the more comprehensive and solid system, with a 
 preponderance of railroad lines, it has become since 1879. 
 But it was not only the needs of the new enterprise in these 
 respects that called for his attention and action. It be- 
 came also necessary, at an early stage, to provide against 
 danger from possible competition. The principal pros- 
 pective danger lay in the possible conflict of the interests 
 of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company with 
 those of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. As 
 early as the spring of 1880, Mr. Villard entered into com- 
 munication with the executive officers of the Northern 
 Pacific Railroad Company in order to suggest and bring 
 about, if practicable, such agreements between the two 
 corporations as would avert future collisions. Two ob- 
 jects he was especially anxious to secure ; first, the grant- 
 
wmm 
 
 262 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ing of the right of way for the line along the south bank 
 of the Columbia River to be built by the Oregon Railway 
 and Navigation Company ; and, secondly, a traffic arrange- 
 ment under which the Northern Pacific would use this 
 line as its outlet to tide-water on the Pacific coast, in- 
 stead of building a line of its own. At that time the con- 
 struction of the Pend d'Oreille Division, from the mouth 
 of the Snake River to Lake Pend d'Oreille, had already 
 been determined upon by the Northern Pacific, on the 
 advice of the then managing director on the Pacific coast, 
 Captain J. C. Ainsworth. The management of that 
 Company believed with him that the transportation facil- 
 ities then existing along the Columbia River were suf- 
 ficient until the main line should be completed across the 
 continent to a junction with the Pend d'Oreille Division. 
 Moreover, it was expected that the formal acquisition of 
 many millions of acres of rich lands in eastern Washing- 
 ton, by the construction of the Pend d'Oreille Division, 
 would largely improve the credit and help the finances 
 of the Company. Still, it may be assumed that if the 
 Northern Pacific management had known or anticipated 
 before the financial measures adopted for the construc- 
 tion of the Pend d'Oreille Division had become irre- 
 vocable, that a new and probably rival interest would 
 acquire control of the navigation of the Columbia River, 
 a different course would have been adopted. Mr. Viilard 
 encountered certain apprehensions from this source in his 
 endeavors for the traffic arrangement already referred to. 
 It was, in fact, not favorably looked upon, but he finally 
 satisfied President Billings, who had in the meantime 
 succeeded President Wright, of the wisdom of his propo- 
 sitions, and, as a prelimir ary measure, it was agreed that 
 Director J. D. Potts should visit the Pacific coast, and with 
 Mr. Viilard go over the ground to be covered by the new 
 transportation lines, with a view to finding a practicable 
 
PRESIDENCY OF HENRY VILLA RD. 
 
 263 
 
 basis for a mutually satisfactory arrangement. Mr. Potts 
 met Mr. Villard on the Pacific coast, as agreed, and an 
 understanding was reached by them as to the general 
 basis of the arrangement to be entered into between 
 the two companies. Upon their return to the East, the 
 work of elaboratintr a formal contract was taken in hand 
 by both sides. After weeks of deliberation, a definite 
 draft of a contract was perfected and accepted by the 
 boards of directors of both companies, and executed on 
 October 20, 1880. Mr. Villard had^not succeeded in all 
 respects in this contract. He aimed at a positive and 
 permanent engagement on the part of the Northern 
 Pacific to use the Columbia River line of the Oregon 
 Railway and Navigation Company, and to abstain from 
 the construction of a line of its own. He only suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining an agreement that the Northern 
 Pacific should use the Oregon Railway ar d Navigation 
 line, until it could build one of its own. Circumstances 
 soon arose which brought him directly face to face with 
 the dang-^r of competition, threatened by the provision of 
 the contract leaving the Northern Pacific free to build a 
 line along the north bank of the Columbia whenever 
 it was able and saw fit. 
 
 The tide of prosperity which had set in throughout the 
 country upon the resumption of specie payments had 
 risen to its greatest height in the spring and summer of 
 18S0. The investing public was very favorably disposed 
 toward all new railroad enterprises, and it was compara- 
 tively easy to raise large sums for any new undertakings 
 promising reasonable success. Impressed with this situa- 
 tion of affairs, Mr. Villard conceived the project of ac- 
 quiring a controlling influence over the Northern Pacific, 
 by furnishing it with the means for completing the main 
 line, through a syndicate to be formed by him of his 
 American and European business friends. He first ap- 
 
Tmv 
 
 264 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 proached President Billings with reference to the project 
 in the summer of 1880, upon his (Mr. Villard's) return 
 from his visit to the Pacific coast above referred to. He 
 felt confident that he could easily raise from $10,000,000 
 to $20,000,000 on Northern Pacific first mortgage bonds, 
 and made an offer to this effect to President Billings, 
 This was while the final discussion regarding the traffic 
 contract was progressing, and Mr. Villard naturally felt 
 that his offer of a large amount of capital to the Northern 
 Pacific would render jts management more favorably dis- 
 posed toward the conclusion of the contract. As already 
 related in another chapter, President Billings and the 
 Northern Pacific board, in the light of the growing de- 
 mand, so to speak, by the speculative public for new rail 
 road enterprises, were already considering, when Mr. 
 Villard made his proposal, the possibilities of financial 
 operations for the same object. President Billings, in 
 fact, had entered into formal negotiations with some 
 banking firms, for the negotiation of general first mort- 
 gage bonds — a fact of which, however, Mr. Villard had 
 at first no knowledge. When he learned of these negoti- 
 ations, he pressed his own proposals as strongly as was in 
 his power, but to no effect. The syndicate contract was 
 signed, which fact, and the intention of the syndicate to 
 offer to the public a large portion of the entire issue of 
 the general first mortgage bonds at the earliest practi- 
 cable moment, Mr. Villard learned soon afterward. He 
 was fully alive to the probable consequences of the large 
 financial resources thus assured to the Northern Pacific. 
 What with this, and his knowledge of the reluctance 
 with which the Northern Pacific executive had entered 
 into the traffic contract, and the purpose openly and fre- 
 quently avowed during the negotiations of securing an 
 independent outlet, either along the north bank of the 
 Columbia, or by the Cascade Branch to the Pacific Ocean, 
 
PRESIDENCY OF HENRY VILLARD. 
 
 265 
 
 for the Northern Pacific main line, whenever the capital 
 could be obtained to provide it, Mr. Villard was per- 
 suaded that the time had come for decisive action, 
 and that this action must be in the direction of the 
 actual control of the Northern Pacific, and the establish- 
 ment of an identity of ownership between it and the 
 Oregon Railway and Navigation Company. S' :h an 
 arrangement he believed essential to the futi . -r > 
 perity of both corporations. To carry out this iaea, Mr. 
 Villard conceived the project of forming a new com- 
 pany, which should acquire, in the first place, a controll- 
 ing interest in the respective stocks of the two corpora- 
 tions, and, secondly, should possess sufficient pecuniary 
 resources for the construction of a full system of branch 
 lines subsidiary to the main lines of the two other com- 
 panies, to protect the latter from encroachments by rival 
 interests and at the same time produce such develop- 
 ment of local traffic along the entire transcontinental line 
 as would naturally increase the intrinsic value of the 
 Northern Pacific and Oregon Railway and Navigation 
 stocks. 
 
 Mr. Villard had sufficient experience in Wall Street 
 to i ...ow that if he gave notice to the public of his inten- 
 tion to form a Company for such a purpose he would 
 never be able to secure his first and main object — that is, 
 to acquire by purchase in the open market a controlling 
 interest in the stocks of the two companies at reasonable 
 figures. He therefore determined to buy the stocks first, 
 and to form the Company that was eventually to own 
 them afterward. But even in this operation, involving, 
 as it did, the purchase of hundreds of thousands of 
 shares of stock, representing a money value of tens of 
 millions of dollars, success depended altogether on the 
 greatest possible secrecy. Mr. Villard, therefore, exercised 
 every precaution to conceal himself as a buyer, using ex- 
 

 
 266 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 clusively his private means and credit. Of his numerous 
 friends and followers but very few, on whose discretion 
 he could absolutely rely, knew of his movements. In this 
 way he very quietly took out of the markel; large lines of 
 the desired stocks during the months of D ^cember, i8to, 
 and January, i88i. Having thus obtained the virtual 
 control of the market as regarded the three stocks he was 
 buying, he felt sure that complete success was only a 
 question of further investment. Early in February, 
 1 88 1, he decided to call on his friends for funds for 
 further purchases — in such a manner, however, as would 
 not yet disclose the real object he sought to accom- 
 plish. 
 
 Having absolute faith in the soundness of his project, 
 and feeling justified in taking large responsibilities, as the 
 assumption of such was in the direct interest of all con- 
 cerned, and was the only sure means of accomplishing his 
 purpose, he decided to make the strongest appeal any 
 man could make to the confidence of others in him by 
 asking his friends and followers to place their money in 
 his hands, without telling them the use to which he in- 
 tended to put it. Accordingly he issued a private cir- 
 cular to about fifty persons, informing them that he 
 desired them to subscribe toward a fund of $8,000,000, 
 to which he would himself contribute a large part, in 
 order to enable him to lay the foundation of a certain 
 enterprise, the exact nature of which he would disclose 
 thereafter. The effect of the announcement was marvel- 
 ous. The very mystery of it appeared to be an irresist- 
 ible attraction. The result was that one-third of the per- 
 sons appealed to signed the full amount asked for before 
 the subscription list could reach the other two-third?. 
 Then an eager rush of applications for th? right to sub- 
 scribe ensued, and within twenty-four hours after the issue 
 of the circular more than twice the amount offered was 
 
PHESIDEXCV OF HENRY VILLA RD. 
 
 267 
 
 appl'cd for. The allotments were made as fairly as pos- 
 sible, but hardly one of the subscribers was satisfied with 
 the amount allowed him. All wanted more, and Mr. 
 Villard's offices were crowded with applicants pleading 
 for larger participations, including some of the first 
 bankers of the city. In some cases the disappointment 
 led to angry protests. The demand far exceeding the 
 supply, the subscriptions commanded twenty-five per cent, 
 premium at once, and rose to thirty, forty, and fifty per 
 cent, premium as soon as the allotment was announced , 
 that is, people were willing to pay as high a premium as 
 five hundred dollars for every thousand dollars they were 
 permitted to pay into the hands of Mr. Villard, without 
 having the least idea as to the use he would make of 
 their money. The $S,ooo,ooo subscribed for and allotted 
 were called for payment in three installments, running 
 from February 15 to April 2, and notwithstanding the 
 great stringency in the money market at that time — 
 money commanding a premium of from one-eighth of 
 one per cent, to one per cent, a day — the payments were 
 promptly met, without a single exception. 
 
 The subscribers received a personal receipt from Mr. 
 Villard, reading as follows : " Received this day from 
 the sum of 
 
 dollars, as his contribu- 
 tion to, and which entitles the holder hereof to a propor- 
 tionate interest in, the transactions of a Purchasing Syn- 
 dicate, to be formed, with a capital of $8,000,000, by 
 agreement in writing of the parties in like interest, for 
 the acquisition of properties, real, personal and mixed, 
 for tl e purpose of the sale thereof to or the consolida- 
 tion thereof with The Oregon Railway and Navigation 
 Company, or The Oregon Improvement Company, or 
 both, or to serve as the basis for the formation of a new 
 Company. It is understood and agreed that the under- 
 signed shall account to the holder hereof for the use of the 
 
268 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 moneys for which this and like receipts are given on or 
 before May 15, 1881, but not sooner, and that the holder 
 hereof shall participate equally in all the profits and 
 benefits of every description with all other persons in like 
 interest in proportion to said contribution. This receipt 
 is not transferable except upon the written consent of 
 the undei signed." 
 
 For reasons of policy, the accounting promised in the 
 receipt for May 15 was postponed until June 24, on 
 which day the subscribers to the " Purchasing Syndi- 
 cate " met by invitation in the offices of Mr. Villard, 
 when he formally disclosed for the first time his full 
 scheme for the formation of a third Company for the 
 double object already explained. The project was so well 
 received that Mr. Villard's simultaneous invitation to the 
 subscribers present to join him in a new subscription for 
 the further amount of $12,000,000, to pay for additional 
 amounts of Northern Pacific and Oregon Railway and 
 Navigation stocks already in the meantime purchased by 
 him, was generally responded to. 
 
 The payments on account of the second subscription 
 were made in seven separate installments, extending from 
 July 6, 1 88 1, to April i, 1882, when the last installment, of 
 twenty per cent., amounting to nearly $2,500,000, was 
 received, thus completing the two subscriptions under 
 which a total of more than $20,000,000 in money was 
 actually paid in. Payments on all of the seven calls were 
 made with remarkable regularity. Although the original 
 issues of receipts for large subscriptions were exchanged 
 in most cases for a great number of receipts for smaller 
 amounts, in order to enable bankers and brokers to deal in 
 them, every one of the receipi-s in circulation was finally 
 returned for cancellation. 
 
 The new Company was formally organized immediately 
 after the meeting of June 24, above referred to, under 
 
PRESIDENCY OF HENRY VILLA RD. 
 
 269 
 
 the name of the Oregon and Transcontinental Company. 
 Its immediate object, to-\vit, the union of the control of 
 the Northern Pacific Railroad and the Oregon Railway 
 and Navigation Companies, was at first misunderstood, 
 and led to some uneasiness and apprehension that the 
 profits of the new corporation would be earned to the 
 detriment of the two older ones. In a short time, how- 
 ever, the stockholders generally of both companies became 
 satisfied that the union would not only worl- no harm to 
 them, but would greatly promote their prosperity. 
 
 In purchasing a controlling interest in the Northern 
 Pacific stocks, it was not the purpose of Mr. Villard to 
 oust the then management of the Company. On the con- 
 trary he intended to offer it a friendly alliance, and to ask 
 merely for a moderate representation in the Northern 
 Pacific board. He personally made such a proposition to 
 President Billings, and, in the course of several interviews 
 with him, took pains to explain his full project for the 
 control of ail the transportation lines in Oregon and Wash- 
 ington Territory, not in the interest and for the benefit of 
 the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, but really 
 of the Northern Pacific ; but President Billings con- 
 sidered Mr. Villard's plans as too far-reaching or rather 
 visionary, as he termed them : nor would he listen to 
 the request for a small representation in the board. He 
 and the other members of the board were impressed 
 with the belief that it was Mr. Villard's intention to ob- 
 tain control of the Northern Pacific in the sole interest of 
 the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company — that is, to 
 secure a permanent monopoly of Oregon and Washington 
 Territory for that Company to the exclusion of contem- 
 plated Northt^rn Pacific lines in that region. After his 
 unsuccessful -^fiforts for a recognition, Mr. Villard offered 
 to purchase the holdings of Mr. Billings and the other 
 directors. This offer was also declined. 
 
NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Up to that time there remained undistributed in the 
 hands of the treasurer of the Company as trustee about 
 $i8,ooo,ooj out of the $49,000,000 of Northern Pacific 
 Common stock created under the terms of reorganization. 
 It had been the practice theretofore to distribute the issue 
 of Common stock to those entitled thereto in proportion 
 to the progress of construction of the road. President 
 Billings, alarmed by the movements of Mr. Villard, called 
 a meeting of the executive committee, at which it was re- 
 solved to divide at once the undistributed portion of the 
 stock. As soon as Mr. Villard obtc\ined knowledge of 
 this purpose, he sued out a t'.'mpoiar/ injunction in order 
 to prevent the distribution. Simultaneously suit was 
 commenced by a preferred stockholder agai'ist the Com- 
 pany for an accounting for the earnings belonging to the 
 preferred stock under the reorganization. The litigation 
 attracted f.^eneral attention at the time. After it had pro- 
 gressed some weeks, a compromise was made, under 
 which Mr. Villard secured recognition in the board by the 
 election of Messrs. Artemas H. Holmes and Thomas F. 
 Oakes, in place of Joseph Dilworth and Johnston Liv- 
 ingston, and by the election of Tl.omas Oakes as first 
 vice-president. 
 
 At the annual meeting of the Northern Pacific stock- 
 holders held September 15, 1881, a board of directors 
 was chosen satisfactory both to the Oregon and Transcoii- 
 tincntal Company and to the old management. It con- 
 sisted of the following persons : Frederick Billings, Ash- 
 bel H Barney, John \V. Ellis, Rosewell G. Rolston, 
 Robert Harris, Thomas V. Oakes, Artemas H. Holmes 
 and Henry Villard, of New York; J. L. Stackpolc, 
 Elijah Smith and Benjamin P. Cheney, of Boston ; John 
 C. Bullitt, of Philadelphia, and Henry E. Johnston, of 
 Baltimore. Henry Villard was tlvm elected president, 
 Thomas l'. Oakes, vice-president ; Anthony J. Thomas, 
 
PRESIDENCY OF HENRY VILLA RD. 
 
 271 
 
 second vice-president ; Samuel Wilkeson, secretary, and 
 Robert L. Belknap, treasurer. Mr. Wilkeson had been 
 secretary since 1870, and Mr. Belknap treasurer since 
 1879. Mr. Thomas came into the official organization 
 of the Company from the banking-house of Drexcl, 
 Morgan & Co. Further changes were made in the 
 board at the election in 1882, to give additional repre- 
 sentation to the syndicate of bankers who had taken the 
 forty-million loan. J. Pierpont Morgan and August Bel- 
 mont were elected in place of Artemas '^.\. Holmes and 
 Elijah Smith. Mr. Villard assumed the active direction 
 of the Company's affairs immediately after his election to 
 the presidency. 
 
 The wisdom of making adequate provision, through 
 the instrumentality of the Oregon and Transcontinental 
 Company, for whatever financial requirements might 
 arise in completing and equipping the main line of the 
 Northern Pacific was clearly demonstrated soon after the 
 change in the control of the road. Under the stringent 
 and embarrassing conditions of the contract Mith the 
 bankers' syndicate, bonds could only be issued to the 
 amount of $25,000 per mile as fast as sections of 25 miles 
 were completed and examined by United States Com- 
 missioners, and accepted by the Government. There 
 were unavoidable delays in the examination, and 275 
 miles of new road " o.^. l)uilt before the Government 
 inspection took place. The completion of this mileage 
 involved the nece.viity of procuring a very large sum of 
 money in advance of the receipt of the proceeds of the 
 bonds based upon it. In his annual report of 1882, Presi- 
 dent Villard said : 
 
 " Kven if more prompt ir\spection li.id heen practicalilc — which il was not 
 — the supply of innney from the s.»le of IjoikU uiiiicr ihe Utius of the ton- 
 tract witii the syiidicjle woiihl nut liave avoided tlie nctcisily for 1 ,,c addi- 
 tional funds ai working capital. 
 
m 
 
 272 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 " The cause of this necessity is very clear. When the contract with the 
 syndicate was entered into, it was practically impossible, owing to liie in- 
 completeness of the labors of the engineers, to make accurate calculations as 
 to the period of time and the current supplies of money required for the vast 
 work of building nearly one thousand miles of new and, in great part, very 
 difficult road, mostly through unsettled regions destitute of construction fa- 
 cilities. Financial arrangements were made in the light of the best informa- 
 tion then extant, which, however, proved deceptive. It soon became apparent 
 that, in order to work without great waste of time and loss of money, it was 
 indispensable, in the first place, to build simultaneously from both ends of 
 the main line, and, secondly, to begin at once all the heavy work upon its 
 entire lengtii. This involved the shipment of millions of dollars' worth of 
 track material, motive power and rolling stock to the Pacific coast many 
 months before ihcir actual use on the road ; and on the line east of the 
 Rocky Mountains very large expenditures of cash a long time befo.c the 
 works resulting from them could become jiartft of finished road. 
 
 " Thus there came calls upon the treasury far in excess of the proceeds of 
 bonds received from the syndicate, and of the net earnings ; and what adtlcd 
 to the embarrassment of the situation was the impossijjility of issuing boiuls 
 and delivering them to the syndicate except upon the mileage of completed 
 road approved by the Government, owing to a provision of the mortgage 
 under the requirements of the plan of reorganization. Hut, tiianks to the 
 assistance of the syndicate and the Oregon and Transcontinental Company, 
 the treasury was always prepared to meet all demands without ever borrow 
 ing in the open market. And the management can now point to the fact 
 that it has fini-.hed two hundred and seventy-five miles of road, graded one 
 hundred and fifty miles additional, bought and paid for sufficient rails for 
 the entire gap between the two ends of the main line, and made, besidc>^, 
 the current disbursements for motive power, rolling stock, the Bismarck 
 bridge, the great Hozeman and Helena tunnels, and other heavier portions 
 of the work, mit/ioiit (/lUvcrin:^' a singic bond to the syndicate from December 
 last till September 19." 
 
 The effective aid of the Oregon and Transcontinental 
 Company continued to be required by the Northern Pa- 
 cific thenceforth to the very end of the construction 
 work on the main line. It is now well known to all con- 
 nected with the management of the Northern Pacific, 
 that but for this aid the Company could not have main- 
 tained a very high credit, and that the main line could not 
 have been finished in 1883— in fact, that it could not 
 
ict with the 
 I to the in- 
 culations as 
 for the vast 
 it part, very 
 jtruclion fa- 
 est informa- 
 me apparent 
 nncy, it was 
 )th ends of 
 irii upon its 
 rs' worth of 
 coast many 
 east of the 
 ; befo.c tiie 
 
 proceeds of 
 what added 
 suing iionds 
 f coniplcled 
 e mortgage 
 inks to the 
 1 Company, 
 ver borrow - 
 to tlie fact 
 graded one 
 cnt rads for 
 de, besides, 
 e I!i>marck 
 ier portions 
 '/I Dcccmbo- 
 
 iitinental 
 hern Pa- 
 struction 
 ) all coii- 
 i Pacific, 
 I'c maiii- 
 oiild not 
 ould not 
 
i,f^i#s^ ■; /:':rJ':?f't-:*^~^ 
 
PRESIDENCY OF HEXKY VILLA RD. 
 
 VI 
 
 have been completed at all without securing additional 
 capital over and above the proceeds of the General First 
 Mortgage Bonds. 
 
 The second object of the Oregon Transcontinental 
 Company, as announced in its first annual report, was " to 
 promote the Company's own interest, as the holder of 
 such stocks (Northern Pacific and Oregon Railway and 
 Navigation Company) by the creation of such auxiliary 
 systems of railroad, steamship and steamboat lines as 
 would tend to protect and increase the transportation busi- 
 ness of these two corporations," In pursuance of this ob- 
 ject, the branch lines of the Northern Pacific road in 
 Minnesota and Dakota partially constructed at the time 
 Mr. Villard assumed the presidency of the Company have 
 been acquired by the Oregon and Transcontinental Com- 
 pany and pushed vigorously toward completion. A 
 number of additional branchi,s have been commenced; 
 particulars regarding which arc given in the following 
 chapter. 
 
 In the spring of the present year, the Oregon and 
 Traubcontinental Company succeeded in obtaining a 
 lease in perpetuity of the important roads of the Oregon 
 and California Railroad Company, one extetuling from 
 Portland, on the cast bank of the Willamette River south- 
 ward toward California, and the other running up the west 
 bank for one hundred miles. In connection with the lease, 
 the Oregon and Transcontinental Company also entered 
 into a coUhtruction contract for the completion of t)\e 
 main line to a junction with the Central Pacific s)stcm at 
 the California boundary. This junction will be made, it 
 is expected, in the summer of 1884. The control of the 
 Oregon and California system will be of the utmost bene- 
 fit to the Northern Pacific, as it will be \.\\: means of con- 
 necting the latter with the whole of California. 
 
 Among the important and far-sighted measures of Mr. 
 i8 
 
274 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Villard's administration have been the arrangements 
 made in advance of the completion of the main line of 
 the Northern Pacific for terminal facilities in the cities of 
 Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Portland. These arrange- 
 ments, without drawing on the financial resources of the 
 railroad company at a time when all its means arc 
 needed to open and equip its transcontinental line, secure 
 for its system the use and control of ample depot build- 
 ings for passenger and freight uses, freight and cattle 
 yards, repair shops, round-houses, grain elevators, and, 
 in the case of Portland, of a bridge across the broad, 
 navigable stream of the Willamette River. The prepara- 
 tion of the financial plan for t.^ese two terminal systems 
 and their successful presentation to investors was the 
 work of Edward D. Adams, of the firm of Winslow, 
 Lanier & Co. For the Portland terminus a Company 
 was organized under the laws of Oregon, called the 
 Northern Pacific Terminal Company of Oregon, with a 
 capital stock of $3,000,000, owned entirely by the North- 
 ern Pacific Company, the Oregon Railway and Navig.i- 
 tion Compan)', and the Oregon and California Compan\-. 
 The Terminal Company issues, as required, and only for 
 the creation of its terminal property, $5,000,000 of first 
 mortgage bonds, and the three transportation companies 
 jointl)' and s(->verally agree to pay as rental for the termi 
 nal facilities provided a sum sufficient to pay six per 
 cent, interest on the bonds and to provide a sinking fund 
 to extinguish the principal at maturity. 
 
 For the termini at Minneapolis and St. Paul, the work 
 was undertaken under the ownership of the St. Paul and 
 Northern Pacific Railway Com[)any, the successor of the 
 Western Railroad Company of Minnesota. Particulars 
 concerning these corporations, and the terminal facilities 
 in the two cities mentioned, are given in a succeeding 
 chapter. 
 
PRESIDENCY OF HENRY VJLLARD. 
 
 275 
 
 Late in the summer of 1883, as tliis volume goes to 
 the press, the long lines of the Northern Pacific Railroad 
 advancing, one from the East and the other from the 
 West, up the two slopes of the continent, are about to 
 meet near the summit ridge of the Rocky Mountains. 
 By an interesting coincidence, their point of junction is 
 not far from the spot where the advance parties of Gov. 
 Stevens' exploring expedition met in 1853, one having 
 come from St. Paul, Minnesota, and the other from Pugct 
 Sound and the Columbia River. Thus the first survey 
 of the route of the Northern Pacific prefigured the history 
 of the actual construction of the road. The water-shed 
 of the continent is the meeting-place of the advancing 
 ends of track, as it was of Grover and Saxtoi\ the two 
 young officers in command of the pioneer parties of the 
 Stevens expedition. With the completion of the main 
 line of the road, the great project of a commercial highway 
 to the Pacific by the valley route of the Missouri and 
 the Columbia rivers is at List realized. The trail of Lewis 
 and Clarke is now spanned by the steel rail. The enter- 
 prise of which Barlow wrote in 1834, to which Whitney 
 gave years of earnest but fruitless effort ; which enlisted 
 the engineering talent and energy of Johnson and 
 Roberts, and was shown to be feasible and wise by 
 Stevens' gallant explorations ; the enterprise for which 
 Perham obtained a charter from Congress conveying 
 the most extensive and valuable land grant ever 
 given to any corporation, and to the prosecution of 
 which a long line of energetic, competent men — bankers, 
 capitalists, railway buiUlcrs, engine crs, lawyers, journalists 
 and pioneers have ilevoted j'cars of the best labor of hand 
 AwiS. brain, is at last achieved. Over the unbroken lino 
 of the Northern Pacific ro.id, from St. T'aul and Lak. 
 Superior to the broad estuary of Pugct Sound, the loco- 
 motive now runs. At last the communities of the Pacific 
 
276 
 
 A^OKT/IEKX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Northwest are united to the East ; at last the best of the 
 transcontinental highways between the Atlantic and the 
 Pacific is open to the flow of the currents of travel and 
 commerce. Thirty years have elapsed since the Govern- 
 ment surveys were made for this line of railroad ; nearly 
 forty since the project was first urged upon Congress: 
 nearly fifty since it was first discussed in the press. Yet 
 the road has been constructed in time to lead the van of 
 advancing population through Dakota and Montana, and 
 from the Pacific coast into the fertile plains and valleys 
 of Washington and Idaho, and is completed as a highway 
 from ocean to ocean in time best to fulfill the ardent hopes 
 of its projectors and builders. 
 
)est of the 
 : and the 
 ;ravel and 
 e Govcin- 
 d ; nearly 
 Congress ; 
 •ess. Yet 
 :hc van of 
 itana, and 
 id valleys 
 I highway 
 ent hopes 
 
Mulluomah Kails, Columbia Kivur. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 DIOCUAl'IIICAL SKKTCIIES. 
 
 W. Milnor Roberts' Career as an Kngineer- His Early Connection wiih 
 Railroads in the United States — Ikiildinj; a Railroad in IJrazil — Chief 
 Kn"incer of the Northern I'acilic — His Death in lira/il — Samuel Wilke- 
 
 -HisCn 
 
 son — ills („areer as a Journalist — His Connection with the Government 
 War Loans — Elected Secretary of the Northern I'acilic Company — The 
 Senior Ofticcr of the Company in Lenj^th of Service — Col. ( ieori^e dray — 
 liirth aiul Education in Ireland — Colonel of a Cavalry Rej;iment in the 
 War for the Union — IJccomes Attorney and (leneral Counsel of the 
 Northern I'acilic Company — Ilis\'alual)le Services — Thomas !•". Oakes — 
 A Practical Railroad Man from his Vouili — Ilis Connection with Rail- 
 roads in Kansas — Manager of the Oregon Railway and Navigation 
 Comiiany — Vice-President of the Northern Pacific — Active Operations in 
 Huilding the Road. 
 
 William INIilnor Roderts was bom in riiiladclphia 
 on February I2th, i8io, and was of Quaker descent. He 
 was educated in the best private schools of that city, and 
 showed an early aptitude for mathematics and drawing. 
 When in his sixteenth year he selected the engineering 
 profession, and obtained employment on the Union Canal, 
 in the spring of 1825, as a chainman under the direction 
 of the eminent canal engineer, Canvass White. At the 
 age of 18 he was promoted to thu charge of the most 
 difficult section of the Lehigh Canal, extending from 
 Mauch Chunk sixteen miles down the river. It was 
 soon afterward his good fortune to be connected with the 
 first railroad enterprises in the United States, his career 
 as an engineer being thus contemporaneous with the begin- 
 nings and growth of the greatest agent of modern civili- 
 zation. Railroad engineering in the United States began 
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 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Massachusetts, where a tramway vis built for transport- 
 ing stone to the water, a distance of three or four miles. 
 The first railroad of any consequence, however, was the 
 Mauch Chunk gravity road, nine miles in length ; and ]\Ir. 
 Roberts was one of the passengers on the first trip made 
 by a car over this line. In 1830 Mr. Roberts was ap- 
 pointed resident engineer in charge of the Union Railroad 
 and canal feeder in Pennsylvania. In 1831-32-33 and 
 '34 he was senior principal assistant engineer on the 
 Alleghany Portage Railroad which transported the boats 
 of the Pennsylvania Canal across the Alleghany Moun- 
 tains, by the aid of inclined planes and stationary engines. 
 In 1835 ^^6 received his first appointment as chief engi- 
 neer, being called to fill that position on the Harrisburg and 
 Lancaster Railroad. In 1835-36 he planned and built the 
 first combined railroad and common road bridge in the 
 United States, which crosses the Susquehanna River at 
 Harrisburg. During the same year he accepted the chief 
 engineership of the Cumberland Valley Railroad, which he 
 held until 1837. For twentyyears, from 1837 to 1857, Mr. 
 Roberts' career was one of almost unexampled variety, with- 
 in the limits of his profession. His great energy and excep- 
 tional working power enabled him to undertake and com- 
 plete an amount of labor of which few men are capable. He 
 was successively chief engineer of the Monongahela 
 River Improvements, Pennsylvania State Canal Con- 
 struction works, the Erie Canal and the Ohio River im- 
 provements (1837-41). In 1841-42 he was a contractor 
 on the Welland Canal enlargement. In 1843-44 he was 
 chief engineer for the Erie Canal Company ; and from 
 1845 to 1847 chief engineer and trustee-agent for the 
 Sandy and Beaver Canal Company of Ohio. In 1848 the 
 Legislature of Pennsylvania appointed him to make a 
 survey on the Pennsylvania Canal, to avoid, if possible, 
 the Schuylkill inclined plane. In 1849 ^^^ became chief 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 79 
 
 engineer of the Belle Fontaine and Indiana Railroad, in 
 Ohio, where he remained until 1851. From 1852 to 1854 
 he was chief engineer of the Alleghany Valley Railroad, 
 consulting engineer for the Atlantic and Mississippi 
 Railroad, contractor for the whole of the Iron Mountain 
 Railroad, in Missouri, and chairman of the commission 
 appointed for the Pennsylvania Legislature to examine 
 and report upon routes for avoiding the inclined planes 
 on the Alleghany Portage Railroad. From 1855 to 1857 
 he was a contractor for che entire line of the Keokuk, 
 Des Moines and Mississippi Railroad, consulting engi- 
 neer for the Pittsburg and Erie and the Tcrre Haute, 
 Vandalia and St. Louis Railroads, and chief engineer of the 
 Keokuk, Mount Pleasant and Muscatine Railroad. In 
 December, 1857, Mr. Roberts went to Brazil'to examine 
 the route of the Dom Pedro II. Railway, with the pur- 
 pose of bidding for its construction. The following year, 
 as the head of a firm of American contractors, he con- 
 cluded a contract with the Brazilian Minister at Wash- 
 ington, Senhor Carvalho de Borges, for the construction 
 of the road. Returning shortly after to Brazil he took 
 active charge of the work, and completed it in 1864. In 
 that year and in 1865 he inspected various public works 
 in Brazil, and in the La Plata Republics, returning home 
 in the latter part of 1865. Soon after his arrival in the 
 United States, Mr. Roberts took charge of the surveys 
 for the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad, which he 
 completed in 1867. In the same year he was appointed 
 civil engineer in charge of the Ohio River improvement. 
 In 1868 he was placed in charge of the construction of 
 the great St. Louis bridge during the ill health of Captain 
 J. M. Eads, who was obliged to cease work for a year. 
 
 The position of chief engineer of the Northern Pacific 
 Railroad was tendered to Mr. Roberts in the fall of 1869. 
 In accepting it he severed all other professional engage- 
 
28o 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ments. Going to the Pacific coast in the sumnner of that 
 year, he made the reconnoissance of the route as far as 
 Bozeman Pass, which we have described in a preceding 
 chapter. The entire line of the Northern Pacific road 
 from Lake Superior to Puget Sound was located by Mr. 
 Roberts ; and the route selected by him was followed in 
 the subsequent construction, with the single exception 
 of the portion of the main line between Gallatin and 
 the mouth of the Little Blackfoot River. Mr. Roberts 
 preferred the Deer Lodge Pass to the Mullan Pass for 
 crossing the main divide of the Rocky Mountains, and 
 intended that the road should run from Bozeman to 
 the Jefferson River, and thence by way of the Jefferson 
 Gallon and the Deer Lodge Pass to the town of Deer 
 Lodge, and? so down the Deer Lodge Rive'r to the junc- 
 tion of the Little Blackfoot. After his resignation the 
 route was changed for the purpose of shortening the line, 
 and of having the road run by way of the important city 
 of Helena, the capital of Montana. 
 
 In 1874, Mr. Roberts was a member of the commission 
 of civil engineers appointed by President Grant to in- 
 quire into the feasibility of constructing a canal to avoid 
 the obstructions at the mouth of the Mississippi River; 
 the Eads jetty system, subsequently adopted, being op- 
 posed at that time by many eminent engineers. In 
 company with the other members of the commission, Mr. 
 Roberts examined the Amsterdam Canal, the jetties at the 
 mouth of the Danube, the Suez Canal, and the canal at 
 the mouth of the Rhone, and subsequently the Delta of 
 the Mississippi. The report of this commission was in 
 favor of the jetty system, and led to the adoption of 
 Captain Lads' proposition by Congress. In the succeed- 
 ing fall Mr. Roberts became one of the advising board of 
 seven distinguished engineers selected by Mr. Eads to aid 
 in the plans and construction of the jetty work. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 :8i 
 
 The Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro II., during his 
 tour in the United States in 1876-7, visited the jetties at 
 the mouth of the Mississippi, and in 1877 requested Cap- 
 tain Eads to recommeiid an engineer competent to im- 
 prove the rivers and harbors of Brazil. Mr. Roberts was 
 then in Washington Territory, locating the line of the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad. He was recommended for 
 the position, and accepted an offer of three years' employ- 
 ment for $75,000, beginning in January, 1879. This 
 closed his connection with the Northern Pacific enter- 
 prise. He left New York on the 4th of January, 1879, 
 and, arriving in Rio, was at once charged with the im- 
 provements of the port of Santos, which he completed in 
 June, and in August began a survey of the upper San 
 Francisco River, which occupied him for a period of six 
 months. He subsequently served on a commission to 
 report on the new water-works for Rio, and soon after 
 examined all the northern ports of the empire. In 1881 
 he undertook an examination of the Rio Das Velhas, but 
 was compelled to suspend his journey on the 7th of July, 
 at a little settlement called Soledadc, where he was seized 
 with typhus fever, and died a week later in his seventy- 
 second year. Mr. Roberts kept up his habit of hard and 
 regular work to the last, and when over seventy years old 
 was able to do severe intellectual and physical labor twelve 
 hours a day in the depths of the primeval forests of 
 Brazil. Samuel Wilkeson, speaking of him, said: "He 
 was the best engineer this country has produced. And he 
 was the soul of honor. There was not money ,'nough in 
 the United States Treasury to buy him away fro m his con- 
 science, or make him surrender a deliberately formed pro- 
 fessional conclusion. Duty seemed to wholly control the 
 man. Yet right alongside of his intolerant conscience was 
 more mirthfulness than I ever saw in man, more ten- 
 derness and sweetness than I have seen in most men. The 
 
282 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 good stories and the accumulated wit of the Engh'sh- 
 speaking world seemed to be in his head. I traveled 
 with him thousands of miles, ate with him, slept witli 
 him, rode with him by rail, on the sea, on horseback. 
 In eleven years' constant association I never saw a trace 
 of selfishness in Milnor Roberts — not even that common- 
 est expression of it which grumbles at discomforts. His 
 patience and sweetness were inexhaustible, except when 
 in his business he uncovered a thief or a liar. He was 
 generous and self-forgetful beyond all my experience of 
 men. Had it been possible for him to do so, he would 
 have given himself away limb by limb. His energy as 
 an engineer was exceptional. For rapidity of work he- 
 was unequalled. His power of labor made him a proverb. 
 I have seen him before breakfast witing in a corner of a 
 car on the Pacific railroad. At nine o'clock at night he 
 was yet writing. I have seen him steadily through the 
 day take notes in a stage coach, and on a steamer. Ho 
 was the only man I ever saw write continuously in the 
 saddle. I believe he wrote from Walla Walla to Missoula, 
 on our reconnoissance of the Northern Pacific route. Oh, 
 the great engineer and the dear man ! It seems but yes- 
 terday that, as our horses walked through the Coriacan 
 Defile, I coaxed him to put up his note-book and talk. 
 And then I became acquainted with the unseen presence 
 that watched and guided him while he was building the 
 Dom Pedro railroad in Brazil — that remoulded his life in 
 South America — that ever since came to him when in 
 trouble or doubt, and gave him wisdom and strength — 
 that finally made the whole life of this great constructor 
 to be spiritual and childlike." 
 
 Samuel Wilkeson was fifty-two years old when he was 
 chosen secretary of the Northern Pacific Railroad Com- 
 pany, He was born in Buffalo in 1817, graduated from 
 Union College, was educated to the bar under Daniel 
 
B I OCR A PHICA L SKE TCIIES. 
 
 28' 
 
 Cady, the traditional great lawyer of the State of New 
 York, and in 1840 admitted to practice a profession from 
 which he was always turning aside to write for a news- 
 paper. He was born a journalist. His boyhood mates 
 recall the weekly paper, written with a pen, which he 
 published every Saturday in Amos Smith's grammar 
 
 school in New Haven, Com 
 
 It 
 
 was 
 
 but 
 
 a question o 
 
 f 
 
 time when he would belong to the press ; and in 1856, in 
 Buffalo, he started a radical, liberal, daily paper, the 
 Democracy. From that paper, on the persuasion of Gov- 
 ernor Seward and Thurlow Weed, he went to the Al- 
 bany Evening Journal, buying Thurlow Weed's and 
 George Dawson's interests, and editing it as principal 
 owner. His health gave way in the second year of his 
 work in Albany, and he was compelled to sell out and go 
 into utter idleness. A year and a half of rest gave him 
 the heart to accept an invitation from Horace Greeley to 
 come on the editorial staff of the N. Y. Tribune. As an 
 editorial writer and the day editor, he worked on this 
 great paper till after the rebellion broke out, and after 
 the " On to Richmond ! " revolution had made its changes 
 in the Tribune's editorial organization. This revolution 
 threw out of office General Fitz Henry Warren in charge 
 of the paper in Washington. Mr. Greeley appointed Mr. 
 Wilkeson to the place. He had charge of the Tribune 
 bureau in Washington till the close of the war, with an 
 interval of one year's service on the N. Y. Times. This 
 interval was induced by a natural rage at Mr. Greeley's 
 bailing Jefferson Davis. 
 
 Two sons and six nephews in the army of the Potomac, 
 all in the line, gave Mr. Wilkeson a constant personal 
 attraction to the war. Choosing the times of great mili- 
 tary movements and battles for-absence from hio trust in 
 Washington, he often volunteered to do the work of chief 
 war correspondent of the Tribune in Virginia, and wrote 
 
284 
 
 xYORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 from the field letters that gave the writer fame, and 
 have served for history. 
 
 While in the service of the Tribune, at the special re- 
 quest of Jay Cooke, the Government's fiscal agent, Mr. 
 Greeley detached Wilkcson to aid the sale of the war 
 loans of 5-20, 10-40 and 7-30 bonds. He did this by using 
 nearly all the newspapers of the United States, and em- 
 ploying liberally the Associated Press and telegraph. It 
 was the only time in the history of the country that 
 so vast an agency to populari;:e and accomplish a public 
 measure was committed to the hands of one man. Before 
 this, and way back in 1854, Governor Seward, then in 
 his political prime as the radical leader in the United 
 States Senate, applied to Mr. Wilkeson to block out a 
 speech for him on a subject he frankly confessed he 
 knew nothing about, and concerning a country then un- 
 known to the Government, and, among white men, known 
 only to fur traders and trappers — a practicable route 
 for a paying railroad across the continent to the Pacific 
 Ocean. His study of this new theme and preparation 
 of the speech so impressed Mr. Wilkeson's reason and im- 
 agination, that, when in December, 1868, the agents of the 
 owners of the Northern Pacific Railroad charter, then 
 applicants to Congress for a money subsidy, applied to 
 him for help in a crisis of their affairs, he easily consented, 
 and, without intending to do so,tiedhimself for life to their 
 enterprise. Senate Bill No. 889, to subsidize the North- 
 ern Pacific and other transcontinental roads, had been 
 considered in committee, and was to be favorably reported 
 by a large majority of its members. The hostile influence 
 of rival lines was sufficient to give rise to an adverse and 
 most damaging dissent by the minority of the committee, 
 designed to anticipate and nullify the recommendation 
 of the majority. The service Mr. Wilkeson was begged 
 to render was to write a report for the majority to ac- 
 
BIOGRA PHICA L SKE TCHES. 
 
 ^85 
 
 company the bill they wc.c to recommend, and, in it, to 
 overthrow the statements and conclusions of the minority. 
 The result was the len|^thy Senate Report No. 219, 3d 
 session, 40th Congress. It was signed by six members of 
 the committee of nine, without the alteration of a word, 
 and from that day to this lias been an authority and 
 manual in Washinn;ton. 
 
 Mr. Wilkeson's second service to the nearly moribund 
 Northern Pacific enterprise was to induce Jay Cooke to 
 listen to proposals from the owners of the charter to act 
 as the fiscal agent of the Company to provide money to 
 build its road and telegraph line, by selling the Company's 
 bonds. Mr. Cooke's splendid success as the fiscal agent 
 of the Government in the war, and his reputation 
 in Europe as well as America, indicated him to Mr. 
 Wilkeson as the fittest man in the nation to undertake 
 this work. As the result of the negotiations which Mr. 
 Wilkeson inaugurated, Mr. Cooke threw hims«lf, soul, 
 body and estate, into the enterprise. It is due to him 
 to say that, almost from the beginning to the end, he 
 stood alone in this vast undertaking amid his copartners 
 in the four banking houses which he founded in Wash- 
 ington, Philadelphia, New York and London — alone and 
 unsupported save by his brothers and his junior copart- 
 ner, George Thomas. When Mr. Wilkeson authorized 
 this statement, he said: " No history of Jay Cooke's con- 
 nection with the Northern Pacific Railroad scheme will do 
 him justice which does not recognize the double load put 
 on him by the reluctance and opposition of the strongest 
 and richest of his copartners." 
 
 A condition of Jay Cooke & Co.'s contract with the 
 owners of the Northern Pacific charter was, that they 
 should have the right to send their own engineer over the 
 proposed route of the road, to report, first, if it was prac- 
 ticable, and second, if the country would support the road 
 
286 
 
 NORTHERN FACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 when built. When this preliminary reconnoissance was 
 organized, Mr. Wilkcson joined it as " historian," at the 
 request of Jay Cooke and of the owners of the enterprise, 
 and for his necessary education in the topography, soils, 
 climate and resources of the regions, the popularization 
 of v.'hich with his pen, as hf: had popularized the 7-30 
 loan, was the work assigned to him in the corporation 
 whose secretary it was already arranged that he should 
 be. An account of this reconnoissance has been given in 
 another chapter. Jay Cooke & Co. accepted the fiscal 
 agency to provide the means to build the road, and the 
 *' historian of the expedition " quit journalism and joined 
 himself for life to the project of a Pacific railroad on the 
 northern route. He has uninterruptedly held the office 
 of secretary of the Company since he was elected to it in 
 March, 1870. The standard and permanent literature of 
 the Northern Pacific Company up to 1882 was Samuel 
 Wilkcson's work, as was nearly all the newspaper writing 
 to protect and promote the enterprise, up to 1883. 
 
 George Gray, the general counsel of the Northern Pa- 
 cific Company, was born in the County Tyrone, Ireland. 
 He received a literary, mathematical, and classical educa- 
 tion, which he finished at Portora College, near the historic 
 town of Enniskillen.in the County of Fermanagh, and came 
 to the United States when he attained the age of twenty- 
 one years. He settled at Grand Rapids, Michigan, 
 where he was admitted to the bar, and became a partner 
 of the Hon. S. L. Wither, the present United States 
 Judge of the Western District of Michigan. The firm of 
 Withey & Gray, besides having a large general practice, 
 were counsel for the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad 
 Company until the commencement of the civil war put a 
 stop to the construction of the road. i\Ir. Gray entered 
 the military service of his adopted country as a volun- 
 teer, and commanded the Sixth Regiment of Michigan 
 
B I OCR A PIIICA L SKE TCIIES. 
 
 287 
 
 Cavalry, which formed part of Custer's Brigade in Kil- 
 patrick's Division of tlie Cavalry Corps of the Army of 
 th*^ Potomac. In consequence of disability caused by in- 
 juries received in the service while in command of the 
 Brigade, in 1864, he was honorably discharged. As soon 
 as his health permitted he returned to the practice of his 
 profession, which at once became quite extensive, and he 
 was retained in nearly every important case in the Fed- 
 eral and State courts in the western part of the State. 
 He also resumed the position of counsel of the Grand 
 Rapids and Indiana Railroad Company, and was instru- 
 mental in placing that corporation on so sound a legal basis, 
 by saving its land grant and defeating the efforts of rival 
 railroad companies to force it into bankruptcy and disso- 
 lution, that it was enabled readily to obtain the necessary 
 means for the construction and completion of its road, 
 only twenty miles of which had been completed at the 
 outbreak of the war. The road was fully completed and 
 equipped by the Continental Improvement Company, of 
 which General George W. Cass was president, under a 
 contract made with a receiver appointed by the United 
 States Circuit Courts for the District of Indiana and West- 
 ern District of Michigan. During all the transitions of 
 that railroad company from a condition of utter insol- 
 vency to one of complete prosperity. Colonel Gray was 
 its sole counsel in the State of Michigan. 
 
 When General Cass became president of the Northern 
 Pacific Railroad Company, and Hon. Wm. A. How- 
 ard its land commissioner, they invited Colonel Gray to 
 take the position of attorney of the Company. Mr. 
 Howard had been also the land commissioner of the 
 Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad Company. Colonel 
 Gray accepted the employment, and removed to St. Paul, 
 Minnesota, where he remained until called to New York 
 to take charge of the legal part of the proceedings for the 
 
288 
 
 A'ORTnEKN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 reorganization of the Company. These proceedings, 
 whicli had been begun before liis arrival, were taken 
 in charge by him and carried forward to such a speed}- 
 and satisfactory conckision as to gain for him the hc.-ir^y 
 acknowledgments of the directors, who felt that he had 
 saved the Company great expense, and prevented de- 
 lays which might have hindered its reorganization for 
 years. Colonel Gray was elected general counsel of the 
 Northern Pacific Company in September, 1875, and has 
 since had the management of its legal affairs, acting as 
 attorney as well as counsel in all important matters com- 
 ing before the courts, and also before the Government de- 
 partments at Washington in which the interests of the 
 Company are concerned, and preparing the Company's 
 mortgages, leases and contracts. He has also frequently 
 appeared before the Pacific Railroad Committees of the 
 two houses of Congress as the representative of the Com- 
 pany, defending its chartered rights against unjust ag- 
 gression. Soon after he became general counsel a serious 
 question arose concerning the Indian reservations lying 
 within the limits of the Company's land grant. The Sis- 
 seton and Wahpeton Sioux claimed all the rich lands in 
 the Valley of the Red River of the North, now a vast and 
 highly productive wheat field. Their title or claim to title 
 was extinguished by treaty, but the Interior Department 
 was disposed to hold that the lands extending from 
 Fargo to Jamestown did not inure to the railroad Com- 
 pany, because the Indian possessory title had not been 
 extinguished at the date the grant was made. Colonel 
 Gray argued the question before the Secretary of the Inte- 
 rior and the Assistant Attorney-General, and succeeded in 
 getting a decision which saved to the Company the be^^t 
 area of land within the entire grant. If the matter had 
 been decided according to the preconceived opinion of 
 the department, the Company would have been deprived 
 
BIOGRA Fine A L SKK TCIIES, 
 
 289 
 
 not only of its Red River Valley lands, but of those 
 lying within the bounds of the immense Indian reserva- 
 tions west of the Missouri, and this, too, in the face 
 of the fact that Congress had bound the Government in 
 the charter of the Northern Pacific to extinguish all In- 
 dian titles to land within the limits of the grant to the 
 Company. 
 
 One more matter of great importance in which Colonel 
 Gray rendered conspicuous service mry properly be men- 
 tioned here. In May, 1879, the C mpany filed its map of 
 the amended line of the Cascade branch in Washington 
 Territory. At the same time it offered for filing its mort- 
 gage on the Missouri Division. Shortly afterwards it re- 
 cc^ived notice from the Interior Department that the 
 question was under consideration whether, in conso 
 quence of the alleged expiration of the time prescribed ijy 
 law for the completion of the road, the Company had any 
 rights which the Department could recognize. At thih- 
 time the Con^ any had sold its bonds, and was proceeding 
 to construct its road beyond the Missouri, yet the Govern- 
 ment appeared determined, by refusing to file its mortgage, 
 which rested in part on its land grant, to invalidate that 
 instrument and the bonds issued under it. The emer- 
 gency was of the most serious character. Colonel Gray 
 hastened to Washington, and finding the Secretary of the 
 Interior, Mr. Schurz and the Assistant Attorney-General 
 for the Department of the Interior predisposed to decide 
 the question against the Company, insisted upon a hear- 
 ing before the Attorney-General, Mr. Devens. This was 
 accorded, and the three officials heard Colonel Gray's ar- 
 gument, which was so conclusive that a decision was given 
 not only that the time specified in the charter of the 
 Company and the amendments thereto had not expired, 
 but also that whether it had expired or not was a matter 
 of no consequence, because the rights of the Company 
 19 
 
■*■■ 
 
 290 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 were not forfeited b* such expiration, but continued as of 
 the same force and validity as when the grant was made 
 and accepted by the Company. Thus Colonel Gray suc- 
 ceeded in rescuing the Company from the grave disaster 
 which threatened it at Washington, and which if not 
 averted would have prevented the curppletion of its trans- 
 continental line. The board of directors by special vote 
 showed their appreciation of the great professional ser- 
 vice rendered by him in this connection. 
 
 Thomas Fletcher Oakes, vice-president of the North- 
 ern Pacific since 1881, is a native of Boston, and is about 
 forty years of age. He was educated at the public 
 schools of that city, and under private tutors. In 1863 
 he accepted an offer from eastern capitalists who were 
 the principal owners of the Kansas Pacific Railroad to 
 become connected with that enterprise; then known 
 as the Union Pacific Railroad — Eastern Division. He 
 was at first associated with Samuel Hallett & Co., con- 
 tractors for the construction of the road. He continued 
 in the service of that Company until 1879, filling suc- 
 cessively the positions of purchasing agent, general 
 freight agent, general superintendent and vice-president. 
 He was general superintendent at the time he sev- 
 ered his connection with the Kansas Pacific, and during 
 the receivership of Mr. Villard, leaving the Company's 
 service at its termination. From the Kansas Pacific 
 Mr. Oakes went into the service of the Kansas City, 
 Fort Scott and Gulf, and Kansas City, Lawrence and 
 Southern Kansas Railroad Companies, in the interest 
 of the Boston owners, among whom were the late 
 Nathaniel Thayer, H. H. Hunnewell, William F. Weld, 
 since deceased, and others. This sysiem of lines, with 
 its branches, comprised about 600 miles of railroad. 
 He remained with these companies about one year, leav- 
 ing their service in May, 1880, when he went to Oregon 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 291 
 
 on Mr. Villard's invitation, and assumed the managership 
 of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, which 
 had shortly before been organized. He remained with 
 this Company until the control of the Northern Pacific 
 passed into the hands of Mr. Villard and his associates, 
 when he came to New York and was elected vice-presi- 
 dent in June, 1881. Ho has since continued in that 
 capacity. Mr. Oakes may be regarded as Mr. Villard's 
 executive officer, more particularly in charge of the oper- 
 ating and constructing departments, his long experience 
 in both especially fitting him for such work. 
 
 At the date Mr. Oakes assumed the duties of vice-presi- 
 dent, the end of track on the Eastern Division was at 
 Dickinson, Dakota, and on the Western Division at 
 Sprague, Washington Territory, the gap remaining to be 
 built being about 1,000 miles. During a period of but lit- 
 tle over two years this immense length of track, embracing 
 the most difficult portions of the work on the entire line, 
 including the mountain divisions and the two great tun- 
 nels, has been constructed under his direction. He has aiso 
 made a complete reorganization of the system of opera- 
 tion which greatly increased its effectiveness. One of 
 the first steps taken by Mr. Oakes on assuming his duties 
 was a tour of inspection along the located line between 
 the two ends of the track, which was undertaken and 
 accomplished mainly in the saddle in August and Sep- 
 tember, 1 88 1. Some forty days were required for this in- 
 spection, and the information gathered proved of great 
 value to the Company in its financial and construction 
 operations. Mr. Oakes likewise has charge of the con- 
 struction of the branch lines of the Oregon and Trans- 
 continental Company, which are built under the author- 
 ity and direction of the Northern Pacific Railroad Com- 
 pany. The aggregate length of road constructed under* 
 Mr. Oakes' direction, including the lines of the Northern 
 
 H 
 
i . ■■'■ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 
 292 
 
 NORTHEJiiV PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Pacific, Oregon Railway and Navigation and Oregon and 
 Transcontinental Companies, from the time he assumed 
 the duties of the vice-presidency in June, 1881, to the 
 completion of the main line of the Northern Pacific, a 
 period of two years and two months, is a little over 2,000 
 miles — a record rarely equaled. 
 
)regon and 
 e assumed 
 8 1, to the 
 Pacific, a 
 over 2,000 
 
^a 
 
 •I '■■■I- 
 
 3 
 
 "3 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 > 
 
 o 
 
 KELATIOXS OF THE NORTHERN PACIFIC WITH OTHER 
 
 COMPANIES. 
 
 The Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad — Purchase of a Half Interest in 
 the Line from Duluth to Thomson Junction — Lease of the Entire Road, 
 with its Leased Lines — Lease Surrendered — The St. Paul and Pacific 
 Company and the St. Paul and Pacific First Division — A Controlling 
 Stock Interest Acquired by the Northern Pacific — Retransfer of the First 
 Division — Foreclosure and Sale of the St. Paul and Pacific — Tlie St. 
 Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Company Formed — Tlie Western Rail- 
 road Company of Minnesota — The Northern Pacific, Fergus Falls and 
 I'lack Hills Railroad Company — Its Slock Purchased by the Northern 
 Pacific Company — The Cassclton Branch — The Little Falls and Dakota 
 Railroad Company — Other Branches — Arrangement with llic Oregon and 
 Transcontinental Company for the Building of Branch Lines. 
 
 Through leases, joint ownership and ownership of con- 
 trolling stock interests, the Northern Pacific Company has 
 sustained relations to other railway corporations some 
 account of which should properly find place in this his- 
 tory. It has been thought best to make these relations 
 the subject of a separate chapter, after referring to them 
 only in an incidental way in the preceding pages of the 
 work. 
 
 The Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad was con. 
 structed from Duluth to St. Paul under authority of an 
 act of the Legislature of Minnesota. From Duluth the road 
 runs along the north bank of the St. Louis River, a dis- 
 tance of about twenty-three miles, to Thomson in Carlcton 
 County. This part of the line was constructed through 
 a rough and difficult country, broken by numerous and 
 deep ravines, requiring the erection of lofty and expen- 
 sive trestles. The construction of the Northern Pacific 
 
294 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Railroad was begun in 1870, at a point on the Lake Su- 
 perior and Mississippi Railroad about one mile south of 
 Thomson, and was thence extqnded westvvardly ; this 
 point is known as "Thomson Ji.nction," or " Northern 
 Pacific Junction." To obtain immediate access to the 
 Lake, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company purchased 
 an undivided half of the Lake Superior and Mississippi Rail- 
 road from the Junction to its terminus in Duluth with cer- 
 tain other property rights and casements in Duluth, and on 
 the Bay of Superior, for $500,000, payable in gold coin 
 when the first mortgage bonds of that Company would 
 become due, with interest in the meantime at the rate of 
 seven per cent, per annum, payable semi-annually in gold 
 coin. The deed of the property was dated January i, 
 1S71, and was conditional on the punctual payment 
 of the purchase money and interest. 
 
 Subsequently the Northern Pacific took a lease of the 
 entire line of the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad, 
 and an assignment of several traffic contracts and leases 
 held by that Company, among which were a lease of the 
 Stillwater and St. Paul Railroad, extending from Still- 
 ■water, on the St. Croix River, to White Bear Lake, a sta- 
 tion on the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad; a 
 lease of the Minneapolis and Duluth Railroad, extending 
 from Minneapolis to White Bear Lake ; and a lease of tlic 
 Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway, extending from Min- 
 neapolis to a point on the St. Paul and Sioux City Rail- 
 road, then only partly constructed. The lease of the Lake 
 Superior and Mississippi Railroad was dated May i, 1872, 
 and was for the term of nine hundred and ninety-nine 
 years, which was also the term of the assigned leases. The 
 rental of the leased railroads was to be thirty per cent, 
 of their gross earnings ; and it was provided and agreed 
 that in case that percentage of the gross earnings should 
 in any six months be insufficient to pay the interest and 
 
RELATIONS OF THE NORTHERN PACIFIC. 
 
 295 
 
 sinking fund charges on the leased roads, the lessee should 
 take up and hold an amount of coupons for interest on 
 the first mortgage bonds of the Lake Superior and Mis- 
 sissippi Railroad Company equal to the deficiency. 
 
 By agreement of the parties the Northern Pacific Com- 
 pany, in 1874, surrendered all these leases. Coupons 
 of the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad Com- 
 pany to the amount of $183,700, taken up under the 
 provision of the lease, remained on its hands. In 1877, 
 the first mortgage of the Lake Superior and Mississippi 
 Railroad Company was foreclosed, and by the decree of 
 foreclosure the coupons so held by the Northern Pacific 
 Company were adjudged to be a valid lien on the mort- 
 gaged property ; and it was also decreed, upon stipulation 
 of all the parties to the suit, that the Northern Pacific 
 might pay the entire purchase price of the undivided 
 half of the railroad from the Junction to Uuluth, 
 in any amounts, from time to time, prior to January 1st, 
 1897, in the securities of the new organizations for 
 which the bonds and coupons of the Lake Superior 
 and Mississippi Railroad Company might be exchanged. 
 The coupons held by the Northern Pacific Company were 
 exchanged for preferred stock of the new organization, 
 and the latter was at once paid over as part of the 
 purchase money. The remainder was very soon afterward 
 paid in like securities, and thereupon the St. Paul and 
 Duluth Railroad Company (the successor of the Lake 
 Superior and Mississippi) executed an absolute convey- 
 ance to the Northern Pacific of the undivided half of the 
 railroad from the Junction to Duluth, and of the other 
 property mentioned, free from all condition and clear of 
 all encumbrance. This part of the St. Paul and Duluth 
 Railroad is maintained at the joint expense of both com- 
 panies or a wheelage basis. 
 
 The St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company was incor- 
 
■pp 
 
 296 
 
 NORTHER.V PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 porated by a special act of the Legislature of Minnesota, 
 and was authorized to construct, maintain and operate a 
 railroad from Stillwater, by way of St. Paul, St. Anthony 
 and Minneapolis, to Breckenridge, a point on the western 
 boundary of the State, with a branch from St. Anthony, 
 (now East Minneapolis), via Anoka, St. Cloud and Crow 
 Wing, to St. Vincent, on the Red River of the North, near 
 the International Boundary. Under authority of an act of 
 the State Legislature, approved February 6, 1864, the cor- 
 poration made a division of its organization, whereby the 
 lines from St. Paul to Watab, in the County of Benton, 
 a distance of about eighty miles, and from St. Anthony 
 to Breckenridge, about two hundred and ten miles, 
 became what was afterwards known as the "First 
 Division of the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad," the 
 parent Company retaining the original name and the re- 
 maining lines and parts of lines it was authorized by law 
 to construct. 
 
 An agreement was made by and between the St. Paul 
 and Pacific Company and E. B. Litchfield, of Brooklyn, 
 to whom it had issued eight thousand five hundred 
 shares of Preferred and Special stock, pertaining to the 
 lin(^ from St. Paul to Watab, and from St. Anthony to 
 Breckenridge, in and by which the Company sold and 
 transferred to Litchfield the lines last above mentioned, 
 and all things, including the land grant, appertaining 
 thereto, with the right to increase the capital stock to the 
 full cost of the railroad ; and in consideration thereof he 
 undertook and agreed to build and complete the lines of 
 road so conveyed, and to choose a board of directors 
 therefor, under the name of " The First Division of the 
 St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company." Early in the 
 year 1870, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company pur- 
 chased from E. Darwin Litchfield, of London, to whom 
 E. B. Litchfield had assigned and transferred all his rights 
 
RELATIONS OF THE NORTHERN PACIFIC. 
 
 29; 
 
 and interests therein, the capital stock of the First Divis- 
 ion Company, and its railroads, with all the franchises, 
 property, including the land grant, rolling stock and 
 effects of every kind belonging thereto, for $500,000 
 in money, and $1,500,000 in second mortgage bonds of 
 the St. Paul and Pacific Company, the stock and fran- 
 chises of which the Northern Pacific Company had pre- 
 viously acquired. The First Division was at that time 
 completed from St. Paul to Sauk Rapids, seventy-five 
 miles, and from St. Anthony to Chippewa, one hundred 
 and twenty miles, and the grading was done from Chip- 
 pewa to Breckenridge, ninety miles. 
 
 The St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company made 
 various changes of its lines, so that eventually they con- 
 sisted of a line from Watab to Brainerd, on the line of 
 the Northern and Pacific Railroad, and called the 
 " Brainerd Branch," and from St. Cloud to St. Vincent, 
 crossing the line of the Northern Pacific rt Glyndon, and 
 known as the *' St. Vincent Extension." No part of 
 these lines had been constructed in 1870. In April 
 of that year the Northern Pacific Railroad Company pur- 
 chased the entire capital stock of the last named Company, 
 except a few outstanding shares, for $75,000 in the first 
 mortgage bonds of the Northern Pacific Company, and 
 also, as part of the consideration, assumed to pay the 
 debts of that Company to the amount of $50,000. 
 
 The First Division Company and the St. Paul and Pa- 
 cific Company, each to provide for the construction and 
 completion of their respective lines of railroad, issued 
 bonds secured by mortgages upon their respective proper- 
 tics and franchises, and let the work of construction to 
 contractors. The First Division was completed to 
 Breckenridge. Of the St. Paul and Pacific lines the 
 construction of the St. Vincent extension was completed 
 from St. Cloud to Sauk Centre, the grade was done to 
 
 I- 'A 
 
298 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Alexandria, together with a large part of the grade 
 north of Glyndon. The grade between Watab and Brain- 
 erd, the Brainerd Branch, was partly done. All work on 
 the St. Paul and Pacific lines was suspended in 1873, in 
 consequence of the financial agents of the Company 
 in Amsterdam reporting their inability to negotiate any 
 more of the bonds. In May, 1874, the Northern Pacific 
 Railroad Company being unable to comply with the terms 
 of its purchase of the First Division lines, retransferrcd to 
 Mr. Litchfield the capital stock, and he thereupon assumed 
 the control and management of the railroads and property 
 of the First Division Company. By reason of default in 
 the payment of interest on the bonds of the St. Paul 
 and Pacific Railway Company, the mortgage on its prop- 
 erty, rights and franchises was foreclosed, and on decree 
 and sale the capital stock held by the Northern Pacific 
 was extinguished. The properties and franchises of both 
 the First Division Company and the St. Paul and Pa- 
 cific Company were acquired by the bondholders, who 
 thereupon organized as a corporation by the name of the 
 Saint Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway Com- 
 pany. A traffic contract was made and entered into by 
 the Northern Pacific and the Manitoba Companies, dated 
 the 1st day of August, 1879, by which, among other things, 
 the Northern Pacific obtained the right to the perpetual 
 joint use of the other Company's road from Sauk Rapids, 
 where it connects with the Western Railroad of Min- 
 nesota, to Minneapolis and St. Paul, and of terminal 
 facilities at St. Paul. 
 
 The Western Railroad Company of Minnesota is a cor- 
 poration created in 1874, and existing under the general 
 laws of that State. Previously to 1877 it had constructed 
 no railroad. By an act of the State Legislature approved 
 March i, 1877, all the rights, franchises, privileges and 
 property, including the land grant, of the St. Paul and Pa- 
 
RELATIONS OF THE NORTHERX PACHIC. 
 
 -99 
 
 cine Railroad Company appertaining to its line from 
 Watab to Braincrd, known as the " Brainerd Branch," 
 were forfeited to the State, and were offered to a cor- 
 poration to be formed by, or in tlie interest of, a 
 majority of the bondholders. The conditions were that 
 such offer should be accepted and security given by 
 the 1st day of May following; failing in which, any 
 corporation having authority to build a railroad in the 
 State might succeed to and acquire the right to con- 
 struct and complete the Brainerd Branch, on filing notice 
 of its intention to do so, and depositing $15,000 with 
 the State treasurer as a guaranty for the performance of 
 its undertaking. On compliance with the provisions of 
 the act, and upon the completion of the road, or any part 
 thereof, not less than ten continuous miles in length, 
 such Company should immediately become vested with all 
 the rights, privileges, franchises, lands, property and 
 immunities appertaining to the road so completed. The 
 act required the work to be commenced within thirty days 
 after the filing of the notice, and to be completed within one 
 year thereafter. The bondholders having failed to accept 
 the offer, the Western Railroad Company of Minnesota 
 gave notice of its desire to build the road, deposited 
 the security, began the work, and by the ist day of 
 November, 1877, completed the road from Brainerd to 
 Watab, and thence extended it to Sauk Rapids, the 
 terminus of the branch of the First Division of the St. 
 Paul and Pacific Railroad, thus making a through railroad 
 connection from St. Paul and Minneapolis to the North- 
 ern Pacific Railroad at Brainerd. In May, 1878, the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad Company took a lease of the 
 Western Railroad for 99 years, at an annual rental, for 
 the first five years, of thirty-five per cent., and for the 
 remainder of the term of forty per cent., of the gross 
 earnings. 
 
300 
 
 xort///:kx pacific railroad. 
 
 This lease, together with the right obtained, as before 
 mentioned, to use the track of the St. Paul, Minneapolis 
 and Manitoba Railway Company from Sauk Rapids, 
 secured to the Northern Pacific a direct inlet from its 
 main line to the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. With 
 the extension of the main line of the Northern Pacific 
 across the continent, and the steady growth of its traffic, 
 it soon became apparent, however, that it would be more 
 desirable for it to control a line of its own into those im- 
 portant commercial and industrial centres. In connection 
 with the agreement for an exchange of lines hereafter 
 referred to, the Northern Pacific obtained, therefore, a 
 modification of the contract giving it the right to use the 
 St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Company's track 
 from Sauk Rapids, by which modification in lieu of the 
 right of track it acquired a right of way 43 feet in width 
 from Sauk Rapids to Minneapolis, on and over which to 
 extend the Western Minnesota line into Minneapolis. 
 With a view to the construction of this extension, and to 
 the creation of commensurate terminal facilities for its 
 transcontinental traffic both in Minneapolis and St. Paul, 
 the Northern Pacific came to an understanding with the 
 Oregon and Transcontinental Company under which the 
 latter should acquire the entire stock of the Western 
 Minnesota Company not owned by the Northern Pacific, 
 and that thereupon the Western Minnesota should be 
 reorganized in order to enlarge its corporate powers in 
 accordance with the enlarged sphere of operation pro- 
 posed for it. The Oregon and Transconti.iental Com- 
 pany, having purchased all the outstanding stock, the 
 reorganization was carried out by the filing of new arti- 
 cles of incorporation, under which the name of the 
 Company was changed to the " St. Paul and Northern 
 Pacific Railway Company," and in addition to the 
 powers the corporation originally enjoyed it was author- 
 
RELATIOXS OF THE NORTHERN PACIFIC. 
 
 301 
 
 IS before 
 nneapolis 
 Rapids, 
 ; from its 
 ul. With 
 rn I'acific 
 its traffic, 
 ■\ be more 
 those im- 
 onnection 
 hereafter 
 lercfore, a 
 to use the 
 ny's track 
 lieu of the 
 2t in width 
 :r which to 
 inneapolis. 
 ion, and to 
 ties for its 
 ,d St. Paul, 
 cT with the 
 which the 
 e Western 
 rn Pacific, 
 should be 
 powers in 
 ■ation pro- 
 ntal Corn- 
 stock, the 
 If new arti- 
 lue of the 
 Northern 
 n to the 
 as author- 
 
 ized to construct its railroad to the cities of Minneapolis 
 and St. Paul, as well as several branch lines, and to build, 
 own and operate elevators, warehouses and other facilities, 
 terminal and otherwise, for the operation of its roads. 
 
 The reorganized Company entered into a construction 
 contract with the Oregon and Transcontinental Com- 
 pany, under which the latter Company undertook to 
 extend the railroad about ninety-two miles, from Sauk 
 Rapids to Minneapolis, including a bridge across the 
 Mississippi P.iver, and to build a double track from St. 
 Paul to the extensive properties of the Company, about 
 midway between St. Paul and Minneapolis. It further 
 agreed to provide terminal improvements to accommo- 
 date the business of th? more than 3,000 miles of the 
 transcontinental system A the Northern Pacific Railroad 
 Company, upon the twenty acres at Minneapolis and the 
 three hundred and eighty acres at St. Paul owned by the 
 St. Paul and Northern Pacific Railway Company, including 
 union passenger and freight stations, round houses, ma- 
 chine and car shops, stock yards, general freight yards, 
 elevators and other required facilities. For these several 
 purposes the St. Paul and Northern Pacific Railway Com- 
 pany created a mortgage under which the immediate 
 issue of $7,000,000 of bonds was authorized out, of which 
 sufficient bonds are to be reserved for the retirement of 
 the outstanding issues of bonds made by the Western 
 Railroad Company of Minnesota, now amounting to 
 $673,000. 
 
 The St. Paul and Northern Pacific Railway Company 
 further entered into a contract and lease with the North- 
 ern Pacific Railroad Company under which the latter 
 Company takes the property for a period of 999 years 
 from February 1, 1883, at an annual rental of forty per 
 cent, of the gross earnings, but which is not to be less in 
 any year than a sum sufficient to pay the annual interest 
 
 I ; 
 
302 
 
 NORTHERN PACirrC RAILROAD. 
 
 on the then outstanding bonds of the St. Paul and North- 
 ern Pacific Railway Company. 
 
 The Northern Pacific, I<"ergus and Black Hills Railroad 
 Company is a corporation existing under the laws of Min- 
 nesota. The name of the corporation at first was the Min- 
 nesoia Northern Railroad Company, and the purpose of 
 its projectors was to construct a narrow gauge road from 
 the village of Fergus Falls northeasterly to a junction 
 with the Northern Pacific Railroad, and from the same 
 place westerly to a junction with the First Division of the 
 St. Paul and Pacific Railroad at Breckenridge. In the 
 original articles of incorporation the business of the Com- 
 pany was stated to be the construction and operation of 
 a railroad " from Fergus Falls in Otter Tail County to 
 a connection with the Northern Pacific Railroad, and 
 also to a connection with the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad 
 by such route as may be determined by said Minnesota 
 Northern Railroad Company." The articles were 
 amended, in accordance with the law of the State, 
 so as to enlarge the powers of the corporation, to 
 state its purpose with greater certainty, and to change 
 the corporate name. It became, as the Northern Pacific, 
 Fergus and Black Hills Railroad Company, empowered 
 to construct, complete, own and operate a standard 
 gauge railroad from a point on the Northern Pacific 
 Railroad one mile west of Wadena to Fergus Falls, 
 thence to the western boundary of the State, and thence 
 to Deadwood in Dakota Territory, known as the main 
 line, with branches from the main line northwardly up 
 the Pelican Valley, and southwardly to Benson, in the 
 county of Swift, and from another point east of Fergus 
 Falls on the main line northerly via Otter Tail Lake, 
 Perham, and Red Lake Falls to the International Bound- 
 ary. The Northern Pacific Railroad Company acquired 
 all the capital stock of the Company. Work was com- 
 
RELATIONS OF THE NORTHERN PACIFIC. 
 
 303 
 
 menced at Wadena in the spring of 1881, and the track 
 reached Breckcnridgc, on the Red River, in the autumn of 
 1882. A branch from Fergus Falls to Pelican Rapids 
 was simultaneously built. The Company thereby earned 
 $200,000 of bonds of Otter Tail County, and a grant of 
 swamp lands said to be of the extent of nearly 100,000 
 acres. Under authority of a law of Dakota Territory 
 the construction of the road was extended into that 
 Territory from Wahpeton, the county seat of Richland 
 County, on the left bank of the Red River opposite 
 Breckenridge, for a distance of about forty miles on a 
 graded road-bed made by the St. Paul, Minneapolis and 
 Manitoba Railway Company, and purchased from that 
 Company in pursuance of a general adjustment of the 
 differences between that Company and the Northern Pa- 
 cific, under which there was an exchange of lines, result- 
 ing in making the system of the Northern Pacific a 
 strictly cast and west one, and that of the other Company 
 a north and south one. This ]:)urcliase was accompanied 
 by a sale of the Pelican Rapids Branch to the Manitoba 
 Company. The Northern Pacific, Fergus, and Black 
 Hills Railroad will be a very important feeder of the 
 Northern Pacific. 
 
 The exchange of lines between the two companies 
 included also the transfer of the ownership to the Mani- 
 toba Company of the so-called, Casselton Branch, which 
 had been constructed by the Casselton Branch Railroad 
 Company, and incorporated under the laws of Dakota, 
 from Casselton on the main line of the Northern Pacific, 
 northward a distance of 43 miles. The line not be- 
 ing mortgaged, and ?11 the stock of the Company being 
 owned by the Northern Pacific, the transfer was an easy 
 matter. 
 
 The Little Falls and Dakota Railroad Company is a 
 corporation organized under the general laws of the State 
 
>4 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 of Minnesota to construct a line from Little Falls, a station 
 on the Western Minnesota line, to the western boundary of 
 the State. The building of the line entitled the Company 
 to a grant of 334,080 acres of overflown lands from the 
 State, and to $164,800 county bonds. The Oregon and 
 Transcontinental Company acquired the franchises of 
 the Company, and the line was built from Little Falls, 
 via Sauk Center, to Morris, a distance of 88 miles, dur- 
 ing the latter half of 1882. At Morris it intersects the 
 Breckenridge main line of the St. Paul, Minneapolis and 
 Manitoba Company, and connects with a line already 
 constructed thence by the latter Company to Brown's 
 Valley. An agreement was effected for the joint use of 
 the Brown's Valley line by both companies. 
 
 The stock of the Little Falls and Dakota Railroad, the 
 Northern Pacific, Fergus, and Black Hills Railroad, and 
 other branches of the Northern Pacific system now in 
 progress of construction, is held by the Oregon and Trans- 
 continental Company under tripartite contracts. The 
 terms of these contracts arc that the Oregon and Trans- 
 continental Company shall construct the branches and 
 take their bonds at the rate of $20,000 per mile ; that the 
 Northern Pacific shall operate the branch lines and pay 
 after the expiration of two years from the commencement 
 of such operation six per cent, annual interest on the 
 bonds, and one per cent, per annum as a sinking fund ; 
 that all the stock shall be deposited with a trust com- 
 pany, and that when the bonds are all retired the stock 
 shall become the property of the Northern Pacific Com- 
 pany ; in the meantime this Company has the right to divi- 
 dends and of voting on the stock. 
 
 The branches constructed, or in process of construction, 
 under this arrangement, besides the two above named, arc 
 as follows : the extension of the Western Railroad from 
 Sauk Rapids to St. Paul ; the Fargo and Southwestern 
 
RELATIONS OF TilE NORTHERN PACIFIC. 
 
 305 
 
 Railroad ; the Sanborn, Cooperstown, and Turtle Mount- 
 ain Railroad ; the Jamestown and Northern Railroad ; 
 and the National Park Branch, built under the charter of 
 the Rocky Mountain Railroad Company of Montana. 
 In the case of the Columbia and Palouse Railroad in 
 Washington Territory, the amount of bonds, owing to 
 the expense of construction, is $30,000 per mile, and 
 the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company joins the 
 Northern Pacific in the contract with the Oregon and 
 Transcontinental Company, and assumes one-half of the 
 obligation to pay the interest on the bonds, and sinking 
 fund charges. 
 
 With the high credit commanded by the securities of the 
 Oregon and Transcontinental Company in the financial 
 market, it will be easy to provide for whatever require- 
 ments the growth of the regions tributary to the North- 
 ern Pacific may create in the way of extensions of the 
 branches alreatly commenced and in the construction of 
 new ones. In speaking on this subject President Villard, 
 in his report to the stockholders of the Northern Pacific 
 Railroad Company for the year 1881-82, said : 
 
 " It is well known that the growth of all the great 
 Western railroad corporations is in the largest measure 
 due to the gradual construction of systems of tributary 
 lines. But all these companies succeeded in providing 
 themselves with such local systems only through the 
 efforts, sacrifices and embarrassments of years. The 
 Northern Pacific is, and will probably remain, the only 
 Company so fortunate as to command that source of 
 prosperity to the fullest extent, and practically without 
 financial burdens, in the early stages of its career. 
 
 20 
 
 Mi 
 
^m 
 
 -5"i 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE NORTHERN PACIFIC COUNTRY. 
 
$ 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 EASTERN TERMINAL CITIES AND LAKE TORTS. 
 
 A Defect in the Northern Pacific Charter — Lake Superior not the Proper 
 Eastern Terminus — A Description of the Twin Cities of Minnesota — 
 St. Paul the Older Place — Remarkahle Recent Growth of Minneapolis — 
 Business of the Two Cities — Picturesque Appearance of St. Paul — Min- 
 neapolis and the Falls of St. Anthony — Northern Pacific Offices and 
 Terminal Facilities — The Bay of .Superior — .\mbition of Both Wiscon- 
 sin and Minnesota to Possess a Commercial City at the Head of Lake 
 Superior — Superior and Duluth — Why Duluth was Made the First Lake 
 Terminus of the Northern Pacific — The Strife About the Duluth Canal 
 and Dike — Grt^wth of Duluth — Prospects of Superior — Ashland a Third 
 Northern Pacific Port. 
 
 The charter of the Northern Pacific Company was 
 defective in one important respect ; it provided that the 
 road should begin at the head of Lake Superior, thus 
 fixing its eastern terminus in a wilderness at the end 
 of a great fresh-water sea, closed to navigation by ice 
 for five months of the year, and without railway com- 
 munication.s. The lake terminus was valuable for the 
 traffic in coal and other heavy materials, and for grain 
 .shipments eastward to the seaboard; but if no other 
 eastern outlet had been secured, the enterprise would 
 have been foredoomed to failure. St. Paul was the 
 natural starting-point for the line, being the furthest 
 place from Chicago reached by the railway system of 
 the Northwest at the time the charter was granted, 
 and a town of sufficient importance to afford facilities 
 for construction and a base of supplies. We have 
 seen in previous chapters how the Northern Pacific 
 Directors managed to remedy the mistake of Congress 
 
310 
 
 XOKTJIEKX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 by purchasing the stock of the St. Paul and Pacific 
 Company, and liow, when they lost their hold on that 
 corporation in a time of financial distress, and it was 
 reorganized as a rival interest, they secured a line from 
 their main road at Brainerd to Sauk Rapids, about 
 half-way to St. Paul, and made a contract for a joint 
 use of track for the remainder of the distance. The 
 increasing business of the Northern Pacific soon rendered 
 this arrangement inadequate, and an independent line 
 to Minneapolis is now being built for the Company's 
 use. 
 
 These two cities, of equal size and importance, situated 
 at the head of navigation on the Mississippi River, so 
 near to each other that their suburbs almost touch, and 
 destined to grow together and form a metropolis rivaling 
 Chicago, are the eastern end of the Northern Pacific sys- 
 tem. They are of nearly equal size, the people of each 
 claiming that it is a little larger than the other. Prob- 
 ably a fair estimate of their population in the summer 
 of 1883 would assign to each 75,000 inhabitants. Their 
 growth on parallel lines of development, with business 
 centres less than ten miles apart, affords an interesting 
 and unique phenomenon. Neither is in any sense a sub- 
 urb or dependency of the other. Each is a true city in 
 all that pertains to urban life, having its wholesale trade, 
 its crowded business streets, its banks, railroads, theatres, 
 street-car system, and daily newspapers ; yet, in going 
 from one to the other on either of the three lines of 
 railroads connecting them, the traveler is not out of sight 
 of the suburbs of the place he is leaving before the spires 
 of its twin-city rise before him. 
 
 St. Paul is the older place, having been a frontier trad- 
 ing post in the time when the whole area of the present 
 State of Minnesota was an Indian hunting ground. As 
 a Territorial capital, and later the capital of the State, it 
 
id Pacific 
 i on that 
 id it was 
 line from 
 ds, about 
 or a joint 
 ICC. The 
 1 rendered 
 ident line 
 Company's 
 
 e, situated 
 L River, so 
 touch, and 
 lis rivaling 
 Pacific sys- 
 ile of each 
 er. Prob- 
 
 11 
 
 e 
 
 summer 
 ts. Their 
 1 business 
 nteresting 
 nsc a sub- 
 rue city in 
 sale trade, 
 , theatres, 
 in going 
 :e lines of 
 ut of sight 
 the spires 
 
 ntier trad- 
 
 le present 
 
 )und. As 
 
 le State, it 
 
 ft 
 
 1^ 
 
 fi 
 
.^^Jl'HVlwR 
 
EASTERN TERMINAL CITIES AND LAKE PORTS. 
 
 311 
 
 early attained importance, and as the most convenient 
 landing-place for supplies at the head of river navigation, 
 commerce occupied it as a distributing point. The 
 growth of Minneapolis dates from the establishment of 
 manufacturing industries at the Falls of St. Anthony. 
 Formerly there were two villages, one on the east bank 
 of the river, bearing the name of the falls; the other on 
 the west bank, called Minneapolis in 185 1. The first saw- 
 mill was put in operation in 1848, by the aid of a tempo- 
 rary dam built across the cast channel of the river. The 
 place was a natural seat of lumber manufacture, the Mis- 
 sissippi and its tributaries carrying the logs down from 
 the pineries of Northern Minnesota, and the cataract af- 
 fording ample power for mills. The remarkable growth 
 of the place dates, however, from a very recent period. 
 As late as i860 there were only 5,821 inhabitants in the 
 two villages. It was the cultivation of wheat in the North- 
 west, and the building of flouring-mills at the Falls of St. 
 Anthony, which gave Minneapolis the impetus that 
 brought it out of the country village state. In i860 the 
 first mill to grind wheat was set in motion, and two more 
 were built next year. The outbreak of the rebellion of 
 1 861 checked the growth of both Minneapolis and St. 
 Paul, but they were more seriously affected by the Sioux 
 Indian massacre of 1862. In August of that year three 
 thousand savages fell upon the unsuspecting settlers along 
 a frontier line of two hundred miles, advanced less than a 
 hundred west of the capital of the State. More than 
 2,000 men, women and children perished in a single week 
 by the bullets and knives of the brutal Sioux, and blazing 
 villages and farm houses spread a lurid glare along the 
 western sky. Many thousands of terror-stricken fugitives 
 abandoned their homes, and flocked for protection to St. 
 Paul and Minneapolis. The Indians were soon held in 
 check, and in a few weeks were totally defeated in a hard 
 
 I 
 
 %\ 
 
y^ 
 
 wm 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 1 
 
 312 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 fight, and driven out of the State, but the news of the 
 massacre stopped emigration to Minnesota for a time, and 
 retarded the settlement of her fertile prairies. Prosperity 
 was restored in 1864 and 1865, and since then the growth 
 of the twin cities has been rapid. St. Paul was far in the 
 lead until the great expansion of the flouring and lumber 
 industries at the falls brought Minneapolis up abreast with 
 her neighbor. During the year 1882 Minneapolis manu- 
 factured 312,239,000 feet of lumber, and ground 16,900,000 
 bushels of wheat Into flour. Its flouring mills are impos- 
 ing structures of stone, and many of them are equaled for 
 capacity of production nowhere in the world save by a 
 single mill at BudaPesth, in Hungary. 
 
 St. Paul's leading business is the wholesale trade in 
 groceries and dry goods. Many of the commercial houses 
 occupy buildings of great size, and carry stocks scarcely 
 exceeded by those of the best known firms of Chicago and 
 New York. Their stately edifices of trade lining the 
 streets in the business quarter, give to the town an air of 
 dignity and solid prosperity. With one exception the six 
 railway lines which make St. Paul a terminus run also 
 to Minneapolis, and all use a freight transfer station mid- 
 way between the two cities. St. Paul, however, is re- 
 garded as the focus of railway activity, as Minneapolis is 
 of manufacturing. It also does a large transportation 
 trade by river, in spite of the great diversion of traffic 
 from water to rail. Two lines of steamers despatch each 
 a boat daily to St. Louis. 
 
 In their physical aspects the two citit.^ differ widely. St. 
 Paul is built on three plateaux, rising above the river like 
 irregular terraces, and broken by i.lu: depressions of bold 
 ravines. The streets are narrow, and some of them climb 
 steep hills. A long truss bridge crosses to an island, and 
 thence to the opposite shore of the river, aftbrding com- 
 munication with a suburb on the further bank. The State 
 
EASTEKX TERMhVAL CITIES AXD LAKE PORTS. 
 
 l^l 
 
 Capitol is a new buildini;, not fortunate in its exterior 
 architecture, but handsomely finished within with the 
 nature-polislied woods of the State. It is well lighted, well 
 ventilated, and well arranged for its purposes. The best 
 residence street, Summit Avenue, skirting a bluff for a 
 mile, gives striking views over the river and the town, and 
 affords abundant evidences of wealth and taste in its 
 dwellings and grounds. 
 
 Minneapolis stands on level ground on both sides of 
 the river, but mainly on the western bank, the two parts 
 of the city being joined by a suspension biidge. The 
 Falls of St. Anthony, after threatening for five years to 
 break away and change to a lively rapid, were fettered 
 and protected by aprons of stout timber, in 1872, and 
 made to look like a prosaic milldam on a large scale. On 
 both sides of the river below them, and on the shores of 
 an island above, are the rows of ft ^ur-mills and saw-mills 
 which form the chief source of the city's prosperit}-. On 
 the wide and level prairie over which Minneapolis has 
 spread itself out, there was opportunity for a systematic 
 arrangement of the streets, which are broad avenues, with 
 wide sidewalks, and in many cases quadruple rows of trees, 
 forming cool archways of shade in the brief, hot summer 
 of this northern latitude. The tourist who drives through 
 these fine arcades of living verdure, bordered by hand- 
 some houses and pretty lawns, is disposed to concede 
 the claim of the residents that theirs is the most beautiful 
 young city in America. 
 
 At St. Paul and Minneapolis the Northern Pacific Road 
 lias the advantage of three competing connections with 
 Chicago, an advantage which the Union Pacific obtained 
 at Council Bluffs when its line was opened. Making 
 timely provision for the future, the Company has pur- 
 chased extensive grounds for a Union depot and car 
 shops in the present northern outskirts of the city, and 
 
 I 
 
 ■A 
 
It 
 
 1 
 
 314 
 
 NORTHER !V PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Other crrounds about midway between the two cities for 
 elevators, stockyards, and general freight purposes. It 
 has also erected in St. Paul a massive and handsome fire- 
 proof building for its general offices, which for solidity of 
 construction and style of finish is hardly equaled by any 
 business structure in the West. With the exception of 
 the State Capitol, it is the most substantial and conspicu- 
 ous building in St. Paul. 
 
 The growth of St. Paul and Minneapolis in the imme- 
 diate future promises to exceed that of the past. A 
 thousand miles' breadth of country, whose settlement has 
 barely begun, is tributary to them. They stand in the 
 gate-way of the New Northwest. Their commerce em- 
 braces in its far-reaching scope the pineries of Northern 
 Minnesota, the highly productive wheat fields of the val- 
 leys of the Red River and the James, the Missouri Slope, 
 just beginning to attract immigration, and the vast ex- 
 panse of Montana as far as the Rocky Mountains. Every 
 farm that is opened, and every village that springs up in 
 Dakota or Montana, adds to their wealth. They feel in 
 all the channels of their business activity the stimulus 
 of the immense fertile region lying beyond them in the 
 farther West, where eager pioneers are turning to account 
 the vast stores of natural wealth. Doubtless their 
 population and business will double in another decade, 
 and it would be no rash prediction to say that, by the 
 beginning of the twentieth century, they will return to 
 the census half a million of souls. 
 
 The States of Minnesota and Wisconsin have each a 
 considerable extent of territory fronting upon Lake Su- 
 perior, and the boundary line between them traverses 
 the only good harbor at the head of the lake, the 
 Bay of Superior. This fine bay, having a length of 
 eight miles, and a width of from one to three miles, 
 is sheltered from the lake by a narrow tongue of land 
 
cities for 
 rposcs. It 
 dsomc fire- 
 solidity of 
 
 led by any 
 cception of 
 
 1 conspicu- 
 
 the immc- 
 
 2 past. A 
 lement has 
 and in the 
 merce em- 
 f Northern 
 
 of the val- 
 ouri Slope, 
 le vast ex- 
 ins. Everv 
 rings up in 
 hey feel in 
 e stimulus 
 hem in the 
 
 to account 
 (tless their 
 lier decade, 
 hat, by the 
 L return to 
 
 lavc each a 
 I Lake Su- 
 1 traverses 
 lake, the 
 length of 
 hrce miles, 
 ue of land 
 
 / 
 
EASTERN TERMINAL CITIES AND LAKE PORTS. 
 
 315 
 
 kK. 
 
 Vof: fur**! - 
 
 
 called Minnesota Point, nowhere more than a pistol 
 shot across, and in places so narrow that the spray of the 
 lake waves in times of storm almost dashes over it. Into 
 the upper part of the bay jut two other points, Rice's and 
 Conner's, whose broad flat surfaces are well adapted for 
 commercial and manufacturing purposes, and between 
 these points the river St. Louis flows into the bay. It 
 was only natural that each of the two States should de- 
 sire to possess a commercial city at the head of the great 
 lake, connected by railroad lines with the interior. For 
 the development of such a city, Wisconsin had an evident 
 natural advantage in an admirable site for the purpose, 
 or •' broad plateau facing the entrance to the bay; 
 wh. v'-.as Minnesota had only the narrow sandy spit bear- 
 iii;; hor name, and a steep hillside at its junction with the 
 mainland, and vessels could only land in her territory by 
 passing the Wisconsin landing and coming up the bay to 
 Rice's Point. Upon the Wisconsin plateau, facing the 
 lower bay, stood the town of Superior, laid out as long 
 ago as iS6o, and platted on a scale large enough for a 
 city of 100,000 inhabitants, but containing at the time 
 operations began on the Northern Pacific Road only a 
 scant 800. Much of the town-site was owned by non- 
 residents. .Among the original owners were a group of 
 Democratic .stntr>men of great prominence in public 
 affairs bcT-re the War — Stephen A. Douglas, Jesse D. 
 Bright, o;'! C T^recken ridge, Beriah Magoffin, and also 
 the eminent ^' ashington banker, W. W. Corcoran. The 
 place ')-.ad hvT Co .mcrce to speak of, and no country trade, 
 thcr'j being no farming district back of it, and it lived 
 along in a sleepy way, on the hope of future greatness, to 
 come from railway connection with the interior. 
 
 At the head of Minnesota Point a petty hamlet had 
 come into "vistence, called Duluth, in honor of an early 
 French plorer and trader. It was occupied by a few 
 
 I 
 
 / 
 

 3PM 
 
 316 
 
 iWORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 frontiersmen, who tliought a town would eventually grov; 
 up at the head of the lake on Minnesota Territory, and 
 who had early taken measures to secure claims to the 
 land. The charter of the Northern Pacific Company 
 made it optional with the Company whether it should 
 make its lake terminus in Minnesota or Wisconsin, but 
 before it could build in either State the consent of the 
 Legislature was required. The Legislature of IMinnesota 
 carefully provided in the act giving such consent, that 
 in case the Company should make its eastern terminus 
 east of the easte.' r. boundary of Minnesota, it should con- 
 struct a line of ; -^ '"■om its main line to the navigable 
 waters of Lake :3l., jr within that State. Wisconsin, 
 less jealous of her inti^ jsts, only required that the North- 
 ern Pacific should not, prior to the building of its line, 
 allow any Minnesota company to enjoy its rights and 
 privileges within the State of Wisconsin, and, further, 
 that in case the Northern Pacific sliould not make a lake 
 terminus within the territory of Wisconsin, it should give 
 privileges of connection and traffic to any other company 
 building from its main line to a Wisconsin port. The 
 first railroad company to build to the head of the lake 
 was the Lake Superior and Mississippi, controlled by Jay 
 Cooke and other Philadelphia capitalists, Avho furnished 
 the first money to construct the Northern Pacific. This 
 company necessarily made Duluth its terminus, being a 
 Minnesota corporation. The interest of the Northern 
 Pacific (by purchasing for $500,000 an undivided half 
 interest in the road from the junction to Duluth — twenty- 
 three miles) made Duluth its lake terminus for the time. 
 But Duluth had no harbor save the shallow upper end of 
 the Bay of Superior. Mr. Cooke's plan was to build a 
 spacious artificial harbor straight out into the lake, like 
 the harbor of Cherbourg, in France — an enterprise which 
 would have involved the expenditure of many m.ilHons of 
 
EASTERN TERMIXAL CITIES AXD LAKE PORTS. 
 
 317 
 
 dollars. An attempt was made to create a temporary 
 harbor by a construction of jiilcs and timber, but a north- 
 west storm swept it away. Then the idea of a canal 
 across the narrow sand spit of Minnesota Point occurred 
 to the citizens, and they set to work to dig it. From this 
 canal arose an acrimonious strife with the town of Su- 
 perior, in which the State of Wisconsin and the United 
 States Government became involved. The citizens of 
 Superior alleged that the waters of the St. Louis River 
 would leave thcii natural channel and flow out throuiih 
 the canal, and they made such representations to the 
 Government that proceedings were begun for a prelimi- 
 nary injunction to prevent the digging of the canal. The 
 lawyers had to go to Topck;., Kansas, to bring the case 
 -before the United States Circuit Court. Justice Miller, 
 of the Supreme Court, who presided, granted the injunc- 
 tion, but the papers were delayed in transmission so long 
 that the Duluth people by working night and day got the 
 canal cut through before the injunction was served. The 
 result apprehended by Superior followed : a strong cur- 
 rent set out through the new channel, and the old 
 entrance to the bay shoaled three feet in the next gale. 
 
 Justice Miller had suggested in his opinion that a dike 
 might be constructed which would prevent the river from 
 leaving its old course, and so obviate the objections of 
 Superior ; and, acting on this suggestion, Duluth obtained 
 permission from the Chief of Engineers at Washington Lo 
 build a dike from Rice's Point to Minnesota Point, inclos- 
 ing a small basin at the head of the bay for a harbor, 
 communicating with the lake by the new canal. The 
 dike was built at a cost of $i lo.ooG, but it was not made 
 water tight. It did ''ot stop the river from sending much 
 of its water out by the canal, and it made a barrier to 
 navigation which cut off the Superior people from sailing 
 up the bay to use the new railroad at Duluth. An at- 
 
 I 
 
 ) 
 
WSSSSfSfS. 
 
 ■H 
 
 318 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 tempt was made one niijlit, by a party from Superior, to 
 blow up the dike with gunpowder, which was so far suc- 
 cessful as to open a passage through which small boats 
 could go. Meantime Duluth deepened her canal and ob- 
 t' 'ned recognition for it from Congress in the form of an 
 appropriation to build piers and a lighthouse, and to 
 dredge out the snug little harbor into which it opened. 
 After a time the Government ordered the dike removed 
 as an obstruction to commerce, and it was partially de- 
 molished. Before this was done, however, a suit was 
 brought against the City of Duluth and the Northern 
 Pacific Railroad Company, which had aided in the canal 
 and dike work, for compensation for the damage done to 
 the harbor of Superior. This suit was withdrawn by 
 Gov. Washbur.ic, on the Northern Pacific Company 
 agreeing to build a branch across Rice's Point and Con- 
 ner's Point to Superi<^i-, and in conducting the business 
 of its road, to place Supcr'or and Duluth on an equal 
 footing. To facilitate this compromise a bill was passed 
 by Congress giving the right to bridge the St. Louis 
 River between the two points. 
 
 Thus Duluth got her harbor and her railroad, while 
 Superior got nothing but a promise, and was obliged to 
 sit idly on her plateau and see a busy town grow up on 
 the steep Minnesota hillsides at the upper end of the 
 baj^ ; the prize for which she had waited a quarter of a 
 century having slipped through her fingers. Duluth 
 grew apace; wharves and elevators were built on the 
 sandy point, the forest was cleared from the slooes of the 
 hills and an active commercial town leaped into exist- 
 ence. Everything went on prosperously until the panic 
 of 1873 stopped construction on the Northern Pacific 
 Railroad. Then the town collapsed and half its population 
 abandoned it. Stagnation and discouragement reigned 
 for five or six years, when better times brought a fresh 
 
EASTERiV TERMINAL CITIES AND LAKE FORTS. 
 
 319 
 
 crrowtli. Saw mills and a charcoal iron furnace were cs- 
 tablished. With the settlement of western Minnesota and 
 Dakota, more and more wheat came to Duluth for lake 
 shipment, and more and more lumber was demanded by 
 the interior. In the years 1881 and 1882 the growth of 
 the town was remarkable. The population increased 
 from 5,000 in 1880, to 12,000 in the spring of 1883. Dur- 
 ing the year 1882, 508 new buildings were erected, costing 
 §1,438,315. The grain receipts, which in 1881 were 
 2,848,402 bushels, increased in 1882 to 4,198,833 bushels. 
 Five new saw mills were established in 1882, and the total 
 lumber product was 83,118,793 feet, besides 21,363,000 
 shingles and 10,528,000 lath. A railroad is now building 
 to the Iron Range, an immense ledge of hematite ore 
 about one hundred miles north of Duluth, which it is be- 
 lieved will make the town an important iron manufactur- 
 ing point, bringing its coal from the Lake Erie ports and 
 shipping its product westward by rail. The lake com- 
 merce of Duluth employs six lines of steamers and numer- 
 ous sailing vessels. In 1882 there were 569 arrivals of 
 steamers and 277 of sail craft — an increase of 184 arrivals 
 over 1 88 1. 
 
 Superior has experienced considerable growth of late, 
 but cannot yet make comparison with its prosperous 
 rival. Its present population, in the summer of 1883, is 
 about 2,000. The Government has deepened the harbor 
 entrance, and the town is beginning to obtain some bene- 
 fits from lake commerce attracted thither by two lines of 
 railroad — the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha, 
 leading to St. Paul and Chicago, and the Northern 
 Pacific. The Wisconsin division of the latter road was 
 opened to Superior in December, 1881, under an agree- 
 ment with leading citizens conveying to the Company an 
 interest in the town site and the use of the water front ; 
 but the harbor improvements were not made in time for 
 
 *u 
 
 I 
 
 -1 
 
 
320 
 
 A'OKTJIEKX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 freight to be sent over the line until the season oi 
 1883. 
 
 In concluding this account of the two ports at the 
 head of Lake Superior reached by the Northern Pacific 
 ' system, it may properly be said that the probabilities of 
 the future indicate the development of a large city, which 
 will have need of all the building sites, water fronts and 
 harbor advantages of both places, and which will unite 
 the two rival towns in one true metropolis. The distance 
 from the north end of Duluth to the south end of Superior, 
 be it remarked, is not half that from the north to the 
 south end of Chicago, and with the bridging of the St. 
 Louis River local travel will easily pass from one place to 
 the other. 
 
 The town of Ashland, on Chegwamigon Bay, sixty miles 
 east of Superior, will soon be reached by the Wisconsin 
 division of the Northern Pacific road. It has a good 
 harbor and is the lake terminus of the Wisconsin Central 
 Railroad. As a third lake port of the Northern Pacific 
 system, it will soon have increased importance. At pres- 
 ent its population is about 2,000. 
 
season oi 
 
 orts at the 
 lern Pacific 
 ^abilities of 
 city, whicli 
 
 fronts and 
 . will unite 
 he distance 
 of Superior, 
 3rth to the 
 
 of the St. 
 me place to 
 
 sixty miles 
 : Wisconsin 
 las a good 
 isin Central 
 lern Pacific 
 :. At pres- 
 
 ^ 
 
 I 
 
 -r 
 
 f 
 
 v}'. 
 
u 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 ft 
 
 NORTHERN MINNESOTA. 
 
 Extensive Al-eas of Forest I-and — Towns North of St. Paul — The Country 
 Hetween Eake Superior and lirainertl — A Wide Stretch of Wilderness — 
 Great Value of the Minnesota Timber IJelt — The Lake and Park Region 
 — Innumerable Lakes and lieautiful Groves — Detroit — Fergus Falls and 
 its Water-power — The Great Valley of the Red River of the North — 
 The Land of No. i Hard Wheat — Towns iu the Valley — Breckenridge 
 and Wahpeton — Fargo and Moorhead — The Natural Grain Belt of the 
 Continent — Settlement of Northern Minnesota. 
 
 4 
 
 : 
 
 A L.\RGE part of the surface of Northern Minnesota is 
 
 still, 
 
 ant 
 
 mus 
 
 st always be, covered with forests, the soil 
 
 not being adapted for agriculture, even if settlers were 
 willing to undergo the toil of clearing off the trees and 
 undergrowth. In the pine belts the soil is light and: 
 sandy, and in many parts of the hard-wood districts the 
 ground is so flat in large areas of surface that there is 
 no sufficient drainage, and the water collects in swamps 
 and countless ponds, making the earth cold ar"<d soggy. 
 There are, however, extensive forest districts lightly tim- 
 bered with oak, birch and maple, where clearings are 
 made with profit after the heavier timber has been cut 
 off for firewood and railway ties. American emigrants 
 seldom go to these districts, preferring the open prairie, 
 a little further west ; but those forest-loving people, the 
 Germans and Scandinavians, have planted thrifty col- 
 onies there. Along the St. Paul Division of the North- 
 ern Pacific Railroad, which follows the Mississippi Valley 
 closely, many broad prairie openings occur, which have 
 been tolerably well settled for the past twenty years. 
 The towns of Itaska, Anoka, Elk River, Little Falls, St. 
 Cloud and Saux Rapids are chiefly engaged in sawing 
 
 31 
 
322 
 
 N'ORTHER.y PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 the logs which arc floated down the Mississippi and its 
 tributaries from the pineries, and in grinding grain for 
 the neighboring farmers. They are prosperous places in 
 the main, but most of them seem nearly to liave reached 
 their limit of growth. East of the valley lie the most ex- 
 tensive pine forests of the State ; west of it there is a 
 thickly timbered hard-wood belt, screening as with a cur- 
 tain of green a beautiful agricultural region beyond. 
 
 The main line of the railroad, running nearly due west 
 from the head of Lake Superior, traverses a monoto- 
 nous region all the way to Brainerd, a distance of 114 
 miles. The whole face of the country is covered with 
 the original forest growth of dwarfish oaks, maples and 
 birch, with here and there patches of tamarack, spruce 
 or pine. Although this is the water-shed between the 
 lakes and thj Mississippi, the land is nearly level, and 
 the little chocolate -colored streams wander aimlessly 
 about, as if uncertain whether to make for the near reser- 
 voir of Lake Superior or to start on the long journey 
 to the Gulf of Mexico. This great forest tract extends 
 northward all the way to the Lake of the Woods, and is 
 uninhabited save for the lumbermen's camps, where the 
 little rivulets are deep enough to carry the logs to dis- 
 tant mills. Between Duluth and Superior at the head 
 of the lake, and Brainerd on the Mississippi, there are no 
 farms and no towns save the sawmill hamlets of Thom- 
 son and Aiken and the little railroad village of Northern 
 Pacific junction. There is no reason to regret, however, 
 that nature has made so much of Northern Minnesota 
 an irredeemable wilderness. These dreary woodland 
 stretches are of the greatest importance. Desolate them- 
 selves, they have virtually peopled the fertile prairies 
 that sweep away westward in billowy undulations all the 
 way to the Rocky Mountains, for they are the store- 
 houses of fuel and lumber for the treeless plains — build- 
 
NOH TIIERX MINNL SO TA . 
 
 3-3 
 
 111!^ the farmer's Iiouse and feeding his fire. But for tiicir 
 nearness to the Red River Valley and the Dakota 
 prairies the settlement of these regions would have been 
 indefinitely retarded. Cities, villages and farm-houses, 
 railway ties, telegraph poles, and towering grain-eleva- 
 tors have all been cut out of these Minnesota woods. 
 
 cmembering this, the traveler checks the expression, 
 "What a wretched country !" which rises to his lips as 
 he rides hour after hour through swamps and pine bar- 
 rens, past sombre lakes and never-ending thickets, where 
 the silence is only broken, when the noisy train stands 
 still, by the croaking of frogs or the resonant ring of the 
 woodchopper's axe. 
 
 Brainerd is a busv town of railroad mechanics and 
 train men, built in the pine woods on the high bank of 
 the Mississippi ; and the people, with a good taste, rare in 
 new western communities, have refrained from slaughtt r- 
 ing the stately trees, and planted their pretty cottages 
 
 •■>i-)ng them, finding shelter from the keen northern blasts 
 winter, and from the summer sun under the evergreen 
 .anopies. The town boasts of 7,000 inhabitants, and is 
 wholly the creation of the railroad. Further west the 
 character of the country soon changes into a level or 
 slightly rolling region of alternate prairie and woodland 
 strips. Good farms and busy little towns are passed — • 
 each town with its tall wheat elevator, and its rows of 
 little pine shops and dwellings, and all looking very 
 much alike. In the first stage of the growth of villages 
 along a new line of railroad, the business buildings are 
 always placed as near the station as possible, on a street 
 facing the track. If the place flourishes, a second busi- 
 ness street is built crossing the track at right angles, 
 and leading off into the country ; but unless a large town 
 grows up, the centre of trade is never out of sight of the 
 arriving train. The locomotive is the great civilizer of 
 
 rr 
 
324 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 new regions, and the settlers, to whom the railroad means 
 comfort and prosperity, seem to find music in its bell and 
 whistle. Among the well-established and growing towns 
 in the farming country west of Brainerd are Verndalc and 
 Wadena, the latter a county seat and the terminus of the 
 important branch railroad running to Fergus Falls, and 
 thence across the Red River Valley far into Dakota. 
 Further west is Perham, named in honor of the first presi- 
 dent of the Northern Pacific Railroad ; Detroit, Lake 
 Park, and Hawley, which commemorates an excursion of 
 Gen. Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut, to the Red River 
 country in 1872, made as a journalist, in company with a 
 party of famous men of that profession — among them 
 Bayard Taylor and Charles A. Dana. At Detroit we are 
 in the heart of a very peculiar and very attractive belt of 
 country, appropriately called the Lake and Park Region, 
 which has a length of about 200 miles, and an average 
 width of 5c, and borders on the east upon the flat and 
 treeless plain of the Red River Valley. Lake Region it 
 is, indeed, for there are so many lakes, big and little, that 
 the inhabitants appear to have given up the task of find- 
 ing names for them all. Some stretch out to the horizon 
 in broad sheets of blue ; many are bright little pools of a 
 mile or two in length. Usually the shores slope gently 
 up from pebbly beaches, and present graceful curves of 
 bays and capes, with fields and meadows alternating with 
 oak and maple groves. On a large map nearly one-third 
 of the country appears to be covered with water, and the 
 map presents a curious mottled appearance, like the pecu- 
 liar paper bookbinders use. Between the lakes the land 
 rises and sinks in knolls, hills and valleys, with pleas- 
 ing curvatures of surface, broad stretches of wheat and 
 pasture farms and many wooded tracts, where the trees 
 stand in groups, with lawn-like openings between, and 
 suggest the artificial arrangement of the parks on the 
 
NOR THERN MINNESO TA . 
 
 325 
 
 estates of English noblemen. A prettier rural country, 
 so far al nature has made it, one need not wish to see. 
 In riding across it, every hill-top discloses a view of more 
 lovely lakes, each with some claim to Individuality of 
 slope or landscape setting, to distinguish it from the rest. 
 
 Not only is the Lake and Park Region a very pretty 
 country; it is also a very fertile country. The open 
 lands are excellent for general farming — not quite as pro- 
 ductive of wheat as the Red River Valley lands further 
 west, hut, from their excellent drainage, not liable to the 
 drawback of an occasional wet season, which once in four 
 or five years reduces the yield of the Valley farms. Then 
 the farmers here have the great advantage of an abun- 
 dance of hard wood for fuel and fencing on their own 
 estates, or close at hand, and the pleasures of fishing and 
 shooting on the lakes ; to say nothing of the saving from 
 being able to supply their tables abundantly with black 
 bass, pickerel, white fish, and muscalonge, and with wild 
 duck. A good farm fronting on one of these clear, blue 
 lakes, gives the most agreeable conditions of rural life to 
 be found in the Northwest — mellow, fertile fields for 
 crops, excellent pastures and meadows, broad woodland 
 tracts for timber and the home fires, fishing, hunting, and 
 boating for recreation, and railroads and towns near at 
 hand. Land is naturally held at higher prices than out 
 on the prairies, and there is none left for the homestead 
 settler or for purchase at the low prices of railroad com- 
 nics. Still, good land can be bought at $10 or $15 an 
 acre, and improved farms for §20 or $25. 
 
 Detroit, whose lovely lake is fast becoming a summer re- 
 sort, is one of the principal towns of this region ; another, 
 and the largest in the region, is Fergus Falls, fast develop- 
 ing into a considerable manufacturing town. Here the Ot- 
 tcrtail River comes leaping down from a group of lakes to 
 the plain of the Red River, making a succession of rapids 
 
 ■M 
 
 ..MM., iiM^rMJiMiiiiii iMiWiM^iiftMi itliU if liiilihttm MiiriMlMII 
 
■9W 
 
 326 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 and cascades, which form a remarkably good water power, 
 scarcely varying in volume the year round, neither swell- 
 ing in dangerous freshets, nor dwindling in summer 
 droughts. This water-power has already (in 1883) pro- 
 duced an active town of about 6,000 inhabitants in five 
 years' time, and is not yet utilized to the extent of one- 
 fourth of its capacity. Fergus Falls is built on more i..lls 
 than ancient Rome, and, oddly enough, on the top of one 
 of them, high above the neighboring business street, is a 
 pretty little lake, two or three miles in circumferei In- 
 
 stead of draining it off with the view to sell its bed fo. town 
 lots, as the prevalent utilitarian spirit of the West must 
 often have suggested, the people have spared the groves 
 on its banks, and laid out a drive and promenade skirting 
 the shore, on which they are building handsome residences. 
 Other growing towns in this region arc Pelican Rapids 
 and Sauk Centre. The region ends on the north at the 
 pine country around Red Lake, and on the east at the 
 low forest tract skirting the Mississippi Valley, while on 
 the west it is bordered by the treeless plains, which are 
 relieved by no forests nearer than the advanced spurs of 
 the Rocky Mountains — the Bull, the Big Horn, and the 
 Judith ranges. It is traversed by the main line of the 
 Northern Pacific Railroad and by two of its branches — 
 the Little Falls and Dakota and the Northern Pacific, 
 Fergus and Black Hills Railroads, and also by one of the 
 main lines and one of the branches of the St. Paul, Min- 
 neapolis and Manitoba Railroad. 
 
 Upon their western front the woodlands leave off quite 
 abruptly, as if unwilling to descend to the low plain, and 
 the surface becomes less and less undulating until, a few- 
 miles beyond the timber boundary, the level prairie 
 stretches away to the horizon line. This is the great 
 Valley of the Red River of the North, first discovered 
 two centuries ago by French voyageurs pushing their 
 
NORTHERN MJNNESOTA. 
 
 327 
 
 ater power, 
 ither swell- 
 in summer 
 I 1883) pro- 
 ants in five 
 ent of one- 
 1 more i.lls 
 i top of one 
 3 street, is a 
 'erer In- 
 )cd fo. town 
 
 West must 
 I the groves 
 ade skirting 
 e residences, 
 ican Rapid;: 
 north at the 
 
 east at the 
 ^y, while on 
 
 , which are 
 
 cd spurs of 
 n, and the 
 line of the 
 branches — 
 
 ern Pacific, 
 one of the 
 Paul, Min- 
 
 ve offquite 
 plain, and 
 
 until, a few 
 
 :vel prairie 
 the great 
 discovered 
 
 ihing their 
 
 pirogues up the tortuous course of the muddy stream 
 from their fur-trading station near Lake Winnipeg. The 
 land is almost a dead level, and the grassy surface is 
 featureless save where there is a fringe of alder and Cot- 
 tonwood along a stream, and where farm-houses, straw- 
 ricks, railway stations and towns relieve its endless mo- 
 notony of aspect. The land, as all the world now knows, 
 is of great and inexhaustible fertility, and particularly 
 valuable for the production of spring wheat. Settlement 
 on the American side of the international boundary only 
 dates from the opening of the Northern Pacific Railroad 
 across the valley in 1871 and 1872; yet the crop of " No. 
 I hard wheat " is already one of the important elements 
 in the grain trade of the world, though scarcely one acre 
 in five of the valley has been plowed. All the rest is vir- 
 gin sod awaiting immigration and industry. 
 
 The Red River cuts the valley in two from south to 
 north nearly midway of its width, and divides Minne- 
 sota from Dakota. A notable fact showing a tendency 
 of growth akin to that which — other things being 
 equal — causes cities to be built on the western shore of 
 rivers rather than their eastern banks, is the more rapid 
 settlement of the Dakota side of the valley. Although 
 the land is as good and as ample in area on the Minne- 
 sota side, the greater part of the incoming tide of popu- 
 lation pushes across to Dakota. On that side are the 
 chief towns of the valley — Wahpeton, Fargo and Grand 
 Forks. Facing Wahpeton, across the narrow stream, is 
 Breckenridge, the oldest town, save the Hudson's Bay 
 Company's post of Georgetown, in the entire valley, yet 
 scarce a third as large as its Dakota neighbor. Facing 
 Fargo in a like situation is the town of Moorhead, which 
 can count perhaps half as many inhabitants as its more 
 successful rival, but makes creditable efforts to keep 
 from lapsing into the condition of a suburb, and has 
 
328 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 h ' 
 
 more brick buildings than Fargo, and the largest and 
 best-appointed hotel northwest of Chicago. Moorhead 
 has 4,000 inhabitants; Breckcnridge, about 1,000; Morris, 
 further up the valley, also about 1,000. Below Moor- 
 head there are a few small towns on the Minnesota side, 
 which need not be noticed here. The Red River cuts a 
 deep channel through the black loam of the prairie, and 
 is navigable as far up as Wahpeton for little steamboats 
 which pull after them grain-laden barges, and thus sup- 
 plement the well-developed railway system of the valley. 
 It seems certain that this valley and the rolling prairie 
 country beyond it is destined to be the ultimate and per- 
 manent granary of the American continent. The wheat 
 belt has been moving west for a century, commencing in 
 the valleys of the Connecticut and the Mohawk and con- 
 stantly abandoning its old fields to other crops, and fol- 
 lowing the advance of civilization across Western New 
 York, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin 
 and Minnesota. It can go no further, for it has already 
 reached the high central plateau of the continent, where 
 there is not moisture enough for the growth of the 
 cereals. Now it must halt and remain. In Dakota and 
 Western Minnesota, and in the Canadian Province of 
 Manitoba further north, wheat will always be the staple 
 crop, as it has been for centuries in the valley of the 
 Lower Danube and on the great plains of Southern Rus- 
 sia. The land in this new granary of tiie Northwest is 
 perfectly adapted to farming on a large scale by ma- 
 chinery, and to the most economical production and hand- 
 ling of the crop. 
 
 A word of historical reference should perhaps be added 
 to this brief sketch of Northern Minnesota. Some scanty 
 settlements had reached this section when the Indian 
 outbreak of 1862 occurred. The few pioneers perished 
 at the hands of the savages, or, if they fortunately 
 
 
.rgest and 
 Moorhcad 
 o; Morris, 
 o\v Moor- 
 ^sota side, 
 vcr cuts a 
 rairie, and 
 itcamboats 
 thus sup- 
 the valley. 
 ing prairie 
 :c and per- 
 riie wheat 
 nencing in 
 'k and con- 
 is, and fol- 
 ;stcrn Now 
 Wisconsin 
 as already 
 cnt, where 
 th of the 
 akota ana 
 rovincc of 
 the staple 
 ley of the 
 thcrn Rus- 
 Drthwest is 
 lie by ma- 
 and hand- 
 
 is be added 
 ome scanty 
 the Indian 
 s perished 
 fortunately 
 
 
 i'lllais of Hercules and Rooster Rock on the Columbia River 
 
■i^— ff-sa 
 
NOR THERN MINNE EOT A, 
 
 329 
 
 escaped, fled to the towns on the Upper Mississippi for 
 refuge. After the Indians were subdued the Govern- 
 ment removed all the bands concerned in the massacre 
 beyond the limits of the State, and the refugees returned 
 to rebuild their homes. Settlement progressed very 
 slowly until railways began to advance from St. Paul and 
 Duluth toward the Red River in 1870 and 1871. Soon 
 after, the financial panic of 1873 checked railway op- 
 erations for several years, and greatly diminished the 
 movement of Western emigration. A little later the 
 grasshopper plague fell upon the struggling pioneers on 
 the Minnesota border, sweeping the ground bare of all 
 growing crops. Clouds of insects settled upon the earth 
 and devoured overy green thing. Their eggs hatched 
 out a fresh swarm next year; but these, moved by some 
 mysterious instinct of migration, all rose into the air just 
 a year after the arrival of their progenitors and flew off 
 to the eastward. Since then there has been no similar 
 visitation, but it was two or three years before the re- 
 gion had recovered from its heavy losses. Indeed many 
 of the settlers gave up their lands in despair and re- 
 turned to their old homes in the East. Thus the present 
 development of the country can hardly be said to date 
 back more than seven or eight years — a fact that testi- 
 fies strongly to the productiveness of the soil and other 
 advantages of the region. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 NORTH DAKOTA. 
 
 Portion of Dakota lying North of the 46th Parallel — North Dalcota a 
 Vast, Rich, Alluvial Plain — The Red River Valley — The James, Sheyennc 
 and Mouse Rivers — Devil's Lake— The Missouri and its Tributaries — 
 The Coteaux — Fertile Regions West of the Missouri — Dakota's Railroad 
 System — Chief Towns of North Dakota — Origin of liismarck and Man- 
 dan — Climatic Peculiarities — A Dakota Winter — Prairie Landscaj)es— 
 The Charm of Vast Spaces and Wide Sweeps of Vision — Lignite Coal 
 J"ields — Singular Scenery of the Bad Lands — An Admirable Grazing 
 Country. 
 
 Bv common consent, North Dakota includes that 
 portion of the immense Territory lying north of the 
 forty-sixth parallel of latitude. Two years ago there 
 was a belt of vacant country between the settlements 
 along the line of the Northern Pacific Railroad and 
 those created by the opening of the lines of the Chicago 
 and Northwestern and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. 
 Paul Railway systems which traverse the southern 
 part of the Territory, and between these two regions 
 there was no direct communication ; travelers being com- 
 pelled to go around through the States of Minnesota 
 and Iowa to reach points in their own Territory, distant, 
 perhaps, only one or two hundred miles. Thus two dis- 
 tinct communities grew up, each with its towns and its 
 railway systems, bound together by the bond of a single 
 territorial government, but having no other interests in 
 common. The open country lying between the ad- 
 vance settlements of the two sections has filled up of late, 
 however, so that now the dividing line is no longer a real 
 one, and in going from north to south in any portion of 
 Dakota east of the James River, one is never long out of 
 
NORTH DAKOTA, 
 
 331 
 
 sight of a homesteader's house. For the purposes of this 
 work, however, the term North Dakota, as popularly used, 
 will be employed to designate the region lying north of 
 the forty-sixth parallel, which alone will be regarded as 
 coming within the Northern Pacific belt. 
 
 North Dakota, generally speaking, is a rich alluvial 
 plain, level on its eastern side and upheaved in the 
 centre and west into rolling plateaux and low ridges and 
 hills. It is wholly destitute of trees, except narrow 
 fringes of soft wood timber along the borders of streams 
 and a considerable body of oaks and some other varieties 
 of hard wood growing near the Manitoba line on a group 
 of high hills called Turtle Mountain. The entire sur- 
 face, save where broken by the plow, is covered with 
 a thick carpet of grass. There is no waste land, and very 
 little land not sufficiently fertile to produce crops. On 
 the east the region is bounded by the Red River of the 
 North ; a narrow, tortuous stream, which has cut for 
 itself a deep canal-like channel in the alluvial soil, and is 
 bordered for about thirty miles on either side by a flat 
 valley, too low and level in places for drainage, so that 
 a good deal of the snow and rain-fall accumulates in 
 shallow ponds and spreads out over the fields to be 
 evaporated by wind and sun. Through the same valley 
 runs the Sheyenne River, which first goes south for a 
 hundred miles, as if making for the Missouri, and then 
 doubles on its course and finally discharges its waters 
 into the Red. Further west is the James or Dakota 
 River, running parallel to the Red, at a distance of about 
 one hundred miles from it, but in just the opposite di- 
 rection. North of the sources of the Sheyenne, but not 
 drained by it, is Lake Minncwaukan, or Devil's Lake, a 
 body of water fifty miles long by from one to five wide, 
 which receives the drainage of a large area of country 
 but has no outlet. Its waters are impregnated with 
 
 if! 
 
 
mS-LlS 
 
 332 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 alkali. Northwest of this saline lake the Souris or 
 Mouse River makes a loop of about a hundred miles long 
 down into Dakota from the British possessions, and re- 
 turns to its native soil to lose itself in the Assiniboine. 
 From northwest to southeast the Territory is traversed 
 by the mighty flood of the Missouri. It receives no con- 
 siderable tributaries from the east, but from the west a 
 number of large streams, such as the Knife, the Heart, 
 the Cannon Ball, and the Little Missouri, flow into it. 
 Bordering the Missouri on the east is a singular plateau 
 called on the early French maps the Plateau du Co- 
 teau du Missouri, a name which has been accepted 
 by all geographers, but being much too long for popular 
 use has been abbreviated in Dakota to " the Coteaux ;" 
 singular, because lying so close to a great river which it 
 feeds neither with springs nor with the surface water of 
 its rainfalls and melting snows. The Coteaux have no 
 streams, and are cut by no valleys long enough to serve 
 as conduits to carry off the water. The surface of the 
 plateau is so irregularly upheaved in low hills and ridges 
 that the water collects in innumerable ponds which have 
 no outlets. Some are large enough to be named as 
 lakes ; most of them are small and nameless. 
 
 East of the Missouri River, North Dakota is generally 
 divided, when speaking of its agricultural merits, into 
 the Red River Valley, the James River Valley, the Co- 
 teaux, the Missouri Slope, and the Devil's Lake country. 
 It is all remarkably well adapted by nature for the pro- 
 duction of wheat and the other small grains. In a dry 
 season the moist Red River lands produce the best 
 crops ; in the wet season these lands are surpassed by 
 those of the James River Valley, which are higher and 
 better drained, and by those further west on the Coteaux 
 and the " Slope." The Devil's Lake Country is newly 
 settled this season (1883) and comparisons can hardly be 
 
NORTH DAKOTA. 
 
 333 
 
 >ouris or 
 niles long 
 IS, and rc- 
 .siniboine. 
 traversed 
 2S no con- 
 he west a 
 he Heart, 
 \v into it. 
 \x plateau 
 .u du Co- 
 accepted 
 )r popular 
 3oteaux;" 
 r which it 
 c water of 
 X have no 
 h to serve 
 ace of the 
 xnd ridges 
 hich have 
 named as 
 
 generally 
 rits, into 
 y, the Co- 
 country, 
 r the pro- 
 Ill a dry 
 the best 
 Dassed by 
 igher and 
 e Coteaux 
 is newly 
 hardly be 
 
 made with it. The first settlers in North Dakota, halt- 
 ing in the Red River Valley and finding the soil marvel- 
 lously productive, were disposed to think they had reached 
 the end of things and to depreciate the regions further 
 west. A little later it was found that the rolling prairies 
 were just as valuable for wheat as the great bottoms, but 
 for several years nobody tried farming on the Coteaux or 
 the Missouri Slope. When the experiment was made it was 
 fully as successful as were the great bonanza farms in the 
 Red River Valley. Within the last two years, only, the 
 fact has been amply demonstrated that the whole country 
 east of the Missouri is an agricultural '■egion, adapted for 
 general farming, and especially for raising wheat, oats, 
 barley, and potatoes. In 1882 people began settling 
 west of the Missouri River along the Heart and Knife 
 Rivers and their tributaries, and upon the high prairies 
 where they head. Until then the Northern Pacific 
 Ruilioad traversed a desolate country, where the only 
 inhabitants were the section men keeping its track in 
 order. The land was fair to look upon, with its carpet of 
 grass and flowers and the pyramidal buttes and minia- 
 ture table-mountains on the horizon, and the soil was 
 cvideatly rich, as shown in the cuts along the track, but 
 there was so much vacant country east of the Missouri 
 to fill up that no one seemed to be willing to try farming 
 so far out towards the line of deficient rainfall. Finally, 
 late in 1882, several colonics were started, and the emi- 
 gration of 1883 has developed them into prosperous com- 
 munities with pretty villages and promising farms. In 
 time the whole country as far as the Bad Lands of the 
 Little Missouri, on the extreme western border of Da- 
 kota, will be occupied by settlers. 
 
 The railroad system of North Dakota is already well 
 advanced. The whole Territory is traversed from cast 
 to west by the Northern Pacific main line, which throws 
 
m 
 
 334 
 
 xortnerjV pacific railroad. 
 
 \ 
 
 M 
 
 
 ^■\ 
 
 
 i' 
 
 
 ' j' 
 
 \ 
 
 •\\ 
 
 ■fil 
 
 ■ 
 
 % 
 
 off a branch southwest for a hundred miles from F:\rgo, 
 another north to Devil's Lake from Jamestown, and, 
 besides, enters the Territory with one of its Minne- 
 sota branches, wliich runs across the Red River Valley 
 fifty miles west of Wahpeton. The north and south 
 lines in that valley belong to the St. Paul, Minneapolis 
 and Manitoba Company, and there are three of them, 
 one running to the Manitoba boundary, with a west- 
 ern spur to Devil's Lake. Fargo, on the Red River, is 
 the chief town in North Dakota ; an ambitious, energetic 
 place, believing strongly that its destiny is to be a large 
 city. Its history dates from 1872, but it had barely 500 
 inhabitants in 1877, so that its present importance as a 
 busy town of eight or ten thout'.and inhabitants is an 
 achievement of about six years. Next in rank in respect 
 of population is probably Grand Forks, about seventy 
 miles north of Fargo, on the Red River, and afterwards, 
 in the order mentioned, Bismarck, Jamestown, Mandan, 
 Valley City, and Casselton, all on the main line of the 
 Northern Pacific, and Pembina on the Manitoba frontier. 
 Other important towns are Lisbon and Lamoure, on the 
 Fargo and Southwestern Branch of the Northern Pacific 
 Railroad, and Carrington, on the Jamestown Northern 
 Branch. Fargo was named in honor of Wm. G. Fargo, 
 of the Wells, Fargo Express Company, who was long a 
 director in the Northern Pacific Company ; and Cassel- 
 ton in honor of General Geo. W. Cass, who was a director 
 for many years, and, for a time, president of the Com- 
 pany. Bismarck was originally named Edwinton by 
 Thomas P. Canfield, who selected the town site, in honor 
 of Edwin F. Johnson, the first chief engineer of the Com- 
 pany; but the name was changed by resolution of the 
 board of directors, who desired to compliment the gi 
 German chancellor. 
 
 Mr. Canfield, as president of the Lake Superior anu 
 
NORTH DAKOTA. 
 
 335 
 
 trior anu 
 
 Pugct Sound Company, a subsidiary corporation formed 
 to lay off and sell town sites, traversed Dakoui from the 
 Red River to the Missouri in the summer of 1872, follow- 
 ing the surveyed line of the railroad, to select locations 
 for future towns. At that time there was but one white 
 settler on the whole route, a Mrs. Bishop, who had a log 
 hut where the village of Mapleton now stands. Mr. Can- 
 field was accompanied by General Rosser, Dr. Thayer and 
 E. IL Bly. The site of Bismarck was selected because of 
 the neighboring high bluff on the Missouri, affording a 
 good approach for the construction of a bridge, and be- 
 cause of its fine plateau, far above high water, with a view 
 reaching forty miles down the river. The location of 
 most of the large towns on the railroad was determined 
 by the point where the railroad crossed a stream, as at 
 Valley City and Jamestown. Mandan was built on the 
 first available ground for a town beyond the low bottoms 
 which skirt the Missouri for a mile in width west of the 
 Bismarck bridge. Dickinson was named for the town 
 site progenitor, W. S. Dickinson, of Malone, New York, 
 formerly a member of the Senate of that State, whose 
 efforts to build up a town far west of the Missouri have 
 at last been rewarded with success. Other towns and 
 stations having some historical interest through their 
 names, are : Tower City, named for Charlemagne Tower, 
 formerly a Northern Pacific director ; Gladstone, for the 
 great English statesman ; and Fryburg, for General Fry, 
 of the army. 
 
 The climate of North Dakota is cold in winter and 
 warm in summer. There is scarcely any spring. When 
 the cold weather leaves off the summer begins, and vege- 
 .'.*on grows with surprising rapidity. The autumn is the 
 most agreeable season. In summer it is as hot as in 
 so 'lern latitudes, but the twilights are long and refresh- 
 ing, and the nights always cool. Only in the midday 
 
336 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 hours does the high temperature prevail. Winter begins 
 in November and lasts until April, and the snowbanks in 
 the hollows usually remain well into May. A tempera- 
 ture of thirty or forty degrees below zero is not unusual, 
 and there is sometimes an entire month when the mean 
 temperature is not above zero. Except when high winds 
 blow, the cold is not severely felt, however, by reason of 
 the dryness of the atmosphere. Indeed the winter is 
 not as much dreaded or disliked by the inhabitants as 
 is the same season in lower latitudes, where frequent 
 changes of temperature occur, with a raw, damp air, cold 
 rains, and melting snowfalls. Dressed in fur caps and 
 mittens, and long buffalo-skin cloaks, the Dakota farmers 
 and townspeople go about their outdoor vocations with- 
 out discomfort when the mercury stands a long way below 
 zero. Only when ihe blizzards blow, and the air is filled 
 with fine, blinding particles of dry snow, do they think it 
 needful to stay indoors. Most winter days are clear, 
 bright and still. The long season of good sleighing is 
 used by the farmers for hauling fuel, marketing grain not 
 disposed of soon after the harvest, and visiting the 
 towns. 
 
 Dakota scenery is not as monotonous as might be sup- 
 posed by one not accustomed to the treeless plains. 
 Traveling over these wide spaces gives a sensation of 
 vastness and sublimity such as one experiences at sea. 
 Here, in the absence of conspicuous features, the minor 
 variations of surface attract attention, and every object 
 on the horizon looms up into unnatural proportions. The 
 one-story " claim-shanty " of the new settler looks like a 
 tower, the rude barn, one-fourth cabin and three-fourths 
 straw-rick, seems a gigantic dismantled castle, and the 
 horseman approaching it like the giant of a fairy talc. 
 The eye sweeps vast spaces and rejoices in its powers of 
 distant vision. In the hilly country alon^^ the Missouri 
 
NORTH DAKOTA. 
 
 337 
 
 er begins 
 vbanks in 
 tempera- 
 unusual, 
 the mean 
 \(A\ winds 
 reason of 
 winter is 
 bitants as 
 : frequent 
 p air, cold 
 caps and 
 ta farmers 
 ions with- 
 way below 
 lir is filled 
 ey think it 
 are clear, 
 ^eighing is 
 crain not 
 the 
 
 b 
 
 siting 
 
 It be sup- 
 :3S plains, 
 isation of 
 es at sea. 
 the minor 
 cry object 
 ions. The 
 »oks like a 
 ee-fourths 
 :, and the 
 
 fairy talc. 
 
 powers of 
 Missouri 
 
 there are magnificent outlooks over miles of valley, but- 
 tressed by gigantic slopes and far-reaching stretches of 
 billowy green uplands, flecked by the shadows of passing 
 clouds. Beyond the Missouri there is much variety in 
 the landscapes. The buttes which rise boldly from the 
 grassy plains, though only low hills, have the form and 
 look of mountains, exaggerated in their apparent height 
 by the thin, clear atmosphere. Nor must one forget the 
 ponds which diversify the country on the Coteaux, and 
 are the homes of all sorts of water-fowl, from humble 
 brown mud-hens to big mallard and teal ducks, and 
 screaming curlew. 
 
 West of the Missouri River the country is more broken 
 than upon the Coteaux, the hills being higher, and the 
 drainage running into a number of streams which flow 
 into the Missouri through narrow valleys. The land is 
 fertile to the tops of the hills, and covered with a luxu- 
 riant growth of native grasses. Timber occurs only along 
 the water courses. Veins of lignite coal abound, crop- 
 ping out from the hill sides so conveniently th.at the 
 settlers obtain an abundant supply for domestic putnoses 
 at no greater cost than that of cutting it out with ^ ks 
 and loading their wagons at the exposed laces of the seams. 
 At Ely's Mine, at the town of Sims, 35 miles west of the 
 Missouri, systematic mining is carried on to supply the 
 locomotives of the railroad. Other mines are being 
 opened on the line. In a treeless country, where fuel 
 would otherwise have to be brought from the Minnesota 
 forests or the Ohio mines, these deposits of lignite are 
 of inestimable value. The coal has about three-fourths 
 the heat-producing capacity 01' ordinnry bituminous 
 coal. 
 
 About fifty miles west of the Missouri the country trav- 
 ersed by the railroad loses its pronounced hilly character, 
 and broad expanses of prairie are crossed, bounded on the 
 aa 
 
 bAlUMriMtt M«^A» l.^yW'* I 
 
338 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 north and south by isolated buttes or low ridges. These 
 prairies have a rich loam soil, underlaid with clay, and 
 are exceedingly attractive to the eye of a farmer. In this 
 section, as already mentioned, several agricultural colonies 
 have been planted within the past year, each with its 
 central town on the railroad. The entire region between 
 the Missouri and the Bad Lands appears likely to be 
 found valuable for occupancy by settlers who combine 
 farming with stock raising. If a commercial metropolis 
 of the region can be indicated at this early day, it will 
 be Mandan, at the junction of the Heart River with the 
 Missouri, which occupies a position in relation to the 
 extensive fertile country west of it analogous to that 
 of Omaha toward Nebraska. 
 
 The fertile prairies and valleys of Western Dakota trib- 
 utary to the Northern Pacific Railroad terminate near 
 the western boundary of the territory in that singular 
 and picturesque region known as the Bad Lands of the 
 Little Missouri ; the Mauvaises Terres of the early maps, 
 the Pyramid Park of the recent railroad guides. It is 
 difficult to convey in words an adequate description of 
 this region, because it resembles no other district of coun- 
 try in the world, and a familiar comparison cannot 
 therefore be summoned to tht writer's aid. Originally 
 the region appears to have been a level grassy plateau. 
 Then the elements of fire and water ran riot through it 
 for centuries, tearing up the ground in profound creases 
 and furrows, tossing up huge mounds, and bastion-like 
 precipices, turning the blue clay of the upheaved eartli 
 into seams, cliffs and castellated peaks of red terra cotta, 
 strewing the valleys with the vestiges of petrified forests, 
 and shaping masses of rock into strange resemblances to 
 animals and human beings. A view over this wonderful 
 region from the summit of one of the lofty buttes con- 
 veys the most singular combination of impressions — 
 
 If 
 
NORTH DAKOTA. 
 
 339 
 
 es. These 
 I clay, and 
 sr. In this 
 ral colonies 
 h with its 
 )n between 
 kely to be 
 o combine 
 metropolis 
 day, it will 
 'er with the 
 :ion to the 
 us to that 
 
 Dakota trib- 
 ninate near 
 lat singular 
 ands of the 
 early maps, 
 ides. It is 
 scription of 
 ict of coun- 
 ion cannot 
 Originally 
 5sy plateau. 
 ; through it 
 und creases 
 Dastion-likc 
 aved earth 
 terra cotta, 
 ed forests, 
 nblances to 
 wonderful 
 buttes con- 
 pressions — 
 
 beauty, grandeur, grotesqueness, and above all, the weird 
 and fantastic. The 1 ndscape is so strange and unearthly 
 that the spectator imagines himself transported to some 
 other planet, where nature is still in the midst of its 
 primal throes and processes. In many places the fires of 
 long-past geological periods are still burning beneath the 
 surface, sending out sulphurous clouds, cracking the earth 
 in deep fissures, producing pits and smoking crevasses 
 where the ground has fallen in, and converting the clayey 
 soil into masses of red scoria. Yet everywhere in the 
 valleys in this strange region save on the faces ot the 
 steeper buttes the grass grows luxuriantly, covering 
 even the high summits and the plateau five hundred 
 feet above the valleys, and herds and flocks find past- 
 urage the year round. The Bad Lands form an admir- 
 able grazing country, its rugged character serving to 
 break the force of the winter winds and its deep depres- 
 sions affording shelter to stock. The region is fast being 
 occupied by ranchmen. Roughly measured, it may be 
 said to be a hundred miles long by thirty wide, and it is 
 traversed from north to south by the Little Missouri 
 River, a swift muddy stream. 
 
 A stretch of rolling prairie, inviting to the herdsman, 
 lies beyond the Bad Lands of the Little Missouri, having 
 a width of about thirty miles as the railroad crosses it; 
 then come the Bad Lands of the Yellowstone, a mass of 
 low mud and sand mountains, worn by water into curious 
 forms, but rarely showing traces of the action of fire. 
 The broad bands and masses of red scoria, capping the 
 high hills or covering their sides in the Mauvaises Terres 
 of the Little Missouri are wanting; but there are many 
 novel mushroom-like formations, where a flat sandstone 
 rock has protected the clay beneath it from the action 
 of the rain, and as the ground below has been washed 
 away has gradually become elevated to great height. 
 
340 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 The sides of the buttes are of a bluish-gray color, seamed 
 with dark bands of lignite coal. This second belt of Bad 
 Land country is inferior in interest to the tourist, and of 
 much less value for cattle and sheep raising than that 
 lying along the Little Missouri. 
 
lor, seamed 
 belt of Bad 
 rist, and of 
 : than that 
 
.-!-,t-.~^* '■"i^ '•^•■a-.t-'i.-rii:^^:' ""iS"- 
 
 w. 
 
 # 
 
 w 
 
 
 'ij'. 
 
 
 ..^^ ^-•'i;' 
 
 *Tirr'F, 
 
 <*-: 
 
 i •— 
 
 .««sr«r-^^.' "■ 
 
 .Ml 
 
 *^5it^^ 
 
 :*<' 
 
 L*"^' 
 
 4f*'^- 
 
 r?^**- 
 
 ^» 
 
 /?i 
 
 -*» 
 
 Mount Hood, from the Columbia River. 
 
|uw 
 
 
 jjy 
 
 ^mf 
 
 s^ 
 
 
 I^JJhlrtH 
 
 
 m 
 
 m^ 
 
 y 
 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 MONTANA. 
 
 Extent of Montana — A I.iiger Area tlian that of Great Britain and Ireland 
 — Two Distinct Regions — Tiie Plains ami the Mountains — V^ast Stretches 
 of Treeless Country Covered witii Bundi-Grass — Rich Irrigal)le Lands 
 alonj; the Rivers — Chief Towns of Eastern Montana — Indian Reser- 
 vations — Western Montana, its Mountain Ranges and Fertile Valleys — 
 Heavy Crops of Small Grains — Mining for Precious Metals still the 
 Chief Industry — Coal and Iron Deposits — The Lumber Business ■ — Prin- 
 cipal Mountain Towns — Montana's Climate — Influence of the "Chinook 
 Wind" — Some Peculiarities of Climate — Beautiful and Varied Scenery 
 — A Land of Wonders and Surprises. 
 
 The Northern Pacific Railroad traverses the Territory 
 of Montana throughout its greatest length, entering it 
 on its eastern border and leaving it not far from its 
 north-'vestern corner, with a total length of main line 
 track within its limits of 743 miles. With the excep- 
 tion of the crossings of the Belt Mountains, the Rocky 
 Mountains, and a spur of the latter west of the Missouri, 
 the line runs in valleys for this entire distance; thus jus- 
 tifying the name given by Governor Stevens to the 
 Northern Pacific route in his report of the first survey, 
 of " the Valley route across the continent." The area of 
 Montana is larger than that of Great Britain and Ireland. 
 Its length from cast to west is 540 miles, and its greatest 
 width from north to south is 305 miles. It is without 
 natural boundaries, save on the West, where its frontier 
 is the lofty range of the Bitter Root Mountains. It has 
 no unity in respect to physical geography, being com- 
 posed of two distinct regions — one of high, rolling, grassy 
 plains seamed by narrow valleys, and the other of a 
 complex system of mountain ranges, groups and spurs. 
 
342 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 bordering long strips of rich, alluvial valleys, and in places 
 inclosing large basins of nearly level, open country. The 
 plain region embraces all of Montana east of the ad- 
 vanced spurs of the Rocky Mountains. It is watered by 
 the IMissouri and the Yellowstone and their tributaries, 
 and is a vast pasture, formerly supporting millions of 
 buffaloes, and now being rapidly occupied for cattle and 
 sheep ranges. In this section there is no timber save the 
 belts of cotton- wood which fringe the streams and a lit- 
 tle dwarf pine in ravines near the mountains. The coun- 
 try looks pretty enough in May and June when the grass 
 is green and flowers abound, but the vegetation soon 
 loses its freshness, and valleys, slopes and far-reaching 
 plains present no colors save dusty yellows and browns. 
 A desert-like look is worn by the landscapes all the rest of 
 the year. The country is by no means a desert, however; 
 for the dry herbage growing in little tufts, with spaces of 
 bare earth between, is the nutritious bunch-grass, whi^^h 
 seems to combine the food qualities of both hay and grain, 
 and which supports cattle, horses and sheep the year 
 round. The grass cures itself where it grows. In win- 
 ter the snow-fall is usually light, and is always so dry that 
 the slopes are swept bare by the wind, so that stock find 
 feeding-ground in the severest weather. The business 
 of stock-raising on these enormous natural pastures is 
 assuming greater importance every year, and will be a 
 permanent industry. Farming is only practicable on the 
 bottom lands and bench lands in the narrow valleys of the 
 streams, and, with the exception of a few localities, irri- 
 gation is required for the regular production of crops. 
 The Yellowstone and its main tributaries, the Powder, 
 the Rosebud, the Tongue, the Big Horn, and the Clark's 
 Fork, aftbrd many long stretches of rich bottom land, 
 easily irrigated and exceedingly productive of the small 
 grains and of vegetables. The Musselshell has also an 
 
. r 
 
 MONTANA. 
 
 343 
 
 1 in places 
 try. The 
 f the ad- 
 ^atcrcd by 
 ributaries, 
 lillions of 
 cattle and 
 r save the 
 1 and a lit- 
 The coun- 
 1 the grass 
 ition soon 
 ,r-reaching 
 id browns, 
 the rest of 
 , however; 
 1 spaces of 
 Mss, whi'-h 
 and grain, 
 the year 
 In win- 
 ;o dry that 
 stock find 
 : business 
 )astures is 
 will be a 
 Die on the 
 cys of the 
 ities, irri- 
 of crops. 
 Powder, 
 ic Clark's 
 om land, 
 the small 
 s also an 
 
 agricultural valley. Rarely are the valleys of these rivers 
 more than a mile or two wide, and they are hemmed in 
 by steep bluffs from two to five hundred feet high, or by 
 what arc known as bad-land formations — bare, crumb- 
 ling buttes of clay and sandstone. These forbidding walls 
 are, however, only the escarpments of the grassy, rolling, 
 table-lands, through which the rivers, in the lapse of -^cs, 
 have worn their deep crevice-like valleys. 
 
 Thn chief towns of Eastern Montana are Glenoive, 
 Miles City and Billings, on the Yellowstone, and Benton, 
 at the head of navigation on the Missouri. They are all 
 prosperous trading points, shipping cattle and wool, and 
 each supplying a large area of grazing country with 
 goods. The valley of the Yellowstone near each is culti- 
 vated. Above Billings there is a stretch of thirty miles 
 of bottom irrigated by a main ditch. At Miles City the 
 valley of the Tongue River joins that of the Yellow- 
 stone, and is settled by farmers for fifty miles. A large 
 part of Eastern Montana is still occupied by Indians, who 
 possess two enormous reservations. That of the Crows 
 fronts upon the Yellowstone for two hundred miles and 
 is larger than the State of Connecticut, although the 
 tribe .lumbers only 3,000 souls. Most of the region 
 north of the Missouri is set apart for the Piegans, Black- 
 feet, Gros Ventres, Ariekarees and Mandans, who to- 
 gether number less than 10,000, and are allowed to hold 
 a territory greater in extent than the State of Ohio. 
 These great reservations will, no doubt, soon be cut 
 down by Congressional action to a size commensurate 
 with the uses of the Indians, tlius adding to the grazing 
 districts of Montana available for settlement many thou- 
 sands of square miles. 
 
 With this brief glance at the plains, let us now turn to 
 the mountain regions of Montana. The mountains are 
 all embraced in the Rocky Mountain system, and the 
 
344 
 
 NORTIIERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ranges have a general trend a little west of north. Besides 
 the main range forming the continental watershed between 
 the Missouri and Columbia, there are many spurs, lateral 
 ranges, and partially isolated groups. None of the peaks 
 are as high as those of Colorado, the loftics*. exceeding 
 but little 10,000 feet, and the passes are much lower 
 than those in the same range further south. The valleys 
 and " parks " or basins inclosed by the mountains are 
 also considerably lower than the parks of Colorado, and 
 for this reason are available for agriculture. These 
 basins range in altitude from 3,000 to 5,000 feet, and 
 form the principal grain producing areas of the Terri- 
 tory. They are supposed to be the beds of former 
 lakes which have received from the washings from the 
 surrounding mountains their deep alluvial soil. The 
 rivers run out of these basins in cafions, or very narrow- 
 valleys, and into them come leaping down countless 
 swift streams from the mountains, supplying abundant 
 water for irrigation. The best of the agricultural basins 
 or valleys are those of the three forks of the Missouri, 
 the Gallatin, the Jefferson, and the Madison, of the Mis- 
 souri itself below its first cafion, of the Beaver Head, and 
 the Prickly Pear, and the Judith ; and west of the Main 
 Divide those of the Deer Lodge, the Missoula, and the 
 Bitter Root. The latter, a valley 90 miles long with an 
 average width of seven miles, is the most extensive and 
 attractive of all. Its altitude and that of the valley of 
 the Missoula into which it debouches, is only 3,000 feet, 
 or about 1,500 less than that of the rich grain-growing 
 valley of the Gallatin ; and it has a mild climate, favora- 
 ble to fruit culture. In all these irrigable valleys 
 farmers raise heavy crops of wheat, corn, and barley, 
 watering their fields with moderate labor by the aid of 
 small ditches, and finding a home market for all their 
 surplus products in the mining towns and upon the 
 
MONTANA. 
 
 345 
 
 . Besides 
 \ between 
 rs, lateral 
 the peaks 
 exceeding 
 jch lower 
 he valleys 
 itains are 
 )rado, and 
 :. These 
 feet, and 
 the Terri- 
 of former 
 from the 
 oil. The 
 :ry narrow- 
 countless 
 abundant 
 ral basins 
 Missouri, 
 f the Mis- 
 rlead, and 
 the Main 
 , and the 
 g with an 
 nsive and 
 valley of 
 ,000 feet, 
 n-growing 
 te, favora- 
 ; valleys 
 d barley, 
 he aid of 
 • all their 
 upon the 
 
 stock ran'-hes. Besides the small grains, all the root 
 crops thrive abundantly. Montana potatoes, especi- 
 ally, have a flavor, a solidity and a keeping quality 
 nowhere excelled. In the Bitter Root Valley Indian 
 corn is raised, and apples, cherries, and berries are 
 produced. Montana farmers are favorably situated in 
 many respects. Their produce sells for higher prices 
 at home than it would bring in New York City, the de- 
 mand being gr(;ater than the supply. They are able by 
 irrigation to raise larger crops than are raised in the best 
 agricultural sections of the West, such as Illinois or Iowa. 
 Their fields are neither parched by drought nor flooded 
 by excessive rainfall, and experience teaches them how 
 much water to supply from their ditches. Then there 
 are ample pastures on the mountain sides open for ranges 
 for their herds, and they often grow rich by the increase 
 of their cattle and horses while living in comfort upon 
 the yield of their fields. 
 
 Mining for the precious metals is still the chief indus- 
 try in Montana, but will soon be outstripped in its annual 
 returns by stock raising. The yearly yield of gold is, in 
 round figures, $3,000,000 ; and of silver, $3,500,000. 
 Copper is beginning to make a considerable figure in 
 the mining statistics. Since 1862, Montana has yielded 
 more placer gold than any other State or Territory ex- 
 cept California, the total amount being stated as high as 
 $130,000,000. The silver industry is of more recent date, 
 and centres at one place — Butte, on the western slope of 
 the Main Divide. Gold is found in quartz seams and 
 placer deposits on both slopes of the Main Divide, and 
 also east of the Belt Range, in the Judith Mountains, 
 and in the Yellowstone Mountains, on the head waters 
 of the Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone. There is very 
 little of the old-fashioned placer-mining carried on, most 
 of the present yield being from quartz. Hydraulic mining, 
 
w 
 
 346 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 which sweeps down whole acres of ground with power 
 ful streams of water, is prosecuted at the heads of several 
 of the once famous gulches, where miners used to wash 
 the pay-dirt with pans, sluices, and rockers. Copper 
 mining has of late become an important industry at 
 Butte, and good undeveloped seams of this metal exist 
 in other localities. Deposits of iron ore exist in many 
 parts of the Territory, but have not been worked. Coal 
 abounds. Near the Yellowstone, Musselshell, and Mis- 
 souri Rivers, there are immense beds of lignile, easily 
 worked, where they crop out from the bluffs along the 
 valleys. Veins of a harder coal, which can be coked, 
 have lately been found in the Bull and Belt Mountains. 
 Evidently the mining industry of Montana is destined 
 to much greater development than it has yet attained. 
 Population and capital begin to flow through the Terri- 
 tory along the line of the new railroad, seeking promis- 
 ing openings for enterprise. It is not probable that new 
 placers will be discovered, but there are hundreds of veins 
 of low-grade ore, yielding enough gold and silver to make 
 their working a reliably profitable business now that rail 
 transportation is close at hand, which could not be 
 opened with any chance of success when machinery and 
 supplies had to be hauled for hundreds of miles over 
 mountain roads. Besides, there is great promise of pros- 
 perity in the coal and iron industries, the beginnings of 
 which have scarcely yet b.^en made. 
 
 One more inportant industry remains to be men- 
 tioned — that of lumber production. In the northwestern 
 portion of Montana there is an immense forest belt 
 stretching along both sides of the Pend d'Oreille or 
 Clark's Fork River for nearly two hundred miles, and 
 extending beyond to the British boundary, and west into 
 Idaho, around the beautiful mountain lakes of Pend 
 d'Oreille and Coeur d'Alene. The timber is Rocky 
 
til power 
 of several 
 d to wash 
 , Copper 
 idustry at 
 letal exist 
 t in many 
 :ed. Coal 
 and Mis- 
 Ile, easily 
 along the 
 be coked, 
 lountains. 
 i destined 
 t attained, 
 the Terri- 
 ig promis- 
 p that new 
 ds of veins 
 r to make 
 that rail 
 not be 
 unery and 
 iles over 
 e of pros- 
 innings of 
 
 be men- 
 thwestern 
 rest belt 
 Dreille or 
 iles, and 
 west into 
 of Pend 
 js Rocky 
 
 MONTANA. 
 
 34; 
 
 Mountain pine, fir, spruce, cedar, tamarack, with a little 
 white pine, and the growth is very dense. The business 
 of cutting lumber in this magnificent forest began when 
 the railroad penetrated it, and was at first confined to 
 supplying the wants of the road. Now that the forest is 
 traversed from end to end by the track, mills are being 
 established to supply with building material anil fuel the 
 farming valleys and mining districts of Montana and the 
 great treeless agricultural plain of Washington Territory. 
 
 In the mountainous portions of Montana the principal 
 towns arc Livingston, at the head of the Yellowstone Val- 
 ley, a new creation of the railroad, hopeful of rapid growth 
 from the development of coal and iron mines, and already 
 enjoying considerable trade with the grazing country 
 north of it, and with the tourist travel that goes over 
 the branch railroad to the National Park ; Bozeman, the 
 prosperous trading centre of an extensive agricultural 
 region; Helena, the capital of the Territory, and the 
 chief commercial town ; Butte, the centre of the most 
 productive mining district; Deer Lodge, a pretty place, 
 with good educational advantages, and some tributarv 
 mining and agricultural country; and Missoula, at the 
 junction of the Bitter Root and Missoula valleys, chiefly 
 an agricultural trading point, but lately turning its atten- 
 tion to lumbering and mining. Of these, Helena and 
 Butte arc the largest, and have probably, at this time, 
 1883, seven thousand inhabitants each. 
 
 In Montana, climate depends largely on altitude. Gen- 
 erally speaking, the whole region has a much lower mean 
 annual temperature than Dakota and Minnesota, which 
 lie within the same lines of latitude, and the further west 
 one goes on east aisd west lines the milder are the win- 
 ters. The mean temperature of the Bitter River Valley, 
 which is in the latitude of Northern Maine, is about the 
 same as that of Pennsylvania and Central Ohio ; that of 
 
348 
 
 jXORTiiekx pacific railroad. 
 
 the Gallatin Valley, which is about 1,500 feet higher, 
 compares with Central New York. The isothermal line 
 of 50"" Fahrenheit, which passes through Harrisburg, 
 Cleveland and Chicago, runs from southeast to northwest 
 through Montana and passes into the British possessions. 
 This fact is explained by the influence of the great Japan 
 Ocean current, which produces what is known as the 
 "Chinook wind," greatly modifying the climate of the 
 north Pacific coast and blowing across the low passes 
 of the Rocky mountain ranges through the valleys of 
 Montana. It is interesting to note, as bearing upon the 
 matter of climate, that the average alt'ludv. of Montana is 
 only 3,000 feet, while that of Coiontdo is 7,000, of Wyom- 
 ing 6,000, and of New Mexico and Nevada 5,600. It is 
 this peculiarity, as well as the warm western vind, which 
 give to the Territory its mild winter climate and make its 
 bunch-gras^, plains much better stock ranges than those 
 of the territories further south. In Eastern Montana not 
 much snow falls. In the central valleys there is more, and 
 it is not so dry ; while in the northeastern portion, mainly 
 covered by the Pend d'Oreille forest, snow sometimes fails 
 to the depth of three feet. It does not remain long, how- 
 ever, being soon melted by the " Chinook." Almost 
 every x-alley has some local peculiarity of climate, depend- 
 ing upon its altitude and the height and trend of the 
 neighboring mountain ranges, but the whole Territory 
 may fairly lay claim to the blessings of a pure stimulating 
 atmosphere, and freedom from malaria. From what has 
 been said of the mild climate, the impression should not 
 be gathered that there is no extremely cold weather. 
 There are cold snaps every winter, when the mercury goes 
 down to 30"", 40" and sometimes even to 50' below zero, 
 but they are of short duration, and the dryness of the air 
 makes the low temperature less dangerous and less 
 perceptible than is the lowest range of an ordinary win- 
 
.VOXT.tX.I. 
 
 349 
 
 tcr in the Middle States. In sumi.icr, on the other hand, 
 there arc days wlien the thermometer will rej^istcr 90' in 
 the shade, but this will only be in the midday hours, the 
 evening:-, being always cool and blankets being invariably 
 needed at night. 
 
 The scenery of Montana is wonderfully varied and at- 
 tractive. In the eastern portion the wide, breezy plains, 
 the fantastic buttes of sandstone and indurated clay that 
 border the water courses, and tlie deep, rich ;>Uu\ial val- 
 leys have their peculiar charm. Once amoii„> !iie raUjjes 
 of the Rocky Mountain system, the traveler finds new 
 beauties at every mile of his journey. There are isolateil 
 groups of sharp, snow-flecked peaks, like the Cra/.\' Moun- 
 tains, great glittering domes and ridges like the Big 
 Snowy, great billowy pine-covered ranges, like the Belt 
 Range and the Main Divide, with many pyramidal peaks 
 towering above the general summit, and huge swelling but- 
 tresses of rock and snow like the Bitter Root Mountains. 
 In the midst of all this tumultuous sea of mountains lie 
 smiling green valleys with flocks and herds, presenting 
 Alpine pictures of pastoral life. Then there are profound 
 clefts in the mountain walls, like the two great caHons of 
 the Missouri and the superb caAon of the Tend il'Oreille, 
 where the tremendous brown cliffs take on strange bright 
 colors from the decompor>if*on of metallic strata; lovely 
 lakes, like Flathead Lake, anc' many cold deep pools high 
 up near the snow on i\\/.,.y mountaii. shelves. Charming 
 natural parks are tr.vversed where the open wooilland 
 growth and the grassy ground bordering swift rivulets 
 suggest camp life and long excursions in the sadille, anil 
 dense forests where tl;e light of day scarcel)' penetrates, It 
 is a land of surprises, of wonders and of adventure, which 
 will become in time the pleasurc-grounil of America, as 
 Switzerland is now the pleasure-ground of Kuropc. 
 
 The future of this vast and attractive region it is not dif- 
 
':■ 
 
 350 
 
 NORTHERN' PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ficult to predict. It can never maintain a dense popula- 
 tion, but its valleys will fill up with farmers carefully cul- 
 tivating the rich soil by the aid of irrigating processes ; 
 its immense bunch-grass pastures will support a hardy 
 adventurous race of stock-raisers, loving the saddle and an 
 outdoor life ; its mines of the precious metals will be ex- 
 tensively developed by the cheapening of machinery, 
 transportation and labor; its forests will Drove sources of 
 wealth, and thousands of health and pleasure-seekers will 
 build up summer resorts among its mountains. It is not 
 rash to predict that the present population of 75,000 will 
 rapidly increase, and, by the close of this century, will 
 luive become at least half a million. 
 
ISC popula. 
 rcfully cul- 
 proccsses ; 
 rt a linrdy 
 Idle and an 
 A'ill be cx- 
 iiachinery, 
 sources of 
 cekcrs Mill 
 It is not 
 75.000 will 
 ntury, will 
 
1::^' 
 
 |. ..■,;!■»,: 
 
 '1' 
 
 \^m 
 
 s 
 
 O 
 
 d 
 
 rl 
 
 
 
 Ol 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 NORTHERN IDAHO AND WASHINGTON. 
 
 Form of Idaho Territory — Lake Pciul it'Oreillo aiul its I'orcsi — Tlie 
 Grain and Pasture I\eyion of Northern Idalio and Kastern Wasli- 
 iiii;ton — Other Arahle IJelts — The lii,^; I\-nd and N'akima Country — 
 I'rinci|)al Towns — Western Washin};t<>n — A Ref^ion of Hit;h Mountains, 
 Dense Forests, and Deep Inlets of the Sea — Ma^jniliccnt Snow I'eak.s — 
 Tlie Lumber Industry — I'arming Districts in Narrow ^'alleys — Exten- 
 sive IJeds of Coal — I'uget Sounil Towns — The Coluinliia River \'alley — 
 Climatie Conditions. 
 
 Wt: 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 u 
 
 u 
 
 o 
 
 a 
 
 
 9m 
 
 The shape of the Territory of Idaho resembles that of 
 a le^ of mutton, tlic shank beni^; thrust up between the 
 Territories of Montana and Wasliington, as far as the 
 boundary of the l^ritish possessions. It is tliis shank in 
 which the Northern Pacific Railway is interested. The 
 road runs across it from east to west around Lake Pcnd 
 d'Oreiile. In the region seen from the track there is 
 little of interest save to the lover of lake and mountain 
 scenery, for the great forest described in the preceding 
 chapter covers the surface of the country, and is nut left 
 behind until the plains of Eastern Washington are reached. 
 South of the road, and on the boundary l>etween Idaho 
 and Washington, lies Lake Cuiur d'Alene, rivaling in the 
 beauty of its waters and the grandeur of its mountain sur- 
 roundings Lake Pcnd d'Oreiile; and further south, where 
 the mountain range has a southeasterly curve, the forest 
 disappears and there is a region of high, grassy plains, 
 handsome to the eye, and responsive to culture. This 
 region, identical in its character with that l>"ing across the 
 artificial boundary line separating Idaho from Washing- 
 ton, extends soutii to the Snake River, and up the Clear- 
 water River from its junction with the Snake at Lcwisloa 
 
M' 
 
 352 
 
 NOH TllEKX PA CIFIC RA ILROAD. 
 
 for a distance of about forty miles. The whole belt of fertile 
 country immediately west of the mountains may roughly 
 be described as having a length of 300 miles and an aver- 
 age breadth of sixty miles, and as lapping over into Idaho 
 on the east, and reaching into Oregon at its southwestern 
 end. It follows the direction of the Cceur d'AlCme, Bitter 
 Root and Blue Mountains, connecting ranges, in a broad, 
 semicircular sweep. West of it lies a dry region of sage 
 brush, bunch-grass, and dusty soil which docs not receive 
 sufficient rain-fall for the growth of crops, but is of con- 
 siderable value for pasture. The moisture-laden air com- 
 ing from the west is robbed of pari: of its burden by the 
 high Cascade range. With what is left it appears to 
 circle around the VAwc Mountains and the Bitter Root and 
 Cojur d'Alime chain as arouml the rim of a bowl, to re- 
 fresh with showers the country lying near their feet. In 
 all this fine agricultural region the annual rain-fall is theo- 
 retically too scanty for the successful growing of crops, 
 being only fourteen inches, but most of it comes In the 
 months when the fanr.cr needs it. After the grain is 
 nearly ripe there is no more rain until late in the fall. 
 The face of the r^'^lon we are describing is broken into 
 countless hills and knolls, but their sides and summits are 
 as fertile as the valleys between them ; indeed, the farm- 
 ers prefer the tops of the hills for their fielils of wheat 
 and flax. The streams run in deep creases from two to 
 five hundred feet below the general level, bordered in 
 places by buttresses of basaltic rock, and in others by 
 steep grassy slopes, on which grows here and there a lone- 
 some i)ine. Only on the slopes of the mountain ranges 
 is timber found in a continuous forest growth. 
 
 A recent writer, speaking of the soil and climate of this 
 region, says : " East of the Cascade Mountains the soil is 
 a dark loam of great depth, composed of alluvial deposits 
 and decomposed lava overlying a clay subsoil. This, in 
 
A'OKTJ/ERiV IDAHO AXD WASIIIXGTOiV. 
 
 J30 
 
 turn, rests upon a basaltic formation uliicli is so far below 
 the surface of the ground as to be visible onl)- on the 
 banks of the deep water-courses. The constituents of 
 this soil adapt the land peculiarly to the production of 
 wheat. All the mineral salts which arc necessary to the 
 perfect growth of this cereal are abundant, reproducing 
 themselves constantly as the processes of gradual decom- 
 position in this soil of volcanic origin proceed. The clods 
 are easily broken by the plow, and the ground (juickly 
 crumbles on exposure to the atmosi)here. Although the 
 dry season continues for months, this light porous land 
 retains and absorbs enough moisture from the atmosphere, 
 after its particles have been partially disintegrated, to in- 
 sure perfect growths and full harvests. This assertion is 
 so at variance with common experience that it might well 
 be questioned. Happily, it is susceptible of explanation. 
 In spite of the fact that there is scarcely a shower between 
 May and the following October, and that the average 
 rain-fall for the year does not exceed twenty inches, there 
 is always the requisite moisture for maturing the crops. 
 Paradoxical as it may seem, if the rain were greatly in 
 excess of this low average, damage would certainly ensue ; 
 and it is equally sure, if successful farming depended upon 
 the limited rain-fall, there would be poor harvests. The 
 clouds supply only in part the moisture which is needed. 
 The warm air-currents, surcharged with vapor, which 
 sweep inland from the ocean up the channel of the Co 
 lumbia River, prevent drought. The effect of these at- 
 mospheric currents in temperir.g the climate has already 
 been described. Their influeiue upon the vegetation is no 
 less vital. The moisture with which they are laden is 
 held in suspension during the day, diffused over the face 
 of the countr)'. At night it is CDudensed by the cooler 
 temperature, and precipitated in the form of a fine mist 
 on every exposed particle of surface which earth and 
 13 
 
m 
 
 • 
 
 354 
 
 NOK 77 ffCKX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 plant present. The effect is that of a copious shower. 
 This is api)arent on taking a morning walk through the 
 grass, which can only be done at the cost of wet feet. In 
 this region it is no unusual phenomena for a smart show cr 
 to fall when clouds are invisible and the sun is shining. 
 This occurrence is explained also upon the theory that 
 the vapor in the atmosphere comes in contact with an 
 upper current of cold air, which causes rapid condensa- 
 tion and consequent rain. A summer drought, therefore, 
 which in most climates is a calamity, is here a benefit. 
 The soil needs no more rains after tlio^c of tlic spring :i:-'j 
 over, and the farmer may depend upon cloudless skies at 
 harvest time." 
 
 In Eastern Washington, by which term is designated 
 all of the Territory l\'ing east of the Cascade Mountains, 
 there are other smaller arable belts besides this extensive 
 one. The Big Bend country, inclosed on two sides by 
 the Columbia, is a region nearly level, with fertile prai- 
 ries alternating with streaks and patches of rocky or 
 sandy ground and with occasional groves of pines. On 
 the prairies the soil is good for the small grains, and the 
 nutritious bunch-grass grow« luxuriantly. North of this 
 region lie the Colville and other fertile valleys, runninL; 
 up into a confused aggregation of mountains, which oc- 
 cupies the northern point of the Territory and joins the 
 Cascades with the Rocky Mountains. West of the Co- 
 lumbia there is another fertile valley, that of the Yakiniii 
 River, which, however, requires irrigation for the regular 
 production of crops. This, too, is an open grass country, 
 the timber beginning only on the first hills of the moun- 
 tains. 
 
 Across Eastern Washington, from east to west, runs the 
 Snake River, which, coming from the south, makes a ris^lit 
 angle at Lewiston, where it receives the Clearwater, 
 The main stream of the Columbia makes many bends, 
 
jYORTHERX IDAHO AND WASIflXGTOX. 
 
 355 
 
 orth of thi^ 
 
 I the Yakima 
 the regular 
 iss country, 
 
 If the inoun- 
 
 Clearwatcr. 
 
 but has a general southerly course through Washing- 
 ton, until it receives the Snake, when it runs almost clue 
 west to the sea, furnishing for that part of its course 
 the boundary line between Washington and Oregon. 
 The other considerable rivers of Eastern Washington are 
 the Palouse, a tributary of the Snake; the Yakima, the 
 Spokane, the Wcenatchec and the Okinakane, tributaries 
 of the Columbia, The chief towns of the region arc 
 Walla Walla — the oldest and largest of them all and the 
 first centre of wheat growing east of the Cascades ; Day- 
 ton, I'atalia, and Pomeroy, south of Snake River; Colfax, 
 Spokane Falls, Cheney, and Sprague, north of the river. 
 In North Idaho, which is geographically a unit with 
 Washington, and which has long sought annexation to 
 that Territory, the large towns are Lewiston and Moscow. 
 Turning now to Western Washington, we find a ,cgion 
 totally different in its appearance from the eastern sec- 
 tion of the Territory. Here there are no sunny, fertile 
 plains. Dense forests of gigantic firs cover the face of 
 the country. The blue salt waters of that superb inlet, 
 Puget Sound, reach southward into the heart of the re- 
 gion for nearly two hundred miles. The lofty range of 
 the Cascade Mountains is a barrier so rugged that it is 
 crossed by few people besides Indians and trappers. 
 All travel bound for Eastern Washington goes around 
 by way of the Columbia River. The highest peaks of 
 the range, Tacoma, Adams and Haker, rear dazzling 
 summits of perpetual snow into the firmament. These 
 magnificent peaks have an apparent altitude much 
 greater than that of the highest Alps, from the fact that 
 they are seen from the sea level towering above the 
 forests and reflected on the calm waters of the Sound. A 
 lower range, called the Olympic Mountains — the northern 
 prolongation of the Coast Range, which runs through 
 California and Oregon — divides the Sound Country from 
 
 Lu^«ifel«jm»u i .».im Bf—"tWHW*i*m*' 
 
35<3 
 
 N0K7IIERX PAC/I'IC RAILROAD. 
 
 >\ 
 
 
 the sea-coast. The forests, which come clown from the 
 slopes of the Cascade Raiitje, envelop all the bays, straits 
 and havens of the Sound, and extend over the inter- 
 vening ranj^e as far as the sea. 
 
 In Western Washington, the chief industry is lumber- 
 ing. Mere are found the largest saw-mills in the world, 
 exporting their product to all the cities of the west coast of 
 America, as far south as Valparaiso and also to Australia. 
 China and Japan, and sending masts and spars to the ship- 
 yards of Europe. The slaughter of the forests along the 
 Sound to sujjply these great mills with logs, has gone on 
 now for more than a quarter of a century, but so dense 
 is the growth of gigantic firs, that only the edge of the 
 woods fronting upon the water has been notched here 
 and there by the operations of the lumberman. Stand- 
 ing close by the water side, so that ships can load from 
 their wharves, the saw-mills arc each the centre of a 
 village, the home of the mill-men and of the loggers, 
 whose camps are in the woods near by. To the tourist 
 sailing on the Sound the shores appear an unbroken 
 wilderness, save where space has been cleared for a 
 town or a logging camp. There are many farming dis- 
 tricts, however, back of the thick green screen of the fir>. 
 where little rivers, flowing down from the melting snows 
 on the high mountains, make narrow strips of alluvial 
 bottoms, and in some places the tidal flats at the heads 
 of bays have been redeemed by dikes and converted into 
 valuable farms. Very little clearing has been done Id 
 obtain fields from the forests, but as the country becomes 
 better settled and land more valuable, many tracts from 
 which the larger trees have been cut by the lumbernuii 
 begin to be occupied by settlers, who use fire to aid the 
 labors of the axe and saw. 
 
 The Puget Sound country has a second great natural 
 source of wealth. Along the base of the Ca>cadc Moun- 
 
KORT/fEAW IDAHO A. YD IVASI/IXGrOX. 
 
 357 
 
 tains extend large beds of coal, varying in quality from 
 a soft brown lignite to a hard black bituminous, which 
 cokes, and is therefore available for smelting iron. The 
 coal is brought to tide water at Seattle and Tacoma by 
 railroads leading up to the mines, and shipped to San 
 Francisco and other points in steam colliers and sailing ves- 
 sels. Although the yearly output is already considerable, 
 the business must be regardetl as only in its infancy. It is 
 destined to grow steadily with the increase of population 
 and the development of commerce and manufactures in 
 the Pacific Coast communities, and to become a source of 
 great and unfailing wealth. The researches made during 
 the past year by the geologists of the Northern Trans- 
 continental Survey show that the coal-field of Puget 
 Sound is practically inexhaustible. Its iinportance as a 
 fictor in the development of the Pacific Coast can hardly 
 be overestimated. Iron ore is also found upon the Sound, 
 and a fair beginning has been made in smelting it at Port 
 Townsend. The coast region of Washington, lying be- 
 tween the Oljnipic Mountains and the sea, resembles the 
 Sound country in its general features, being forest-clad, 
 and offering open lands for farming only near bays and 
 rivers. Gray's Harbor and Shoalwatcr Hay afford havens 
 for vessels of moderate draft. A sparse but steadily in- 
 creasing population of farmers, woodsmen, and fishermen 
 inhabits this region, and find a market for their products 
 by shipping them to Astoria, at the mouth of the Colum- 
 bia River. 
 
 The towns on Puget Sound arc all prospering. Taco- 
 ma, the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad and 
 the shipping port for the mines of Wilkeson and Carbon- 
 ade, thirty miles distant, by the Cascade Branch Railroad, 
 is a rapidly growing place, with 4,000 people, and good 
 prospects of soon having ten times as many. Seattle, the 
 ct)mmercial centre of the Middle and Lower Sound coun- 
 
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358 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 try, has 7,000 inhabitants, a railroad to the Newcastle 
 coal field, a branch railroad connecting it directly with 
 the Northern Pacific Cascade Branch, and indirectly 
 with Portland and the East by way of Tacoma, and 
 is the rival of that place for the position of future 
 metropolis of the Sound. Olympia, at the head of the 
 Sound, the Territorial Capital, is a handsome village of 
 about 2,500 inhabitants, with a narrow gauge railroad con- 
 necting it with the Northern Pacific. Of about the same 
 size is Port Townsend, at the entrance to the Sound, 
 which is the Government port of entry and an outfitting 
 place for ships. Other places of some importance are 
 Steilacoom, Whatcom, Snohomish, and La Conner. 
 Across the strait of Juan de Fuca, the broad entrance to 
 the Sound, is the handsome little city of Victoria, capital 
 of British Columbia, a place closely connected in its 
 commercial relations with the Sound ports. 
 
 Along the Columbia River, on the Washington bank, 
 the only towns are Vancouver, the headquarters of the 
 military department, and Kalama, where the Northern 
 Pacific Railroad leaves the river and turns northward to the 
 Sound — the former having 1,200 inhabitants, and the lat- 
 ter 500. There are a i^iw farms along the river bottom, 
 and here and there, at long intervals, a saw-mill hamlet, or 
 a salmon canner}', with its dependent village of fishermen. 
 Lumbering and fishing are the chief occupations. The 
 salmon fishery, of which more will be said in the chapter 
 on Oregon, is carried on all along the river for a hundred 
 miles above its mouth, but chiefly on the bar and on the 
 waters of the wide estuary. The canneries are on both 
 shores, but the business centres at Astoria, in Oregon, 
 which is the shipping point. Of the average annual 
 product probably one-half should be credited to Wash- 
 ington in any statement of her resources. 
 
 In respect to climate, Washington is divided into two 
 
Newcastle 
 rectly with 
 
 indirectly 
 :oma, and 
 
 of future 
 ead of the 
 
 village of 
 ilroad con- 
 t the same 
 he Sound, 
 . outfitting 
 rtance are 
 X Conner, 
 ntrance to 
 ria, capital 
 ted in its 
 
 ^ton bank, 
 :rs of the 
 
 Northern 
 /ard to the 
 id the lat- 
 ^r bottom, 
 hamlet, or 
 ishermen. 
 Ions. The 
 
 e chapter 
 1 hundred 
 
 d on the 
 on both 
 Oregon, 
 
 e annual 
 
 to Wash- 
 
 into two 
 
 NORTHERN IDAHO AND WASHINGTON. 
 
 359 
 
 distinct regions by the Cascade Mountains, differing 
 widely from each other in mean temperature, average 
 rain-fall, and in the general character of their seasons. 
 Eastern Washington, although in the latitude of Lower 
 Canada and Northern Maine, has the annual mean tem- 
 perature of Pennsylvania and Ohio. It is subject, how- 
 ever, to greater extremes of temperature than those 
 States. In winter there are short cold spells when the 
 mercury drops to 20° or 30° below zero, but there is no 
 long-continued period of great cold as in Dakota, for as 
 soon as the wind blows from the west, the temperature 
 rises rapidly. The springs are late and cold, and the 
 summers are hot — a dry heat, not as much felt with the 
 mercury at 105° as a temperature of 85° in most sea-coast 
 regions. Evenings and mornings are cool in the hottest 
 weather, and blankets are always needed at night. The 
 autumn is the most agreeable season of the year. For 
 the purposes of the farmer, however, the summers are ad- 
 mirable, for crops mature rapidly, and little rain falls 
 later than the middle of June, so that the grain is har- 
 vested in good condition and threshed in the fields, where 
 it lies in stacks until it is hauled to market. 
 
 In Western Washington the climate is so moist and 
 mild that it can be compared to nothing on the Atlantic 
 coast of the American continent, and finds its closest 
 analogy in the South of Ireland. The warm vapor-laden 
 winds blow against the high cold wall of the Cascade 
 Mountains, and the moisture they carry is condensed into 
 rain. In winter the Japan current so influences the tem- 
 perature that snow rarely lies on the ground longer than 
 a day or two The winter is a rainy season. It begins 
 late in October and ends about the first of May. During 
 December, January, February and March, it rains more 
 or less about two days in three. The other months of the 
 rainy season are characterized by occasional showers, the 
 
360 
 
 A'ORTIfEJiX PACIFIC RArLROAD. 
 
 midwinter rains being intermittent drizzles rather than a 
 steady down-pouring. People go about without umbrellas, 
 and insist that they prefer their wet season to the cold 
 winters of the East. The summer climate is perfect — 
 bright, clear, warm days, not too hot for comfort in out- 
 door life, and cool, refreshing nights. 
 
 ' Even from this brief sketch of Washington Territory 
 the reader will readily conclude that here are the mate- 
 rial resources for the building of a rich and populous 
 State. The area of Washington is about one-half larger 
 than that of Pennsylvania. Its length from east to west 
 is 360 miles, its breadth 250 miles. With its great fertile 
 interior plains, where the soil contains the best elements 
 for the production of wheat, its immense forests, its inex- 
 haustible beds of coal, its beautiful inland sea inviting the 
 commerce of the world, and its temperate and healthful 
 climate, its development, long retarded by its isolation, 
 must be rapid now that it is joined to the railroad system 
 of the East by the new northern transcontinental line. 
 Next to Dakota it contains more unoccupied arable land 
 than any of the new Territories of the West. Its varied 
 resources and its advantages for commerce point to a 
 diversified industry, which is the surest reliance for per- 
 manent prosperity. In many re-^pects it resembles Penn- 
 sylvania, possessing, like that rich commonwealth, coal, 
 iron, lumber, and excellent agricultural lands, and having 
 ready access to the sea. 
 
 11 
 
ither than a 
 t umbrellas, 
 to the cold 
 is perfect — 
 fort in out- 
 
 in Territory 
 : the mate- 
 d populous 
 -half larger 
 jast to west 
 great fertile 
 St elements 
 ts, its inex- 
 inviting the 
 d healthful 
 :s isolation, 
 •oad system 
 nental line, 
 arable land 
 Its varied 
 point to a 
 ice for per- 
 nbles Penn- 
 ealth, coal, 
 and having 
 
 m 
 

 
 3 
 O 
 ■Si 
 
 'J 
 
 u 
 
 u 
 
 U 
 
 
 
 U 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 OREGON. 
 
 Oregon not a New Community — A Large Part of its Surface still Unoccu- 
 pied — Tire Donation Law — Heauty and Fertility of the Willamette Val- 
 ley — An Agricultural Paradise — The Umpqua and Rogue River Valleys 
 — Character of the Sea Coast Region — Coos and Vaquina I!ays — Eastern 
 Oregon — A High, Treeless, Bunch-Cjrass Plain — The Lalce Country of 
 Southern Oregon — The Umatilla Wheat Region — Grande Rondc and 
 Wallowa Valleys — Other Arable Valleys — Wool Growing and Cattle 
 Raising — Climatic Peculiarities — Valley of the Coluni])ia — Tiie Salmon 
 Fishing and Canning Industries — Lumbering and Mining — Cliief Towi.s 
 — Oregon Scenery. 
 
 Oregon is not a new community, as the term is used 
 in the West. It has had nearly forty years of growth 
 since it began to attract agricultural settlement, and 
 would therefore rank chronologically with Iowa and Wis- 
 consin. Its great distance from the older portions of the 
 country has retarded its development, however, and it 
 cannot count more than 225,000 inhabitants to-day. 
 Only a small part of its surface is occupied. The best land 
 for farming cannot now be had by homesteac' claimants, 
 for the rich valleys were long since settled, and a law of 
 Congress called the Donation Act, passed to encourage 
 emigrants to make the long journey across the continent, 
 gave large holdings to individuals, and thus operated to 
 prevent dense settlement. Under this law every married 
 man could take up a claim of a mile square — ^just four 
 times the amount of land allowed to homestead and pre- 
 emption claimants in other States and Territories. These 
 donation claims are still to a considerable extent in first 
 hands, or remain undivided in the hands of heirs of the origi- 
 nal settlers. As a rule but a small part of each is cultivated. 
 
36:: 
 
 XORTIIERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 The Willamette Valley, in which is found more than one- 
 half of the good arable land in the State, would support 
 many times its present population ; but new comers who 
 wish to till its rich bottoms and uplands must persuade 
 the old settlers to divide their farms and sell the acres 
 they make no use of. This valley, so famous for its 
 beauty and productiveness, lies between the Cascade 
 Mountains and the Coast Range, and is about 150 miles 
 long by forty wide. Its surface is undulating, and is well 
 watered by numerous small streams fed by springs and 
 melting snow in the mountains. The soil is so fertile that 
 after a field of wheat is harvested a second crop will 
 spring up from the grain dropped by the ripe ears, and if 
 the field is not plowed, this " volunteer crop," as it is 
 called, will often yield more bushels to the acre than the 
 average product of wheat fields in the Eastern States. A 
 richer valley, or a fairer one to look upon, can nowhere be 
 found. Flourishing orchards alternate with broad fields 
 of grain and belts of woodland and pastures, and lofty 
 mountains frame the pleasant picture on either hand. 
 The products of the valley are carried to market at Port- 
 land by four lines of railroad and a navigable river, and 
 there they meet, at the head of tide water, the com- 
 merce of the world. A fruitful soil, a mild climate, lovely 
 natural scenery, and excellent transportation facilities 
 reaching the sea by a short journey, combine to make the 
 Willamette Valley a veritable paradise for farmers if 
 any such exists on earth. If there is any drawback it is 
 the wet winter, which has given the name of " web-feet " 
 to the inhabitants of Oregon ; but the people who have 
 had long experience of the climate would be sorry to ex- 
 change their mild and rainy winter months for the snow 
 and severe cold of the same latitudes in the East. 
 
 We have spoken first of the Willamette Valley because 
 it is the heart of the State. For a long time it included 
 
OREGON. 
 
 363 
 
 all there was of settled Oregon. It made Portland a city ; 
 it attracted commerce to the Columbia River ; it colonized 
 the newer portions of the Pacific Northwest. At its head 
 the Coast and Cascade Mountains are joined by low cross 
 ranges, and further south the water-courses run directly 
 to the sea, making open valleys at first, which soon narrow 
 into cafions. The first of these is the Umpqua River, 
 along whose banks there is some good grain land and 
 much hill pasture. Next is the Rogue River, which 
 makes a very attractive valley about thirty miles long by 
 twenty wide, enjoying the finest climate in Oregon, the 
 rainy season being short, and most of the winter weather 
 resembling that of the south of France. IJeyond this for- 
 tunate valley rise the Siskyou Mountains, which form the 
 southern boundary of the State. 
 
 The seacoast region of Oregon has a width, from the 
 summits of the Coast Mountains to the Pacific, of about 
 fifty miles, and is covered with forests save on the tidal 
 flats around bays, and at the mouths of rivers, and on a few 
 strips of prairie close to streams. Settlement here in- 
 volves clearing, and the country is still nearly all a virgin 
 wilderness. Cool summers and a great deal of fog and 
 rain in the winters, are the characteristics of the climate. 
 The settlers raise cattle, make butter and cheese, do a 
 little farming, and ship some lumber. There is much rich 
 land that will be extensively cleared for farms in the next 
 generation, when there is no more prairie land in the 
 United States to be had for the taking. Now the few oc- 
 cupants of the forest regions of both Oregon and Washing- 
 ton are content with small fields for grain and potatoes for 
 their own use, and manage to live comfortably by keep- 
 ing stock to run in the woods. There are two harbors on 
 the Oregon coast besides the entrance to the Columbia — 
 Coos Bay and Yaquina Bay — but both are too shallow to 
 admit large vessels. The Government is now endeavor- 
 
3^4 
 
 .YOIiT//£JiX PACIJ-JC KAJLROAD. 
 
 ing to improve the entrance to the latter. At Coos Bay 
 there are mines of lignite coal, not extensively workc>l, 
 but making small shipments to San Francisco. 
 
 Eastern Oregon, under which term is included all of 
 the State lying east of the Cascade Mountains, differs 
 widely in its appearance and climate from the rest of the 
 State. For the most part it is a high-rolling, bunch-grass 
 country, destitute of trees, and too dry for cultivation. 
 In the south, near the Nevada line, there are immense 
 areas of sage-brush plains and considerable stretches of 
 lava and alkali deserts. This unattractive region is re- 
 lieved, however, from its sameness of desolation by two 
 groups of lakes, which lie in grassy basins, where the 
 business of stock-raising supports a small rural popula- 
 tion and has developed a few little towns. Some notable 
 exceptions must be made to this general description of 
 Eastern Oregon as a dry and dusty plain, covered with a 
 scanty vesture of bunch-grass, and producing no vege- 
 table growth better than the despised sage brush. The 
 great wheat belt of Eastern Washington and Northern 
 Idaho, sweeping around at the base of the Blue Moun- 
 tains, laps over into Oregon, in Umatilla County, for a dis- 
 tance of about fifty miles, and in this, its extreme west- 
 ern portion, has the same fertility and beauty which mark 
 its whole surface. Then, south of the mountains and 
 inclosed by their spurs, lies the fine agricultural valley 
 of the Grande Ronde, having a length of thirty miles 
 and a width of ten, and the smaller valley of Wallowa, 
 which is too high for general farming purposes, but is 
 an admirable grazing and dairy country. Further south, 
 and near the Idaho line, the valleys of Burnt River, 
 Powder River, and the Owyhee River are excellent for 
 grazing, and offer considerable areas of irrigable land 
 to agricultural settlement. Of similar character is the 
 long valley of the John Day River, extending almost 
 
OKEGOX. 
 
 565 
 
 Lt Coos Bay 
 cly workcvl, 
 I. 
 
 luded all of 
 ains, differs 
 : rest of the 
 bunch-grass 
 cultivation, 
 re immense 
 stretches of 
 cgion is rc- 
 tion by two 
 where the 
 iral popula- 
 3mc notable 
 :scription of 
 ered with a 
 g no vegc- 
 rush. The 
 d Northern 
 Hue Moun- 
 :y, for a dis- 
 reme west- 
 vhich mark 
 ntains and 
 ural valley 
 hirty miles 
 f Wallowa, 
 )ses, but is 
 ther south, 
 irnt River, 
 ccellcnt for 
 jable land 
 :ter is the 
 ng almost 
 
 across the eastern portion of the State. The Dcs Chutes 
 River, draining the eastern slope of the Cascade Moun- 
 tains, is a clear rapid stream, and its valley and the ad- 
 jacent region are valuable for stock-raising. Willow 
 Creek, another tributary of the Columbia, has also a 
 fertile valley. Apart from the Umatilla grain belt and 
 the valleys named above, which altogether embrace 
 scarcely a tenth part of the area of Eastern Oregon, this 
 portion of the State cannot be said to be adapted for 
 settlement save in .a sparse and straggling way. Very 
 little of the country is absolutely Avorthless, for the bunch- 
 grass rarely fails ; but a great many acres are required 
 for pasture for each animal, and there must be water for 
 stock ranges. Wool-growing and cattle-raising are al- 
 ready important industries, and arc capable of consider- 
 able expansion, and more and more farming is done every 
 year along the streams; but the population of the entire 
 region can never be at all dense. 
 
 The climate of this region is colder in winter and 
 warmer in summer than that of the Willamette Valley. 
 Very little rain falls between the first of June and the 
 first of October. In the winter there is a good deal of 
 snow, which, however, does not lie long on the ground, 
 being speedily melted by the warm Chinook winds. 
 These winds break off the cold snaps suddenly, so that 
 it is not usual for a low range of the thermometer to last 
 longer than three or four days. The mean temperature 
 for the year is about the same as that of Pennsylvania 
 and Ohio, and the chief differences between the Eastern 
 Oregon climate and that of those States arc found in the 
 dry atmosphere, the scanty summer rain-fall, and the 
 short duration of cold spells in winter. 
 
 The Columbia River forms the northern boundary of 
 Oregon for three-fourths of the State's breadth. The 
 valley of this magnificent river adds very little, however, 
 
 , 1: 
 
 I , V 
 
366 
 
 A'ORT/IEKW PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 to the agricultural resources of the State. Tiiere is only a 
 narrow strip of level land between the v-iter and the moun- 
 tains, and much of this is subject to an annual overflow. 
 Here and there space is found for a few farms, but the 
 general appearance of the banks is that of a wilderness 
 of forests and mountains below the Cascade Range, and 
 of basaltic cliffs and steep and lofty grassy liills above that 
 range, save for a space of about fifty miles above Willow 
 Creek, where level plains stretch out to the base of the 
 Blue Mountains. The river and its shores afford other 
 sources of wealth, however, than those of the farms re- 
 deemed from the dense woods on the bottoms, or perched 
 on shelves at the feet cf huge precipices of brown ba- 
 saltic rock. Much lumber is cut from the forests and 
 sawed at mills along the stream, where it is loaded upon 
 sea-going ships. The swift waters yield an enormous 
 catch of salmon. The firm, rosy flesh of this finest of all 
 the food fishes is canned, and finds a market in all parts 
 of the civilized globe, Oregon shares with Washington 
 in the profitable industry of catching and canning salmon, 
 the fishermen's villages and the canneries being estab- 
 lished at numerous points on both sides of the Columbia, 
 from the Lower Cascades to its mouth. Astoria, in Or- 
 egon, on a bay just inside the river's mouth, is the chief 
 centre of the business. The town is quaintly built out over 
 the tide from the foot of the hills, which descend in steep 
 slopes to the bay. There as not room enough on the land 
 for the town as it grew from its lowly condition of an Indian 
 trading-post, so the people took to the water, putting 
 their houses on piles and building bridges for their streets. 
 Under dwellings, stores and streets can be heard the 
 wash of the tidal waves against the piles. Here are many 
 of the principal canneries, and here live most of the fish- 
 ermen who go out to the bar in their little boats for the 
 first chance at the salmon as they come into the river — 
 
OREGON. 
 
 367 
 
 crc is only a 
 d the moun- 
 4al overflow, 
 tns, but the 
 a wilderness 
 Ran^c, and 
 s above that 
 )ove Willow- 
 base of the 
 afford other 
 le farms re- 
 i, or perched 
 brown ba- 
 forests and 
 loaded upon 
 n enormous 
 finest of all 
 in all parts 
 Washington 
 ing salmon, 
 )eing estab- 
 1 Columbia, 
 oria, in Or- 
 s the chief 
 ilt out over 
 nd in steep 
 on the land 
 fan Indian 
 er, putting 
 leir streets, 
 heard the 
 e are many 
 of the fish- 
 ats for the 
 he river — 
 
 a perilous life, often cut short by a sudden gale, but a 
 fascinating one, because of the varying kick and the 
 chances of a heavy catch. The fish are brought to the 
 canneries, where they are cleaned, cut up, and packed in 
 tin cans, which are placed in boiling water long enough 
 to cook the contents. The air-holes in the cans are then 
 soldered, the labels put on, and the cans packed in cases 
 that hold four dozen each. A moderate season's catch in 
 the Columbia Rivv is 300,000 cases of 48 pounds each, 
 making the enormous quantity of nearly 15,000,000 pounds 
 offish. In spite of this great annual raid on the sahr.on 
 of the Columbia there seems no falling off i;i vhe supply. 
 Gill-net fishing is carried on from the river's mouth for 
 a distance of about fifty miles, and furtht. ' up lliere ar-: a 
 number of gigantic wheels sapported on platrijrn;^ built 
 out '"' • I the banks, and kept in motion by tl ;- force of 
 the current, which scoop up the fish ana Ia:id them in 
 tanks. Still further up, between the Cascades and the 
 Dalles, the Indians fish with scoop nets. 
 
 The precious metals play an important part in the ag- 
 gregate of Oregon's resources. In the southern part of 
 the State a good deal of placer mining, by both hand- 
 sluicing and hydraulic apparatus, is carried on, and there 
 are a few paying quartz ledges ; and there is another 
 mining district in the southeastern part of the State, of 
 which Baker City is the business centre. The industry 
 has long passed the stage of exciting discoveries, " stam- 
 pedes,", and wild speculation, and has become a steady- 
 going and moderately profitable business. 
 
 The chief town of Oregon, Portland, will be described 
 in the ensuing chapter. Astoria, the sea-port and fish- 
 ing mart, ranks in population with Salem, the pretty 
 capital, in the Willamette Valley, each having about 
 7,000 inhabitants. Albany, Corvallis, McMinnville, and 
 Eugene City, are important trading towns in the same 
 
 
■■■ * 
 ■ I 
 
 368 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 valley. Oregon City is a milling village, using the water- 
 power of the falls of the Willamette. Roseburg is the 
 central town of the Umpqua Valley, and Jacksonville 
 and Ashland divide the trade of the Rogue River Val- 
 ley. East of the Cascade Mountains the principal town 
 is the Dalles, on the Columbia. Smaller places of local 
 consequence are Pendleton, Union, and Baker City. 
 
 There are few points of the American continent that 
 can rival Oregon for grand and imposing scenery. The 
 lofty peak of Mount Hood, like a magnified Egyptian 
 pyramid, sheeted in snow, and set upon an immense 
 green wall, is the most beautiful mountain of the whole 
 Pacific coast, if symmetry of form be regarded as the 
 first element in beauty, and in height and massiveness 
 it is only surpassed by Mount Tacoma. The great Sugar 
 Loaf of Mount St. Helens, though on the Washington 
 side of the Columbia, belongs to the scenery of Oregon 
 as well as to that of the neighboring Territory, and so 
 docs Mount Adams. All three of these glittering peaks, 
 as well as the summit of Tacoma, far in the north, and of 
 Jefferson on the southern horizon, can be seen from the 
 hills back of Portland. The lower peaks and ranges of 
 the Coast and Cascade Mountains, and of the Calapooia 
 and Siskyon Mountains in Southern Oregon, present to 
 the eye a thousand pleasing outlines. 
 
 In the grandeur of its shores the Columbia ranks first 
 of American rivers. Its current is as impetuous as that 
 of the Mississippi, its mountain walls and palisades far 
 loftier than those of the Hudson ; cataracts like those of 
 the Yosemite Valley dash over its basaltic cliffs. At the 
 Dalles it buries itself in i profound crevice whose depth 
 has never been fathomed, showing of its surface only as 
 much as can be compassed by a stone's throw ; at Astoria 
 it becomes a broad tidal estuary, whose farther shores lie 
 in dim distance ; at the Cascades it is a foaming, head- 
 
OREGON. 
 
 369 
 
 the vvater- 
 urg is the 
 icksonville 
 River Val- 
 cipal town 
 es of local 
 City. 
 
 tinent that 
 lery. The 
 
 Egyptian 
 1 immense 
 
 the whole 
 dccl as the 
 nassiveness 
 jreat Sugar 
 Vashington 
 
 of Oregon 
 3ry, and so 
 ring peaks, 
 jrth, and of 
 n from the 
 d ranges of 
 
 Calapooia 
 
 present to 
 
 long torrent ; at the mouth of the Willamette it is a 
 placid lake, encircling many green islands. The Willa- 
 mette has an emerald green current, and flows between 
 gentle slopes, through farms and woodland, past orchards 
 and pretty villages — a placid and idyllic stream, save 
 where it leaps down forty feet in one bound at its falls, 
 and makes a small Niagara of white foam and rainbow- 
 tinted spray. Indeed, to briefly catalogue half the special 
 scenic features of Oregon would demand a great deal more 
 space than this chapter affords. Enough to say that the 
 State has all of the grandeur and loveliness in landscapes 
 that mountains, rivers, valleys, waterfalls, lakes, and the 
 ocean can give, and that tourists will find within its 
 bounds, and those of its neighbor, Washington, a combina- 
 tion of Switzerland and Maine, of Italy and Norway. 
 24 
 
 ranks first 
 ous as that 
 ilisades far 
 ve those of 
 
 s. At the 
 
 lose depth 
 ice only as 
 
 at Astoria 
 r shores lie 
 ning, head- 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 PORTLAND AND THE PUGET SOUND PORTS. 
 
 The Metropolis of the Pacific Northwest — Portland's Advantageous Loca- 
 tion — Its Enterprise in Establishing Transportation Lines — The Rail- 
 way System Centring in Portland — A Well-built, Rich and Beautiful 
 City — Its Great Staple Export of Wheat — The Columbia River Bar — 
 Predictions of a Greater City on Puget Sound — Tacoma the Legal Ter- 
 minus of the Northern Pacific Railroad — Its Tributary Coal-Fields and 
 l-uniber Interests — Wheat Shipments from Eastern Wasliington — Seat- 
 tle's Activity and Growth — Its Important Trade with the Smaller 
 Towns on I'uget Sound. 
 
 So far ahead is Portland in population and business 
 of all other towns in Oregon or Washington, that it 
 claims, with good reason, the title of metropolis of the 
 Pacific Northwest. In its early development it was 
 wholly the product of the Willamette Valley. The 
 town sprang up at the point where the grain-laden ox- 
 wagons from the fertile valley met the clipper ship. This 
 was not on the great river of the region, the Columbia, be- 
 cause ships could get nearest to the wheat-fields by turn- 
 ing out of that stream into the Willamette and following 
 its placid tributary channel a few miles. For many years 
 after the first settlement, the Willamette Valley was all 
 there was of Oregon save forests and fur-trading stations. 
 That valley offered open prairies to the plow, and thither 
 the pioneers, crossing the arid plains by a journey longer 
 in time than is now required to sail around the world, 
 made their homes. When tjiey had a surplus of grain 
 to sell, they hauled it down to deep water and exchanged 
 it for clothing and implements. So Portland arose, 
 being both seaport and inland town — for it is nearly a 
 
KJ 
 
 ' '■ frncm ' ^ . 
 
 >RTS. 
 
 ntageous Loca- 
 es— The Rail- 
 and Beautiful 
 a River Bar— 
 he Legal Ter- 
 :oal-Fiekls and 
 ihington — Seat- 
 .h the Smaller 
 
 id business 
 ton, that it 
 polis of the 
 t it was 
 lley. The 
 in-laden ox- 
 ship. This 
 lumbia, be- 
 Ids by turn- 
 d following 
 many years 
 lley was all 
 ng stations, 
 and thither 
 rney longer 
 the world, 
 us of grain 
 exchanged 
 lland arose, 
 is nearly a 
 
 z 
 O 
 
 o 
 O 
 
 Q 
 
 •< 
 
 o 
 
 a. 
 
 
PORTLAND AND THE PUGET SOUND PORTS. 
 
 371 
 
 hundred miles from the ocean, yet great ocean steamers 
 and deep square-rigged ships lie at its wharves. 
 
 In course of time the important discovery was made 
 that east of the Cascade Mountains lay a second grain 
 region. An experiment in raising wheat for the needs 
 of the military post at Walla Walla was so successful 
 that farmers began to go into the country near the 
 post, and in a few years they, too, had a surplus to 
 send to the world's markets. They were far removed 
 from the settlements in the Willamette Valley, and the 
 transportation system of steamboats on the Willamette 
 River, above and below its falls, was of no use to them. 
 Geographically considered, this new agricultural district 
 was not naturally tributary to Portland. A town to send 
 its grain to sea and furnish it with supplies was expected 
 to grow up on the Columbia. Some thought it would be 
 at Vancouver, just above the mouth of the Willamette ; 
 some at St. Helen's, further down ; some at Astoria, 
 where the Columbia meets the sea. The enterprise of 
 Portland, however, was thrown into the scale and out- 
 weighed all other influences. Her merchants put steam- 
 boats upon the Columbia, built railroads around the two 
 obstacles to its navigation at the Cascades and the 
 Dalles, and thus brought the trade of the new wheat region 
 to their own wharves and warehouses, forcing it to turn 
 aside from its straight path to the sea to pay them trib- 
 ute. When this was done, the supremacy of the city 
 was assured, and its growth has since kept steady pace 
 with the development of the two rich agricultural sec- 
 tions which sustain its commerce. Railroads have been 
 built on both sides of the Willamette Valley, and the 
 basin of the Upper Columbia is also reached by the loco- 
 motive, so that the costly transfer of freight around the 
 Dalles and the Cascades is no longer made. First a centre 
 of sea and river navigation, Portland has become also a 
 
372 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 railroad centre. The map printed with this chapter will 
 show how extensive is its railway system. The road en- 
 tering it from the east is a link of the Northern Pacific 
 main line which leads directly to St. Paul, and there con- 
 nects with lines to all the cities of the Atlantic coast and 
 the Mississippi Valley. This line also sends out branches 
 which reach the farming, grazing and mining regions 
 of Oregon and Washington lying between the Cascade 
 Range and the Rocky Mountains. South from Portland 
 two roads run up the Willamette Valley to form a 
 junction, and thence to continue southward as a single 
 line to the California boundary, where they are soon 
 to be met by a branch of the Central Pacific, giving 
 unbroken rail communication between Portland and San 
 PVancisco. There are also two narrow-gauge railroads, 
 one not shown on the map, which connect with the main 
 lines in the valley, and also with steamboats upon the 
 Willamette River, affording convenient local outlets for 
 grain shipments. West of Portland, the Northern Pacific 
 main line runs down the Columbia forty miles, and then 
 turns north to reach the ports of Puget Sound. 
 
 The system of water transportation is equally well 
 developed. Large ocean steamships, equipped with all 
 the appliances of comfort and safety in use on the vessels 
 plying between New York and European ports, make tri- 
 weekly trips between Portland and San Francisco. These 
 vessels are owned by the Pacific Coast Steamship Com- 
 pany and the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company. 
 To the latter corporation belongs the fleet of river steam- 
 boats running between Portland and the towns along the 
 Columbia and Willamette rivers. The steamboats and 
 barges on the Upper Columbia and the Snake River and 
 numerous steam craft on Puget Sound are also the 
 property of this enterprising Oregon corporation. 
 
 Thus admirably supplied with transportation facilities. 
 
 I 
 
 If 
 
chapter will 
 he road en- 
 hern Pacific 
 1 there con- 
 c coast and 
 ut branches 
 ing regions 
 he Cascade 
 im Portland 
 
 to form a 
 as a single 
 :y are soon 
 icific, giving 
 md and San 
 je railroads, 
 ith the main 
 its upon the 
 I outlets for 
 
 hern Pacific 
 es, and then 
 1. 
 
 qually well 
 ed with all 
 I the vessels 
 
 s, make tri- 
 isco. These 
 uship Com- 
 
 1 Company. 
 
 iver steam- 
 
 s along the 
 
 nboats and 
 River and 
 
 e also the 
 
 ion, 
 
 >n facilities. 
 
 PORTLAND AND THE PUGET SOUND PORTS. 
 
 373 
 
 both by rail and vater, the growth and commercial im- 
 portance of the Oregon metropolis is not to be wondered 
 at. Visitors from fhc East are surprised, however, that 
 at such a distance from older cities, and in such a 
 condition of complete isolation from the railway system 
 of the country, as it was until the completion of the 
 Northern Pacific, it was able to adopt the ways and 
 enjoy the refinements and comforts of a long-established 
 civilization. There is nothing crude or new in the ap- 
 pearance of the place, and no feature of agreeable town 
 life is wanting. The business structures are solid and 
 handsome ; the shops are filled with costly wares ; there 
 are numerous churches, a theatre, a club, a library ; the 
 largest buildings are the public school houses ; the streets 
 are shaded with maples ; many of the dwellings are re- 
 markable for their size and cost, and still more for their 
 attractive lawns and gardens. In summer it is a town of 
 verdure and bloom. 
 
 With its suburbs of East Portland and Albina, the place 
 has now 30,000 inhabitants. In striking contrast with its 
 busy streets, its wharves, steamboats, railway trains, and 
 tall ships, is the near forest, which hugs it closely on all 
 sides. One can stand in the primeval woods and look 
 down on all this bustling activity of trade and pleasure. 
 Here are the tall pines and the dark thicket — there the 
 masts, the smoking chimneys, the dusty streets, ."iid the 
 pleasant gardens. Only as the tG-»vn advances does the 
 forest recede. This curious feature of Portland is owing 
 to its situation among the rugged timber-clothed hills 
 that skirt the Columbia. The Willamette breaks through 
 them, but its broad, open valley does not reach to its 
 confluence with the larger river. The fields which first 
 created the town begin many miles away. In the imme- 
 diate vicinity of the city the wilderness has hardly been 
 disturbed. 
 
 !!!i 
 
374 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 Portland's chief article of export is wheat, of which it 
 ships about 10,000,000 bushels annually, mainly to Liver- 
 pool. The barometer of its prosperity rises and falls with 
 the wheat crop. When the crop is large times are good. 
 There is never a failure of the crop, but the difference 
 between a moderate yield and a heavy one is an affair of 
 no small consequence in its effect on the yearly income 
 of merchants and transportation lines. Next to wheat, 
 in the trade reports, comes salmon, of which about 300,- 
 000 cases are canned every year upon the Columbia. 
 Lumber, wool, and hides are the other leading articles 
 in the export tables. So far as easy access to the sea is 
 concerned, the city is by no means as favorably situated 
 as the ports on Puget Sound. The bar at the mouth 
 of the Columbia is an obstacle to navigation, though 
 not a very serious one, for the large steamers running 
 to San Francisco cross it regularly, and ships are towed 
 over it every day. The few wrecks that have occurred 
 upon it have, with scarcely an exception, been occasioned 
 by carelessness. Still, the shifting channel must be care- 
 fully watched, and vessels must wait for high tide to get 
 across the bar. At low stages of water in the river, troub- 
 lesome sand bars are revealed between Portland and the 
 sea, and ships take a part of their cargoes from lighters 
 towed down to Astoria. From these facts it is often 
 argued that a great city will eventually grow up on the 
 deep waters of Puget Sound, to which the largest ships 
 can sail, unimpeded, straight in from the sea, and that a 
 riv-1 will soon arise in that quarter to contest Portland's 
 commercial supremacy in the Pacific settlement. Thus 
 far no such rival has shown itself, and the probability of 
 its appearance need not be discussed here. The Sound 
 ports are ambitious towns just emerging from the village 
 state, and no comparisons can justly be drawn between 
 them and the city to which they are all in a measure 
 tributary. 
 
of which it 
 ily to Liver- 
 nd falls with 
 es are good, 
 e difference 
 5 an affair of 
 ;arly income 
 ct to wheat, 
 
 about 300,- 
 ; Columbia. 
 Jing articles 
 to the sea is 
 bly situated 
 
 the mouth 
 ion, though 
 ers running 
 IS are towed 
 ve occurred 
 I occasioned 
 lust be care- 
 i tide to get 
 river, troub- 
 ind and the 
 om lighters 
 
 it is often 
 '■ up on the 
 irgest ships 
 ., and that a 
 t Portland's 
 lent. Thus 
 •obability of 
 
 The Sound 
 I the village 
 ivn between 
 
 a measure 
 
 I'l 
 
PUGET SOUND PORTS AND THEIR RAILWAY CONNECTIONS. 
 
PORTLAND AND THE PUUET SOUND PORTS. 
 
 375 
 
 fl 
 
 
 \ H) 
 
 
 J, 
 
 7? V 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 Of these towns, only the two which serve as seaports 
 for the Northern Pacific system need be described here. 
 Their relations to the railroad and to each other are 
 shown by the accompanyincj map. Tacoma is the legal 
 terminus of both the main line and the Cascade Branch, 
 but an extension has been built to Seattle, divergin^^ from 
 the Cascade Branch ten miles east of Tacoma. By this 
 line the distance between the two towns is forty miles ; 
 by water it is only twenty-seven. Tacoma is purely the 
 creation of the railroad. It was only a saw-mill hamlet 
 before the road came, and after the line was opened from 
 Kalama on the Columbia its growth was very slow. In- 
 deed, its advance to the position of an important town 
 only dates from 1882, when it received a great stimulus 
 from the certainty that it had only a year to wait for the 
 connection of the Northern Pacific track in Montana, 
 which would unite the Sound with the Atlantic coast by 
 unbroken rail connection. Tacoma has some notable 
 advantages. The largest ships and steamers come to its 
 wharves. The town site covers three benches of a high 
 plateau that look out eastward over Commencement Bay 
 and the valley of the Puyallup to the Cascade Mountains 
 and the magnificent snow peak of Mount Tacoma, grand- 
 est of all American mountains save Mount St. Elias, in 
 Alaska. The coal fields at the base of the mountains, 
 now largely worked, are tributary to the town, and so is 
 the rich valley of the Puyallup and numerous smaller val- 
 leys and prairies hidden in the midst of the dense fir 
 forests that envelop the shores of the Sound. It has a 
 considerable trade in lumber and coal, and confidently 
 awaits the solution of the problem of cheap wheat trans- 
 portation, in the belief that much of the grain of Oregon 
 and Eastern Washington will seek the deep water of the 
 Sound with the opening, this year, of unbroken rail com- 
 m'mication, and that, as the point where the railroad first 
 
37^ 
 
 NORTHERLY PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 meets the ships on the Sound, it will command this im- 
 portant commerce. Wc may say further of Tacoma that 
 it has already made some promising efforts at manufact- 
 uring, and that the beauty and healthfulncss of its situ- 
 ation will soon attract tourists and summer residents. In 
 a few years the great glaciers and snowfields of Mount 
 Tacoma will be visited by thousands of travelers, who 
 will find all the beauty and grandeur of the high Alps. 
 The town will profit largely by this tide of travel, to 
 which it must serve as base and rallying point. 
 
 At this time (in the summer of 1883) the population of 
 Tacoma is about 4,000 souls. That of its neighbor, 
 Seattle, is probably not less than 7,000. Seattle is much 
 the older town. It hoped to be the terminus of the 
 Northern Pacific, and, disappointed in this, showed an 
 enterprising spirit in running little steamers to the saw- 
 mills up and down the Sound, and up the rivers where 
 there are agricultural valleys. Thus the town became a 
 centre of trade and a distributing point for supplies, and 
 managed to keep alicad of all rivals. It was greatly 
 helped by the opening of the Newcastle coal field, 
 about twenty miles distant ; the building of a railroad to 
 the mines ; and of wharves on its water front for shipping 
 the coal. Mines, railroad, wharves, and the handsome 
 steam colliers that carry the coal to San Francisco, are all 
 the property of the Oregon Improvement Company. Be- 
 sides the railroad to Taconia, mentioned in a preceding 
 paragraph, Seattle has lately secured, by the subscription 
 of $150,000 on the part of her citizens, the early building 
 of a line by way of the coal fields of Green River to a con- 
 nection with the Cascade Branch of the Northern Pacific. 
 The town is built on the steep slopes of hills that half in- 
 close a pretty bay into which flows the Dwamish River, 
 and the little level ground occupied by the business streets 
 was obtained at much labor by cutting down the hills and 
 
PORTLAND AXD THE PUGET SOUXD PORTS. 
 
 m 
 
 nd this im- 
 acoma that 
 I man u fact- 
 or its situ- 
 itlcnts. In 
 i of Mount 
 velcrs, who 
 high Alps, 
 f travel, to 
 
 ipulation of 
 
 j neighbor, 
 
 tic is much 
 
 nus of the 
 
 showed an 
 
 :o the saw- 
 
 ivers where 
 
 1 became a 
 
 ipplies, and 
 
 as greatly 
 
 coal field, 
 
 railroad to 
 
 or shipping 
 
 handsome 
 
 isco, are all 
 
 pany. Be- 
 
 preceding 
 
 ubscription 
 
 ly building 
 
 :r to a con. 
 
 ern Pacific. 
 
 lat half in- 
 
 lish River, 
 
 ess streets 
 
 le hills and 
 
 filling out into the bay. In spite of the precipitous slopes, 
 howevc an orderly street system has been obtained, and 
 the town profits somewhat even by its disadvantage of 
 being tipped up at a sharp angle, by showing itself at one 
 view to all who approach by water, to say nothing of the 
 magnificent outlook, from its terrace-like streets, over 
 forests, bays and Sound to the rugged crests of the Olym- 
 pic Mountains. Three miles distant is Lake Washington ; 
 a fine body of fresh water over twenty miles long. It lies 
 so close to the Sound that the idea of connecting it with 
 tide-water by a canal with locks for water-power as well 
 as transportation, and for a repair station in fresh water 
 for sh i( s, has long been a favorite one, and has lately 
 ripened into a business project. Seattle saws and manu- 
 factures lumber, repairs machinery, ships coal, carries on 
 considerable wholesale trade, and is regarded by its citi- 
 zens as destined to be the chief city of the North Pacific 
 coast. Its claim to be looked upon as the future me- 
 tropolis of Puget Sound is vigorously disputed by Tacoma, 
 and both are somewhat troubled by the remote contin- 
 gency that a greater than either may arise at some point far 
 down the Sound, facing out upon the Strait of Juan de 
 Fuca, and directly accessible to ships coming in under sail 
 from the ocean, without the help of steam tugs. As yet, 
 however, there is not even a beginning of a commercial 
 town on the eastern shore of the Lower Sound, although 
 the locality was pointed out by the distinguished chief 
 engineer, VV. Milnor Roberts, fourteen years ago, as pecu- 
 liarly adapted for the site of a great city. 
 
 |.^'. 
 
m 
 
PART III 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE MAIN LINE. 
 
 WITH INCIDENTAL INFORMATION REGARDING 
 ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 
 

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 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 THE MINNESOTA, WISCONSIN AND ST. PAUL DIVISIONS. 
 
 The East Minnesota Division — First Breaking of Ground on the Northern 
 Pacific Line — A Celebralion of tlie Event — Wheeling the First Load of 
 Earth — Completion of the Road to Brainerd in 1870 — Character of the 
 Country Traversed — The St. Paul Division — The Wisconsin Division — 
 The Brainerd Shops — The West Minnesota Division — Difficulties and 
 Cost of Construciion — The Red River Crossing. 
 
 The East Minnesota Division of the Nortliern Pacific 
 Railroad extends from Duluth, at the head of Lake Su- 
 perior, to Brainerd, where it joins the St. Paul Division ; 
 the continuation of both lines westward being known as 
 the West Minnesota Division. Its length is 1 14 miles. 
 On this division occurred the first breaking of ground on 
 the 15th of February, 1870. In the midst of the rigors 
 of a northern winter, the scanty population of the two 
 villages of Duluth and Superior City, at the head of 
 Lake Superior, was notified by General Ira Spaulding, 
 the engineer in charge, that ground would be broken 
 next day at the Dalles of the St. Louis River, on the 
 new Transcontinental Railroad. The point chosen was 
 about a mile west of the present town of Northern 
 Pacific Junction, where the St. Paul and Duluth Rail- 
 road joins the Northern Pacific. The news created much 
 enthusiasm in the two hamlets by the frozen lake, and it 
 was determined that such an important event should not 
 take place without being worthily celebrated ; so a large 
 number of people drove out through the woods in sleighs, 
 sleeping on the floor of a log-house at the Dalles, and 
 appearing on the ground early next morning. There 
 they found General Spaulding and W. H. Owen, of the 
 
 ■m. 
 
382 
 
 NORTJIERX J\ICI1''1C RAILROAD. 
 
 Northern Pacific Engineer Corps; W. VV. Ilungcrford and 
 two assistants, of the Engineer Corps of the Lake Supe- 
 rior and Mississif)pi Railroad, and a few workmen. In 
 all, including the delegations from Superior, Duluth, and 
 Fond du Lac, a village a few miles west of Superior, 
 there were about seventy-five persons present. A fire of 
 logs had been built the day before to melt the snow and 
 thaw out the frozen earth. At noon the assemblage 
 was called to order. 
 
 General Spaulding suggested that a committee of two 
 citizens, one from Minnesota and one from Wisconsin, be 
 appointed " to fill and deliver the first Avheclbarrow of 
 earth handled in the construction of the Northern Pacific 
 Railroad." The president appointed J. B. Culver and 
 Hiram Hayes, as the committee. Mr. Culver took a pick 
 and shovel and filled the wheelbarrow, and Mr. Hayes 
 wheeled the load a few steps and dumped it, amid con- 
 tinued cheering. The assemblage dispersed with cheer 
 upon cheer for the friends, officers, and engineers of the 
 Northern Pacific. 
 
 A large force was put to work clearing and grading in 
 the following spring, and the line was opened to Brainerd 
 in December of the same year. The Lake Superior and 
 Mississippi Railroad was opened through from St. Paul 
 to Lake Superior in the summer of 1870, and became 
 the supply line for the transportation of construction 
 materials for the Northern Pacific. The purchase of a 
 half interest in its track east of the junction fixed Du- 
 luth as the lake terminus of the Northern Pacific line, and 
 caused the remote and almost unknown hamlet bearing 
 that name to develop, with great rapidity, into an active 
 town. From Duluth the road skirts the Bay of Superior 
 and the St. Louis River, which, near its mouth, widens 
 out and is called Spirit Lake, for about twenty miles, 
 much of the way in sight of the Dalles of the St. Louis — 
 
THE MINNESOTA AND WI SCON SIX DIVISIONS. 
 
 383 
 
 a continuous rapid ten miles long, hemmed in in a wild, 
 rocky gorge. There was heavy work all the way to 
 the junction, cutting and filling in the precipitous hill 
 sides and bridging the numerous ravines which come 
 down to the river's edge. Five long trestles had to be 
 erected, the highest 115 feet, besides a bridge across the 
 river. The maximum grade on this section is seventy- 
 four feet to the mile, and for eight miles west of Fond 
 du Lac the average ascent is sixty-six feet to the 
 mile ; nearly the entire elevation from Lake Superior to 
 the plateau which serves as a water-shed between its 
 tributaries and those of the Mississippi having to be sur- 
 mounted in that distance. West of the junction there is 
 no grade heavier than fifty feet to the mile. The face of 
 the country is slightly undulating, but there are no hills 
 and no deep depressions. Numerous small lakes arc seen 
 from the track. A forest growth of pine, spruce, tama- 
 rack and birch covers the whole region, and there is much 
 swampy ground. In crossing the swamps, which ap- 
 pear to cover the beds of old lakes, the engineers had a 
 hard task to find a bottom sufficiently solid to support 
 the road bed. The filling of one day would disappear 
 during the night. In some places piles liad to be used, 
 and in the worst spot two tiers of piles were driven, one 
 on top of another, before the hard clay was reached. For 
 a short distance the road runs along the actual water-shed 
 between Lake Superior and the ^lississippi, and at Crom- 
 well, 45 miles from Duluth, it crosses a small lake which 
 sends a part of its overflow to the Gulf of Mexico and a 
 part to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 
 
 At Brainerd are established the most extensive shops 
 to be found on the Northern Pacific road. These have 
 been greatly enlarged and improved by the construction 
 of handsome and substantial buildings during the pres- 
 ent administration of the Company's affairs, and now 
 
 -II I' 
 
384 
 
 XOJiTI/EK.V PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 fairly rank among the very best railway shops in the 
 country. The principal structures consist of a machine 
 shop, 120 by 250 feet ; a blacksmith shop, 80 by 195 
 feet, with 52 fires ; a round house, with 44 stalls for 
 locomotives ; a store room and office buildinj^, 40 by 300 
 feet ; a laboratory, 20 by 30 feet ; and an oil building, with 
 a storage capacity of 110,000 gallons. These are all of 
 yellow brick, with slate or slieet-iron roofs. For building 
 and repairing cars, the wooden buildings of the old shops 
 an; temporarily used. In the Brainerd shops 722 men 
 arc employed in the locomotive department, and 344 in 
 the car department. Three divisions of the Northern 
 Pacific terminate at Brainerd, and the operating depart- 
 ment of all of the main line and branches in the State of 
 Minnesota has its headquarters here. Here, also, are the 
 headquarters of the engineer's department for the entire 
 road. 
 
 From Brainerd to Fargo, a distance of 138^^ miles, ex- 
 tends the West Minnesota Division. This portion of the 
 main line was definitely located by the engineers during 
 the summer of 1870, while construction was proceeding 
 on the East Minnesota Division. Some minor changes 
 were made in the location by order of the Board of 
 Directors in January, 1 871, on the recommendation of the 
 chief engineer, and the contract for the work was let to the 
 Northwestern Construction Company. Grading and track- 
 laying began earlv in the spring, and the road advanced 
 rapidly, reaching the Red River in the following Decem- 
 ber. The engineering questions related chiefly to the 
 best locations tor crossing the Mississippi and Crow Wing 
 Rivers, and to plans for getting through the lake country 
 by a line that should deviate as little as possible from the 
 general direction of the road. There were no deep cuts 
 or fills to make and few streams to cross. The road was 
 costly in proportion to the present standards of construe- 
 
THE MIXXESOTA AXD WISCOXSIX DIVISIOXS. 
 
 385 
 
 tion charges, but it was built in a time of liij;h prices, 
 before the resumption of specie payments, and the lack 
 of inhabitants in the region it traversed added consider- 
 ably to the cost of labor, supplies and materials. There 
 was much trouble regarding the acceptance of the road 
 from the contractors. Finally there was a compromise 
 in the spring of 1872, and the line to Fargo, which had 
 been kept open during the winter by order of the Board 
 to transport construction material for the extension into 
 Dakota, ;vas regularly opened to traffic. 
 
 The point for crossing the Red River was not finally 
 determined until more than half the division had been 
 built. It had been ordered by the Board of Directors the 
 previous year that the crossing should be " at a point six 
 miles north of ihc block store or warehouse owned by the 
 Hudson Bay Company at Georgetown." This was about 
 twenty miles north of the place afterward selected. The 
 change was made in August, 1871, when President Smith, 
 in company with other members of the Board, went to the 
 Red River Valley and spent a week riding up and down 
 the stream looking for the most feasible place com- 
 bining the two features they desired to find — a favorable 
 crossing and a good site for a town. They selected the 
 site of the present town of Moorhead because the ground 
 was higher there than at any other places on the river 
 which they visited; but by so doing President Smith was 
 compelled to give up a pet plan of making the longest 
 railway tangent in America by building due west forty 
 miles from Hawley. Two town sites were forthwith laid 
 out at the crossing by the Lake Superior and Puget 
 Sound Land Company, a corporation organized to man- 
 age all the town-sites on the whole line, and the names of 
 two of the Northern Pacific directors, Mr. Moorhead and 
 Mr. Fargo, were bestowed upon them. 
 
 The maximum grades on the West Minnesota Division 
 25 
 
 
 '!'. " :i\ 
 
386 
 
 NOR r HERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 are, going west, 50 feet to the mile, and, going cast, 40 
 feet. Tlic bridge across the Mississippi at Brainerd is a 
 Post truss of three spans of 142 feet each, and one of 97 
 feet, extended at one end by a Howe truss of 60 feet ; 
 making the total length 683 feet. It is 60 feet above low 
 water. Over the Crow Wing River, a stream almost as 
 large as the Mississippi at its junction with that river 
 below Brainerd, the track is carried on a Howe truss of 
 three spans of 125 feet each. A new iron and wood 
 bridge is now being built across the Red River. It rests 
 on a solid masonry pier, which stands upon compound 
 piles driven in 48 feet. The bridge carries a double 
 track and has a draw 26 feet in the clear; the end rests 
 being wrought-iron superstructure based on iron-jacketed 
 piles. 
 
 THE ST. PAUL DIVISION. 
 
 The St. Paul Division, 136 miles in length, extends 
 from St. Paul to Brainerd in a direction nearly due north, 
 following closely the valley of the Mississippi River all 
 the way. The only heavy grade encountered is in as- 
 cending from the river-side, following the course of Trout 
 Brook. Mere the ascent is ninety feet to the mile — a 
 stiff pull, which requires an extra engine for all heavy 
 trains. For the rest of the way the track of the division, 
 running along the secondary bottom of the valley, has 
 no noticeable grade. From St. Paul to Brainerd the 
 whole rise is 500 feet, 200 of which are surmounted in 
 the first five miles after leaving St. Paul. 
 
 TIIH WISCONSIN DIVISION. 
 
 The Wisconsin Division leaves the East Minnesota 
 Division at Northern Pacific Junction, and, descending 
 by easy and uniform grades of 50 feet to the mile, reaches 
 the lake at the town of Superior, opposite the entrance 
 
THE MINXESOTA AND WISCOXSIX DIVISIONS. 
 
 387 
 
 cast, 40 
 nerd is a 
 lie of 97 
 60 feet; 
 bove low 
 Imost as 
 hat river 
 : truss of 
 lid wood 
 It rests 
 impound 
 a double 
 2nd rests 
 -jacketed 
 
 extends 
 ue north, 
 River all 
 is in as- 
 of Trout 
 mile — a 
 dl heavy 
 division, 
 illey, has 
 nerd the 
 unted in 
 
 to the bay of the same name. Here a large dock has 
 been constructed for the transfer of freight from steam 
 and sail vessels to cars. Just east of Superior the road 
 crosses the Nemadji River by a drawbridge, and continues 
 eastward to the Montreal River, the boundary between 
 the State of Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of the 
 State of Michigan. At the time this chapter is written 
 only the 23^ miles of this division between the junction 
 and Superior have been complcted;»The work was mainly 
 done during the season of 1882, and the line opened in 
 December last. Work on the remainder of the division is 
 in progress. The line traverses a forest country for its 
 entire length, where there arc few settlements. For fifty 
 miles cast of Superior the country is somewhat h.illy and 
 difficult to build across — swamps, quagmires, and rocky 
 riiges pUcrnating ; further east there is much level, sandy 
 surface, moderately well timbered. The Wisconsin Di- 
 vision is a part of the main line of the Northern Pacific, 
 the charter of the Company authorizing it to construct a 
 r:\ilroad " beginning at a point on Lake Superior in the 
 State of Minnesota or Wisconsin," which has been con- 
 strued to mean thai the road may be extended to the 
 boundary between those States. 
 
 linnesota 
 
 ascending 
 
 ;, reaches 
 
 entrance 
 
T^ 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 THE DAKOTA AND MISSOURI DIVISION'S. 
 
 Work Bcj^iin on the Dakota Division in 1872 — Tlic Track Completed to 
 Jamestown in 1S72 and to I5i.-marck in 1S73 — IJuilding Across an Unin- 
 linbiced Region — The Road Reaches he Missouri River before tijc 
 Panic of 1S73 — A Description of the Bismarck liridt^e — Tlie Missouri 
 Division — Its Highest Summit 2, 800 Feet Above tlie Sea — A Track I.nid 
 Across the Missouri River on the Ice — Cliaracler of tlie Work pii the 
 Division — The Bnd Lands. 
 
 The Dakota Division begins at Fargo aiul civJs at 
 Manclan, its Icngtli being Kjg-}^ miles, and is pfactically 
 a due east and west line, the termini being in precisely 
 the same latitude, and the road diverging at no point 
 more than six miles from a straight line drawn on a map 
 from one to the other. The work of construction was 
 begun in the spring of 1871', and the track reached 
 Jamestown, 93j<i miles, by the end of the working sea- 
 son. During the spring and summer of 1S72 the road 
 was built to Bismarck, a new town on the east bank of 
 the Missouri River, which remained the western termi- 
 nus until 1S78. There were no engineering difficulties 
 in building the division, but the contractors had the per- 
 plexities and delays to encounter inseparable from the 
 task of pushing a railroad across vast stretches of prairie 
 destitute of timber for bridges and ties, and wholly 
 without population to furnish food and draught animals 
 for the working forces. The construction parties were 
 obliged to advance like an army across the desert, bring- 
 ing all their materials and provisions over the road they 
 were building from a base of supplies ever becoming 
 more and more distant. There was not a solitary scLtle- 
 
 '■>: 
 ^ 
 
a 
 
 o 
 u 
 
 (4 
 
 s(.:tK 
 
V 
 
 b 
 I 
 
 r 
 h 
 b 
 li 
 o 
 F 
 u 
 
 P' 
 w 
 hi 
 a I 
 bi 
 ut 
 M 
 w; 
 th 
 
THE DAKOTA AND MISSOURI Di]-ISIONS. 
 
 389 
 
 merit between the Reel River and the Missouri at the 
 time, save those created by the advance of the Northern 
 Pacific track. Construction was pushed with satisfactory- 
 rapidity, however, and had fortunately progressed as far 
 as the Missouri River, a natural halting place, when the 
 Company was overtaken by the financial crisis of 1873. 
 At Bismarck there was river navigation, and the railroad 
 opened a link in a line of transportation for the shipment 
 01 goods and supplies to the Government posts and the 
 Indian agencies on the upper Missouri, and to the mining 
 towns in remote ^Montana. Its business was too scanty, 
 however, to pay for running trains over the Dakota 
 Division the first winter after it was opened, and the 
 second winter the division was only operated to James- 
 town. 
 
 The maximum grade on the Dakota Division going 
 west is 60 feet to the mile, and going east, 50 feet. The 
 bridges over the Maple, the Shcyennc and the James 
 Rivers are unimportant structures of a single span each, 
 raised but a few feet above high water. There are no 
 heavy cuts or fills, save at the approaches to the great 
 bridge over the Missouri River at Bismarck. The whole 
 line is economical to operate and maintain. The surface 
 of the country traversed for the first forty miles west of 
 Fargo is almost a dead level ; then it becomes slightly 
 undulating, the swells and ridges growing more and more 
 perceptible as Jamestown is approached. A few miles 
 west of Jamestown the road mounts to the Coteaux, a 
 high table-land 1,850 feet above the level of the sea 
 and 900 above the Red River at Fargo, Once on this 
 broad table land the railroad grade follows the gentle 
 undulations of the surface, and finally descends to the 
 Missouri bottom along Apple Creek, the first running 
 water encountered west of the Pipestone, a tributary of 
 the James. 
 
M 
 
 390 
 
 NORTHERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 The original scheme of the Northern Pacific Railroad 
 contemplated a bridge over the Missouri River near the 
 town of Bismarck, but the Company was not in a financial 
 condition to undertake the work until after the nego- 
 tiation of its general mortgage bonds in 18S0. The 
 Missouri Division, from Mandan on the west bank 
 of the river to the Yellowstone, was operated for two 
 years in connection with the road cast of the Missouri 
 by means of a transfer boat which carried trains across, 
 not without considerable difficulty in times of high water 
 and floating ice. In the winter of 1880 George S. 
 Morison,- an eminent bridge engineer, was requested 
 to examine the river at this point in conjunction v/ith 
 General A. Anderson, engineer-in-chicf, and to prepare a 
 report on the best method of crossing. In July, 1880, 
 tilt, preliminary examinations were completed, and the 
 location of the bridge virtually fixed. The point selected 
 was within two or three hundred feet of the line on which 
 the proposed bridge has now been built ; this location be- 
 ing determined as combining to the best advantage direct- 
 ness of route with a favorable bottom. The river at this 
 point is about 2,800 feet wide, and the channel variable, 
 about two-thirds of the whole width of the river being 
 occupied, except at extreme high water, by sand-bars, as 
 is always the case on the Missouri where the width be- 
 tween high-water banks exceeds 1,000 or 1,200 feet. 
 
 The report of July, 1 880, proposed to cross the river 
 with a bridge consisting of three spans of 400 feet each, 
 resting on solid piers of granite masonr}-. A dike was 
 to be built from the west shore to within 1,000 feet of the 
 east shore, which is here a high bluff of extremely hard 
 clay, thus confining the river within a width favorable to 
 the maintenance of a fixed channel. The bridge was to 
 be located about 500 feet below the dike, and, to provide 
 for contingencies, was made 200 feet longer than the width 
 
THE DAKOTA AND MISSOURI DIFJSIOiVS. 
 
 391 
 
 of the confined river. Ihis plan of operations was after- 
 ward carried out, and the completed work differs in no 
 essential respect from the plans contemplated in the report 
 of July, 1880. 
 
 The construction of the dike was begun in the fall of 
 1880. Unfortunately, while waiting for materials, the 
 main navigable channel of the river moved ovrr to the 
 west shore, and when work was actually begun it was 
 found necessary to leave this channel open for navigation. 
 A wired willow mattress was built, however, on the pro- 
 posed location of the dike, from the east side of the navig- 
 able channel to the point fixed for the west boundary 
 of the corrected channel, leaving a space between the 
 mattress and either shore. 
 
 On the i6th of December a vote M-as passed by the 
 Board of Directors by which the immediate construction 
 of the bridge was determined upon, and the work was 
 placed in the hands of Mr. Morison. On the 7th of Jan- 
 uary H. W. Parkhurst, who had been appointed by Mr. 
 Morison first assistant engineer, arrived at Bismarck and 
 took charge of the work on the river. 
 
 Ground was broken for the bridge in May. The con- 
 struction involved three totally different pieces of work — 
 first, the control and rectification of the river; second, 
 the bridge proper; third, the approaches. 
 
 The control and rectification of the river consisted in 
 confining it to the 1,000 feet limit between the east shore 
 and the end of the dike, and the protection of the east 
 shore with rip-rap, so as to render it doubly secure from 
 the eroding action of the water. The action of the 
 dike has been such as to satisfy the engineers of the 
 correctness of their plans. The river has been per- 
 manently confined to a width of 1,000 feet adjoining 
 the east shore. A thick growth of willows has started 
 spontaneously on the deposit formed by the river in 
 
392 
 
 NORTHER X PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 what was formerly the main navigable channel adjoin- 
 ing the west shore. 
 
 The bridge proper consists of three through spans, 
 each measuring 400 feet between centres of end pins, 
 and two approacii spans, each 113 feet. It is a high 
 bridge, the bottom cord of the three main spans 
 being placed fifty feet above the level of the highest 
 summer flood, thus giving head room to pass steam- 
 boats at all navigable stages of the river. The head 
 room above the extreme high water of 1881 is 42 
 feet ; but this water was an exceptional result of an ice 
 gorge, which necessarily put a stop to all navigation. 
 Practically the bridge gives four feet more head room 
 than many of the bridges on the lower river. The vari- 
 able channel and the high bluff on the east side were 
 alone sufficient reasons for adopting the high bridge 
 plan in preference to a low bridge with a draw. The 
 violent action of the ice and the excessive height 
 of the ice floods were, however, the controlling ele- 
 ments in the selection of the high bridge plan. The 
 east end of the east approach span is supported by a 
 small abutment of granite masonry, founded on the 
 natural ground of the bluff. The west end of the west 
 approach span is supported by an iron bent resting on 
 two Gushing cylinders, Avhich are supported by piles 
 driven into the sand-bar. The three long spans are sup- 
 ported on four granite piers. Pier i, the easterly pier, 
 rests on a concrete foundation, the base of which is 
 twenty feet below ordinary low water and sixteen feet 
 below the estimated extreme low water due to ice gorges. 
 Piers 2 and 3, which are in the channel of the river, arc 
 founded on pneumatic caissons, sunk into the underlying 
 clay to a depth of about fifty feet below ordinary low 
 water and ten feet below the surface of the clay. Pier 4 
 is situated on the sand bar on the west side of the river 
 
THE DAKOTA AXD :^riSSOURI DIJ'ISfOXS. 
 
 393 
 
 The 
 
 I:' 
 I 5 
 
 below the protection of tlie dike, and rests on a founda- 
 tion of l6o piles, which were driven with a Nasniyth 
 steam hammer. 
 
 The apijroach spans are deck trusses of the fish-bellied 
 or inverted bow string pattern, this form being adopted 
 to keep away from the slope of the embankment. They 
 arc entirely of wrought iron, except the pins, which are 
 of steel, and the wall plates, which are of cast iron. Each 
 span contains 88,954 pounds of wrought iron, 2,825 
 pounds of steel, and 5,686 pounds of cast iron, the total 
 weight being 97,465 pounds. 
 
 Each of the three main channel spans measures 400 feet 
 from centre to centre of end pins, and is divided into six- 
 teen panels of twenty-five feet each. The trusses are of 
 the double system, Pratt or Whipple type, are fifty feet 
 deep from centre to centre of chords, and spaced twenty- 
 two feet apart between centres. The pedestals, the end 
 posts, top chords, the ten centre panels of the bottom 
 chord, and all the pins and expansion rollers are of steel. 
 All other parts arc of wrought iron, except the filling 
 rings, wall plates, and ornamental work, which arc of cast 
 iron. Each span contains 600,950 pounds of wrought 
 iron, 348,797 pounds of steel, and 25,777 pounds of cast 
 iron, the total weight of each span being 975,524 pounds. 
 The steel was manufactured in an open hearth furnace and 
 under the most rigid inspection. It is of such a character 
 that small sample bars were bent double and flattened 
 back on themselves without any crack on the outside ; 
 one of the full-sized bars intended for the bridge when 
 tested to breaking was stretched four feet in twenty-five 
 before fracture took place. The long spans are propor- 
 tioned to carry two seventy-five ton locomotives followed 
 by a train of 30-foot cars, each loaded with twenty tons. 
 With this assumed moving load the strains on the differ- 
 ent parts of the structure are about ten to twenty per 
 
394 
 
 NORTI/EKX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 
 cent, less per square inch than the limits wliich g ocl 
 practice has sanctioned in many other brid<;es. 
 
 The east approach to the Bismarck bridge leaves the 
 old main line at Bismarck station, and is exactly two 
 miles long. It differs in no essential respect from other 
 portions of the Northern Pacific Railroad through this 
 section of the country, except that some heavy work and 
 sharp curvature is encountered on the face of the bluffs 
 adjoining the bridge. The west approach is 6,000 feet 
 long from the west end of the permanent bridge to the 
 old track on the low bottom land between the river and 
 Mandan. This approach has a grade of one per cent. 
 (52.8 feet per mile), descending westward. The eastern 
 1,500 feet of the western approach is built across the space 
 reclaimed from the Missouri River by the action of the 
 dike, which is now a sand-bar already covered with a fair 
 growth of willows. This part of the approach consists of 
 a timber trestle, the maximum height of which is about 
 60 feet. This trestle spans the main steamboat channel 
 of 1880, which is now a willow swamp. To protect this 
 trestle from destruction by ice, another large embankment 
 has been built on the up-stream side of the trestle, which 
 is 6 feet higher than the great flood of March 30th, 1881. 
 This embankment stops the flow of ice carried over the 
 top of the dike. The timber trestle is being filled in with 
 earth, and the protection embankment is so located that 
 it will form a portion of the final filling. 
 
 The bridge was formally opened on October 21st, 1882, 
 and tested at first with four engines crossing from east to 
 west, and then with eight crossing from west to east. A 
 passenger train was then sent over from the Bismarck 
 side. The event was celebrated by a banquet in Bismarck 
 that evening. The Bismarck bridge and approaches form 
 an integral part of the Northern Pacific Railroad, being 
 the absolute property of the Northern Pacific Railroad 
 
 1^ 
 
TJJE DAKOTA AND MISSOURI DIVISIONS. 
 
 395 
 
 Companyand being built under the general charter granted 
 by the National Government to that Company. The total 
 cost of the work was about $i,0C)0,(X)0. 
 
 From Mandan to Glendive, on the Yellowstone River, 
 the main lino of the Northern Pacific is called the Mis- 
 souri Division. This division is 216 miles long, and, like 
 the Dakota Division, keeps close to an cast and west line. 
 Its western terminus is only twelve miles north of the 
 latitude of Mandan, and its extreme southern divergence 
 from a straight line between the two points is only six 
 miles. The valleys of the Heart River and its tributaries, 
 the Sweetbrier, the Curlew and the Green, are followed 
 pretty closely for about eighty miles, with occasional cuts 
 across the plateaus between them. In the first thirty 
 miles there is a gradual ascent of 400 feet, then a long 
 downward ,,lopc, followed by another rise to the broad 
 table lands which contain the sources of the Heart and 
 the Knife Rivers. Here the elevation is 2,500 feet above 
 the sea and 900 above the Missouri at Mandan. Then 
 there is a dip of 200 feet into Green River valley, and 
 beyond a long steady rise of 500 feet to Fryburg, the 
 highest summit on the division, 2,800 feet above the sea 
 level. From Fryburg there is a descent of 500 feet in ten 
 miles to the Little Missouri River, which is crossed by a 
 low truss of a single span. Beyond this stream the road 
 steadily mounts for thirty miles with some minor dips, 
 until, surmounting the heaviest grade on the division, at 
 Beaver Hill (65 feet to the mile), it again attains nearly 
 the same altitude as at Fryburg, and then descends 300 
 feet in twenty-eight miles and reaches the val' .y jf the 
 Yellowstone. 
 
 The building of the Missouri Division was begun early 
 in 1878, by the transportation of ties, iron and other 
 material in the dead of winter across the Missouri River 
 on the ice. A track was laid upon the frozen surface of 
 
TT 
 
 396 
 
 A'O A' 77//: AW PACIIIC KAIl.KOAD. 
 
 ii 
 
 the stream under the direction of General Rosser, then 
 the engineer in charge of construction, and for several 
 weeks locomotives and cars were run from bank to bank, 
 until the fires were actually put out on the engines by 
 the water which covered the melting ice, and th ;rd- 
 
 ous passages weie discontinued and the track removed a 
 few days before the frozen bridge yielded to the rising 
 current of the river. General Rosscr's venturesome ex- 
 ploit attracted wide notice, and the Northern Pacific ice 
 bridge was pictured in the illustrated papers. As soon as 
 the spring flood had somewhat abated, connection was re- 
 opened between the two banks by means of a transfer 
 steamboat carrying trains from shore to shore — a means of 
 conimunication employed until the completion of the 
 Bismarck bridge in October, 1882. 
 
 From Mandan to Fryburg, 136 miles, construction 
 involved only light work, save for the numerous ""''idges 
 across the Heart and its tributaries. The --t is 
 
 crossed four times in a distance often miles, and ^. .ittle 
 Sweetbricr, winding from side to side of its narrow valley, 
 required numerous short pile bridges. Lately the ex- 
 pedient of making cut-offs for this stream has been 
 resorted to, and several of the bridges have been replaced 
 by embankments. From Fryburg to Beaver Creek the 
 road traverses that singular region known as the Bad 
 Lands, where the grotesque buttes of clay, baiced into 
 terra-cotta by subterranean fires of lignite, forced the 
 engineers to make numerous curves, and in some places 
 to effect deep cuts through the soft, brick-like substance. 
 For several miles the track is ballasted with the red frag- 
 ments from these cuts. The road made slow progress 
 through the Bad Lands. Up to this region the track had 
 been built across a level or slightly rolling country, desti- 
 tute of timber after leaving the forests of Minnesota, and 
 offering no obstacles to rapid and continuous work 
 
THE DAKOTA AXD MfSSOrRI DIVISIOXS. 
 
 397 
 
 Now, however, there were huge buttcs to cut through, 
 deep ravines to fill, and trestles to build, md the difficutty 
 of the task was increased by the great distance from the 
 nearest base of supplies, and by the frequent presence of 
 hostile Indians in the vicinity. Once beyond the Bad 
 Lands belt— there about thirty miles wide— a fine rolling 
 prairie was crossed, and thence the valley of Glendive 
 creek afforded an easy route down to the Yellowstone. 
 
CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 THE YELLOWSTONE AND MONTANA DIVISIONS. 
 
 Up Ihc "S'cllowstoac Valley — A Diflicult Line lo Build — The Unstable, 
 Crumbling; lilufts Undermined by the Action of tlie River — Dikes and 
 Wing Dams Constructed — 34 Miles of Rock-cutting — Long Tangents 
 and I'".asy tjradcs — Completion of the Yellowstone Division in iSS2 — 
 Tiie Montana Division — The Yellowstone Bridges — Crossing the Belt 
 Mountains — The 15i)zcman Lass and Tunnel — Difficulties Overcome in 
 Constructing the Tunnel — Sluicing out the Eastern Approacli — Early 
 Surveys — Johnson'j and Roberts' Routes — The Descent of the Pass — 
 The Gallatin \'alley and the Upper Canon of tlic Missouri — Progress 
 and Completion of the Division — The National Park Branch. 
 
 From Glciulivc, the railroad follows the course of the 
 Yellowstone for 340 miles to Livingston. The portion of 
 t'ic road between Glendive and BilHngs, 225 miles, con- 
 stitutes the Yellowstone Division. Although a val- 
 ley line, this division was by no means an easy or inex- 
 pensive one to build. The valley of the Yellowstone is 
 a narrow one, varying in width from five to ten miles, 
 and along its whole length it is hemmed in by lines of 
 high, precipitous bluffs of an average height of 150 feet. 
 Winding from side to side of the level bottom land be- 
 tween these massive walls, the powerful stream washes 
 the base of the bluff on oiiC side or the other. One of 
 two plans had to be followed by the railroad engineers : 
 cither to bridge the river at every sharp bend in its 
 course, or to follow one bank and cut a roadway 
 through the rocky precipices wherever they are closely 
 Imgged by the stream. The latter course was adopted 
 from Glendive to BilHngs, and the south bank selected for 
 the route. The problems of construction were rendered 
 
)NS. 
 
 Unstable, 
 •Dikes nnd 
 
 Tangents 
 
 in 1SS2— 
 g the Belt 
 vcrcome in 
 aeh — Kaily 
 
 the Pass— 
 I — rrogiesb 
 
 se of the 
 Drtion of 
 les, con- 
 li a val- 
 or inex- 
 /stonc is 
 n miles, 
 lines of 
 50 feet, 
 and be- 
 washes 
 One of 
 ,Mneers : 
 i in its 
 roadway 
 closely 
 dopted 
 ctcd for 
 endered 
 
 73 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 u 
 ta 
 
 3 
 
 u 
 en 
 
r r 
 
THE YELLOWSTONE AND MONTANA DIVISIONS. 
 
 359 
 
 far more difficult than was apparent at first sight, formid- 
 able as seemed the work of carving a road-bed out of the 
 face of lofty precipices, by the peculiar character of the 
 rock composing the bluffs. This is of so porous and un- 
 stable a nature that it disintegrates under the action of 
 the weather, so that the roadway once cut out was con- 
 stantly being obstructed by slides of rock and earth 
 coming down from the slopes. To make matters worse, 
 while the cliffs were sending down great masses of 
 crumbling material to obliterate the track, the river 
 was steadily undermining the road bed. These serious 
 difficulties encountered at several points, and in some 
 places for a distance of three or four miles in con- 
 tinuous length, were finally mastered by filling in on 
 the river side with material taken from the cliffs, thus 
 giving them more slope, removing the track out a few 
 yards from their base, and protecting the embankments 
 where washed by the river by rip-rap work. The rip- 
 rapping did not, however, answer in places where the 
 current struck the bank with considerable force, and it 
 was found necessary to turn the channel away from the 
 shore by dikes thrown across to islands or by wing dams 
 built out into the stream. These constructions are com- 
 posed of willow fascines, twelve feet long, laid in a double 
 tier, at an angle of 33 degrees with the course of the 
 dike, each layer crossing the one below. The large ends 
 of the fascines are placed down stream so as to give a 
 slope to the top of the dam. Over each course stakes 
 are driven down five feet, and the top? bound together 
 with half-inch rope. Then 18 inches of gravel is put on 
 and worked down into the brush to make a solid wall, be- 
 fore the second course of fascines is added. When the 
 dike is of sufficient height it is covered with heavy rocks. 
 The silt from the river fills up the interstices in the fas- 
 cines and a growth of willow soon covers the dike. The 
 
 U'. 
 
40O 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 most important of these constructions are Eagle dike, 
 which is 400 feet long, and Iron Bluff dike 1200, each 
 reaching out to an island. These works have caused the 
 main channel of the river to shift to the north side of 
 the islands. For the wing dams, fascine work has been 
 used at some places, and at others cribs of logs filled in 
 with stone have been found successful. 
 
 There are in all on the Yellowstone Division 34 miles 
 of rock cutting along the face of the bluffs, the longest 
 continuous stretch being that at Myers Bluffs, 156 miles 
 from Glendive, which is seven miles in length. As the 
 valley is ascended, the rock becomes harder, and the diffi- 
 culty on account of slides diminishes. The most trouble- 
 some point in this respect was found to be Iron Bluff, 
 ten miles from Glendive, where the cliffs are a conglomer- 
 ate of soft sand-stone and soapy clay, with little consis- 
 tency, and display a troublesome tendency to slide into 
 the river. A solid and safe road-bed was finally .'secured 
 at this place. 
 
 To compensate for the costly and troublesome: bluff 
 cutting, the railroad, where it finds the bottom land on its 
 own side of the river, has many long tangents, nearly level, 
 without fills or cuts, and involving little more labor to build 
 than throwing up enough earth with scrapers for a road- 
 bed. One of these level stretches is 16 miles long, another 
 13, a number 5 to 8 miles. 
 
 The maximum grade on this division is 53 feet to the 
 mile, at Iron Bluff, but this is only for half a mile each 
 way. On all the rest of the division there is no grade ex- 
 ceeding 26 feet to the mile. The most important bridges 
 are those over the Powder River, between ^lorgan and • 
 Terry Stations, the Tongue River at Miles City, the Big 
 Horn River, near Custer, and the Yellowstone, two miles 
 below Billings. These are all timber truss structures 
 resting on piers formed of piles and cribbing filled in with 
 
miles 
 
 THE YELLOWSTONE AXD MONT AX A DIVISIONS 
 
 401 
 
 rock, and will in time be replaced by stone piers and iron 
 bridges. The longest is the Powder River bridge, which 
 has 600 feet of Howe truss in four spans, and a pile ap- 
 proach of 300 feet. The Big Horn and Yellowstone 
 bridges — the latter known as the first crossing of the Yel- 
 lowstone — each consists of three spans of 150 feet. 
 
 The first tunnel •" -est of Lake Superior is through a 
 bluff about two miles beyond the Big Horn bridge. It is 
 1,070 feet long, and runs through clay, earth and porous 
 sand-rock, and is timbered for its entire length. 
 
 Work on the Yellowstone Division began at Glendive 
 in the spring of 1881. The track reached Miles City, 
 78 miles, in December, and a few miles of grading were 
 completed beyond. During the spring and summer of 
 1882 the division was completed, the track reaching Bil- 
 lings August 22d. 
 
 The Montana Division, extending from Billings to 
 Helena, a distance of 239 miles, has the general charac- 
 teristics of the Yellowstone Division, as far as Living- 
 ston, 115 miles, in so far as it follows the valley of the 
 river. The work is lighter, however, there being com- 
 paratively little bluff-cutting and that of a more manage- 
 able character, the stone being so hard that the slopes do 
 not crumble. Much the greater part of the line runs, 
 across the long level stretches of the second bench above 
 the river. There is no grade heavier than the very easy 
 one of 26 feet as far west as the head of the valley. Near 
 Stillwater, and at a point 37 miles west of Billings, the 
 road crosses to the south bank of the Yellowstone by a 
 truss bridge of three spans of 150 feet each and one of 
 100 feet, resting upon plank and pile cribs filled Avith 
 stone. At Livingston the river is crossed again by a 
 bridge of similar construction, having two spans of 150 
 feet each, with a piling approach over a branch of the 
 stream. 
 
 26 
 
■^! 
 
 402 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 At Livingston, where the repair shops of the division 
 arc established, the character of the road changes at once. 
 Here the river comes out of the lofty snow-covered mount- 
 ains which surround the National Park, flowing through 
 deep cafions. Its course up to this point is north, but 
 at Livingston it turns to the east and develops the beau- 
 tiful valley which admirably serves as the route of the 
 railroad for 340 miles to Glendive. West of Livingston 
 rises the high ridge of the Belt or Bridger range, which 
 separates the waters of the upper Yellowstone from those 
 of the three rivers forming the upper Missouri. Here 
 the Northern Pacific encounters its first mountain bar- 
 rier. Forti^nately, nature made a depression in this range, 
 known as the Bozeman Pass, from the summit of which 
 small streams flow in both directions, affording conven- 
 ient approaches for a railroad. The charter of the 
 Company provides that no grades shall be used steeper 
 than the maximum grades on the Baltimore and Ohio 
 Railroad, which arc 1 16 feet to the mile. That figure 
 was therefore adopted for the ascent and descent of the 
 Belt range. It was not sufficient, however, to carry the 
 road over the pass, and a tunnel of 3,610 feet in length 
 was req-iired. Work on the tunnel began February ii, 
 1882, almost simultaneously with the work on the com- 
 mencement of the Montana Division at Billings. To 
 avoid delay in track- laying beyond the divide, a high 
 grade line two and one-half miles in length was built over 
 the crest of the ridge in the winter of 1882-3, with grades 
 of 220 feet to the mile, and by this means the road was 
 pushed forward west of the tunnel without interruption. 
 
 The elevation of the summit in the Bozeman Tunnel 
 above the sea level is 5,565 feet, which is 17 feet higher 
 than that of the Mullan Tunnel through the main divide 
 of the Rocky Mountains west of Helena, described in 
 the following chapter. The highest point in the Boze- 
 
THE YELLOWSTONE ANO MONTANA DL VISIONS. 403 
 
 division 
 at once. 
 J mount- 
 through 
 )rth, but 
 he beau- 
 e of the 
 vingston 
 e, which 
 )m those 
 i. Here 
 :ain bar- 
 is range, 
 dF vvhicii 
 conven- 
 or the 
 [ steeper 
 id Ohio 
 it figure 
 t of the 
 arry the 
 length 
 uary 11, 
 le com- 
 s. To 
 a high 
 ilt over 
 grades 
 )ad was 
 jption. 
 Tunnel 
 higher 
 divide 
 Ibed in 
 Boze- 
 
 man Pass is 5,813 feet above the sea, and 256 feet above 
 the grade of the tunnel, and the lowest point in the pass 
 is the grade of the temporary road, which is 5,714 feet. 
 Within the tunnel the grade is 53 feet to the mile to the 
 summit, from whence it is only five feet to the mile to 
 the western portal, where the standard mountain grade 
 of 1 16 feet is resumed. 
 
 The tunnel is 20 feet high in the clear and 16 feet 
 wide. The total ascent from Livingston to its eastern 
 portal, a distance of 12 miles, is 1,052 feet. On the other 
 side the ascent from Bozeman to its western portal, a 
 distance of ii^ miles, is 812 feet. Unexpected difficul- 
 ties were experienced by the engineers in opening the 
 eastern approach of the tunnel. The mountain side is 
 composed of sticky blue clay, saturated with the water 
 of numerous springs, and as fast as excavations were 
 made they were filled up by slides. During the month 
 of March the contractors were able to handle only 2,000 
 cubic yards of earth. On the 4th of July a large slide 
 occurred, which filled up a considerable part of the cut 
 made by more than four months of labor with a force of 
 men as great as could be used effectively. Everybody 
 was discouraged. There seemed to be no v;ay of over- 
 coming the difficulty by the usual methods of railway 
 construction. As fast as the mushy clay was taken out 
 of the cut the sides would cave in, or rather run 
 in. In this emergency Mr. Sloan, County Treasurer of 
 Gallatin County, suggested to the division engineer, 
 J. T. Dodge, the plan of resorting to hydraulics. It 
 was immediately adopted. A ditch and sluiceway were 
 constructed from Middle Creek, on the western slope of 
 the mountain range, and carried over the divide to the 
 tunnel approach — a distance of three miles. By this means 
 250 miners* inches of water were obtained, and with the 
 usual hose and nozzle employed in hydraulic mining. 
 
IP 
 
 404 
 
 NORTJIER.V PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ground-sluicing was begun on August loth, 1882. The 
 experiment — a novel one in railway construction — was en- 
 tirely successful. In the first twelve days 8,720 cubic 
 yards of earth were washed out. When slides occurred 
 they were no longer serious obstacles to progress, but 
 were sluiced out in a few hours time. On September 
 24th the cut was completely washed out, and the rock 
 'vork began the next day. On October 28th the portal 
 of the tunnel was opened. The cost of removing the 
 earth, which had been ninety cents per cubic yard, was 
 reduced to eight cents. The greatest depth of the cut is 
 63 feet, and its length 601 feet. It is approached by an 
 embankment 50 feet high and 1,300 feet long. 
 
 Work on the western approach began April 20th, 1882. 
 Here there was no trouble at first. The length of the 
 cut is 690 feet, and its greatest depth 57. The surface 
 rock was reached in June, and the tunnel proper begun 
 September 1st. The rock throughout the tunnel is a fine 
 blue sandstone. At the east end it is quite solid, and 
 only 50 feet of timbering are required ; but at the west- 
 ern end it is broken up with seams, and timbering is re- 
 quired for nearly a thousand feet of the way to the cen- 
 tre. After the western heading was in 437 feet, the roof 
 caved in, bringing down all the rock and earth from the 
 surface of the ground 47 feet above, and it was necessary 
 to make a new tunnel through the fallen mass. Happily 
 nobody was injured by the mishap. The tunnel is not 
 completed at the lime of the publication of this book, but 
 is expected to be finished by the close of the current 
 year. 
 
 The Bozerr.an Pass was selected for the crossing-place 
 of the Belt range only after careful surveys had been 
 made of all other passes that offered the least encourage- 
 ment to the eye of the skilful engineer. The line first 
 contemplated by Edwin F. Johnson, the first chief en- 
 
THE YELLOWSTONE AND MONTANA DIVISIONS. 
 
 405 
 
 82. The 
 —was en- 
 '20 cubic 
 occurred 
 ress, but 
 iptember 
 the rock 
 he portal 
 iving the 
 ►^ard, was 
 :he cut is 
 led by an 
 
 )th, 1882. 
 
 h of the 
 
 t surface 
 
 zx begun 
 
 1 is a fine 
 
 olid, and 
 
 the west- 
 
 ng is re- 
 
 thc cen- 
 
 the roof 
 
 "rom the 
 
 lecessary 
 
 Happily 
 
 el is not 
 
 )ook, but 
 
 current 
 
 ng-place 
 ad been 
 courage- 
 line first 
 :hief en- 
 
 gineer of the Northern Pacific Company, left the Yellow- 
 stone at a point near the mouth of the Big Horn, and 
 crossed a divide in the Bull Mountains to the Mussel- 
 shell. One plan was to go down Smith's River to the 
 Missouri, and thence to Helena by way of the Gate of 
 the Mountains ; another, and a more feasible one, to fol- 
 low the head-waters of the Musselshell up into the Belt 
 range, and come down to the Missouri Valley by a pass 
 at the head of Sixteen-Mile Creek. This latter route was 
 surveyed, after W. Milnor Roberts became chief engineer, 
 by engineers Hayden and Muhlenberg. It offered the 
 advantage of a pass requiring no tunnel, but it had one 
 more summit to cross than the route up the Yellowstone 
 to the Bozeman Pass, and was also considerably longer. 
 Mr. Roberts' line over the Bozeman Pass was run with 
 the primary object of obtaining a grade of only 60 feet to 
 the mile. To this end the line was carried higher up 
 on the side of the narrow valley leading to the pass than 
 the one subsequently adopted when construction began. 
 It crossed the numerous gulches and lateral valleys, 
 and would have required a great deal of filling and trestle- 
 work. A short tunnel was contemplated at the pass. The 
 Roberts line was four miles longer than the actual line, 
 and would probably have cost a million dollars more to 
 build. Before construction work began on the road over 
 the pass, engineer Beckler ran a line up Shield's River 
 from the Yellowstone and across to the Missouri by the 
 Sixteen-Mile Creek Pass. This pass was found to be 300 
 feet lower than the Bozeman Pass, and it could be sur- 
 mounted by a short open cut, but the route was 40 miles 
 longer than the one adopted. 
 
 The descent from the Bozeman Tunnel down Rocky 
 Cafion is effefcted without sharp curves and with but a 
 small amount of rock excavation on the steep hill-sides. 
 A level stretch of thirty miles of track down the valley of 
 
 pil'USi 
 
406 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 the West Gallatin follows. The stream and its neighbor, 
 the East Gallatin, are crossed by low pile bridges, as is 
 also the Missouri a few miles above the point where the 
 two Gallatins, Madison and Jefferson unite to forn! it. 
 The general direction of the road is now nearly north- 
 ward. Below the Three Forks it outers the Upper Cafion 
 of the Missouri ; a magnificent gorge, where the river runs 
 with swift current between lofty walls of rock tinged with 
 purple, green and yellow hues by metallic deposits, and 
 worn by the elements into picturesque crags and but- 
 tresses, and the semblance of mighty walls of masonry. In 
 many places the road-bed is cut out of the precipitous 
 cliffs ; in others it finds room on strips of bottom-land at 
 their feet. The grade follows the stream closely, and its 
 descent is about that of the river. The rock work was 
 not difficult in the cafion, being, for the most part, easily 
 excavated with pick and shovel without blasts. At its 
 northern limit, about twenty miles from the Three Forks, 
 the cafion is succeeded by a fine arable valley about fifty 
 miles long by from five to ten wide, as inviting to the 
 railroad engineer as a Dakota prairie. About mi^Uvay 
 in the valley's length the road crosses the Missouri on a 
 temporary pile bridge, soon to be replaced by an iron 
 structure, and, bending to the noithwest, goes over a low 
 summit between Beaver Creek and Prickly Pear Creek with 
 a grade of fifty-two feet to the mile, and then across the 
 valley of the latter stream to Helena. 
 
 Track-laying on the Montana Division was pushed 
 forward during the entire winter of 1882-3, save when 
 interrupted by short spells of extremely cold weather. 
 In laying the temporary track over the Bozeman Pass the 
 laborers were sometimes obliged to shovel the snow from 
 the ground to go on with the work on the grade. The 
 track reached the town of Bozeman on the 14th of March, 
 a week earlier than the citizens had anticipated. On the 
 
 
THE YELLOWSTONE AND MONTANA DIVISIONS, ^q-j 
 
 neighbor, 
 
 ges, as is 
 i'hcre the 
 forn; it. 
 ly north- 
 er Can on 
 ivcr runs 
 gcd with 
 •sits, and 
 ind but- 
 3nry. In 
 -cipitous 
 i-land at 
 ', and its 
 ork was 
 *t, easily 
 At its 
 e Forks, 
 out fifty 
 \ to the 
 midway 
 jri on ci 
 an iron 
 er a low 
 -ek with 
 ross the 
 
 2ist tiie arrival of the first passenger train was celebrated 
 by cannon-firing, speeches, a procession and a banquet. 
 Many of the inhabitants of the Gallatin Valley had never 
 seen a railroad train before. In June the division was 
 completed to Helena, and the event was commemorated 
 by public rejoicing on the Fourth of July. 
 
 At Livingston the main line of the Northern Pacific 
 approaches within fifty-four miles of the National Park — 
 that region of natural wonders lying high up among, 
 mountain summits on the water-shed of the continent, 
 where rise the streams that feed the Missouri, the Colum- 
 bia and the Colorado. The wisdom of making this mar- 
 velous domain, set apart as an immense park and pleasure 
 ground by Congress, accessible to tourists by rail, early 
 occurred to the Northern Pacific managers. In the sum- 
 mer of 1S83 a branch road was built by the Oregon and 
 Transcontinental Company, which, beginning at Living- 
 ston, follows the Yellowstone River through the Lower 
 Cafion to the northern boundary of the Park, ending at 
 a point near the Mammoth Hot Springs. Permission 
 to carry the road forward to some central place in the 
 Park was refused by the Government. The construction 
 of the line was not difficult, save for some pretty heavy 
 rock-cutting at narrow places in the cafion. Grading 
 was begun in April, 1 883, and track-laying completed in 
 August. 
 
 pushed 
 e when 
 k^eather. 
 'ass the 
 >w from 
 ;. The 
 March, 
 On the 
 
CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN' AND I'END D'OREILLE DIVISIONS. 
 
 Across the Main Divide — Fifteen Passes Surveyed — Why the Mullan Pass 
 was Selected — A Description of tlie Mullan 'I'unnel — Unexpected Diffi- 
 culties Encountered— Only Six Miles of Heavy Grades — Contrast be- 
 tween the Eastern and Western Slopes — Tend d'Oreille Division — Easy 
 Grades and Long Tangents — The Snake River Bridge and the long Pile 
 Bridges across Lake Pend d'Oreille — The Line along the Clark's Fork 
 River — Serious Obstacles to Construction — Den>e Forests, Precipitous 
 Mountains, Deep Canons, and Clay Slides — A Wild and Rugged Region 
 — I'-Mornious Powder Hla^-ts — A Phenomenal Slide of Forty Acres — The 
 Coriacan Defde — The O'Kcefe and Marent Gulch Trestles — Valley of 
 the Hell Gate River. 
 
 The Rocky Mountain Division extends from Helena 
 to Heron, a distance of 274 miles, and, like the Montana 
 and Yellowstone Divisions, lies wholly within the Terri- 
 tory of Montana. Much engineering skill and research 
 were expended upon the survey and definite location of 
 this portion of the Northern Pacific line. Having once 
 attained the valley of the Upper Missouri by a short 
 line over the Bozeman Pass, the question was, how best 
 to carry the road over the main divide of the Rocky 
 Mountains so as to reach the Pacific slope. The prelimi- 
 nary surveys in 1S71 and 1872 disclosed no fewer than 
 fifteen passes through which it was practicable to build a 
 railroad, but these varied greatly in elevation and facility 
 of approach, and the range of choice w is fii illy 1 .^i i owed 
 down to three, the Mullan, the Littlf^ 'fm tone, and the 
 
 Deer Lodjie. The Mullan Pass re 
 
 J a loner t' 
 
 ne 
 
 but it gave the shortest line; the 1 stone would have 
 around by the important ;■ ver and cop- 
 
 thrown the road 
 
 per mining centre of Butte, but its summit was the high- 
 
_ 
 
 "^icP^^^^^^^^^B^^^^^I 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 'd^mi^B^^^^i^iP 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 ^^^P^hka^^hiI 
 
 
 H 
 
 't ':,,■:, 
 
 
 ■ff^^^l 
 
 ^H 
 
 'Mi: ;■■/..,;■ ['^W 
 
 
 S^B|HW^flMiiSJl 
 
 H 
 
 $-.i^:': .[ 
 
 ...^..f], ^^H 
 
 
 ^^^^H 
 
 
 
 
 ^B 
 
 ^ i-' ;■ ■ ■ ' 
 
 if/'' ,■' 
 
 
 l^tit' 'litfHH 'i^H 
 
 H fki ''tlrl'^TMr '^» tMl iHl 
 
 1 
 
 R-i'; ■ ■'• 
 
 
 mOMmm il 
 
 R^H 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 ' H^^R^I 
 
 ■i ■ ' • 
 
 
 ^^HSi^M^M^. 'i ij ':'1 
 
 ' < J iw^R' Ul 
 
 
 ' h s i«l jB^^^^^^^H 
 
 
 vf"]^! 
 
 1 ; 
 
 ,1 : 
 Ui ■ 
 
 1; ,:;='■■.■ ■. 
 
 ^^'Tjl^^^^^^^l^H 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 1;,'!: ^^ 
 
 : Ig^'JHJj^^^^^H 
 
 
 HI 
 
 a 
 o 
 <j 
 n 
 
 E- 
 
 a 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 
 > 
 
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIX DIVISION. 
 
 409 
 
 2 
 
 est of the three, and its approach grades would have been 
 the worst ; and it was further objectionable on the score 
 of the length of road required to reach it. This latter 
 objection lay against the Deer Lodge Pass, which was of 
 easy approach and required no tunnel, but which made a 
 line forty miles longer than by way of the Mullan Pass. 
 Chief Engineer Roberts adopted the Deer Lodge Pass, in 
 spite of the long detour it demanded ; but after he left the 
 service of the Company his successor, General Adna 
 Anderson, changed the location to the Mullan Pass. 
 The new location was adopted by the Board of Directors 
 in 1881, but was not formally approved by the Interior 
 Department at Washington until May, 1883. 
 
 Construction work on the Rocky Mountain Division 
 began at the Mullan Tunnel December 14, 188 1. The 
 approach to the tunnel from the east is by way of a high 
 trestle carried over a ravine, and by an embankment sev- 
 enty feet high at its highest point resting against a steep 
 mountain slope for its entire length. In order to open 
 tiie east heading on the precipitous ".;cline of the ridge to 
 be pierced it was only necessary to ow down a little 
 earth and loose rock, and the face of the granite was ex- 
 posed to the operation of the drills. The high embank- 
 ment was made with the material taken out of the tun- 
 nel. The western approach was much more difficult, a 
 cut having to be excavated through earth and loose 
 boulders to a depth, w here it reached the tunnel portal, 
 of fifty feet. The heading at this end was not opened 
 until October 21, 1882. To facilitate the work a shn/*: 
 was sunk whi. h struck the tunnel level 700 feet from the 
 west portal at a depth o{ 129 feet. This was begun May 
 5, 1882, and reached the proper depth July 29, 1S82. The 
 west drift Irom the shaft met the western heading De- 
 cember 31, 1882. 
 
 It was supposed by the engineers and the contractors 
 
410 
 
 NORTIIEK.y PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 that solid rock would be found all the way through the 
 mountain, but they were greatly disappointed. The rork 
 is granite, but a limestone formation lies only a few rods 
 away, and the interior of the mountain plainly shows evi- 
 dence of a grinding motion which has broken the strata 
 and in places produced seams of pulverized granite some- 
 what resembling blue clay. The faces of the rock on 
 each side of these streaks are worn smooth, as though they 
 had been polished by a lapidary's wheel. Seams of pure 
 quartz are also found, and pockets lined with infiltrated 
 crystals traceable to the adjoining limestone formation. 
 After the tunnel had been driven 700 feet from the east 
 portal, the rock became so treacherous that it was neces- 
 sary to timber the roof and sides. This was done with 
 pine and fir from the neighboring mountain sides, the up- 
 right post and arch pieces being twelve by twelve inches, 
 and the " lagging " forming the sides and roof being 
 of saplings hewn to the dimensions of four by four 
 inches. 
 
 After 60 feet of bad rock had been timbered a stretch 
 of 150 feet of solid rock was encountered, followed by 
 another bad streak. At the western portal it was neces- 
 sary to begin timbering at onc^, and continue for 200 
 feet ; then came 70 feet of hard rock, 70 of soft, 250 of 
 hard, and then a mass of such treacherous material that 
 the drillers could only advance foot by foot, setting up 
 stakes to hold the roof, and roofing the heading in advance 
 of the progress of the bencii. In January, 1883, water 
 burst into the east heading, carrying away the temporary 
 supports, and filling the tunnel for a short distance with 
 soft material. The bad character of the rock and the un- 
 expected labor involved in timbering delayed the prog- 
 ress of the tunnel, and it is not finished at the date of the 
 issue of this book. The elevation of the Mullan Tunnel 
 above the sea level is 5,547 feet, the highest point being 
 
 
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN DIVISION. 
 
 411 
 
 Dugh the 
 The rork 
 few rods 
 lows evi- 
 he strata 
 ite some- 
 rock on 
 ugh they 
 s of pure 
 nfiltratecl 
 )rmation. 
 the east 
 as neccs- 
 one with 
 5, the up- 
 e inches, 
 of being 
 by four 
 
 I stretch 
 
 owed by 
 
 IS neccs- 
 
 for 2CX) 
 
 250 of 
 
 ial that 
 
 ting up 
 
 idvance 
 
 1, water 
 
 nporary 
 
 cc with 
 
 the un- 
 
 e prog- 
 
 e of the 
 
 Tunnel 
 
 t being 
 
 at the western approach. The elevation of the Mullan 
 Pass at the dividing ridge is 5,855 feet. The tunnel is 
 3,850 feet long. Its dimensions are eighteen by twenty- 
 three feet. 
 
 From Helena the railroad first follows the narrow val- 
 ley of Seven-Mile Creek, and then the narrower gorge of 
 Greenhorn Gulch up to the pass. The mountain grades 
 begin three miles west of Helena, but are only sixty feet 
 to the mile for four miles further, when the standard 
 heavy grade of 1 16 is employed up to the east portal. 
 Through the tunnel the grade is 104. There are no 
 heavy grades on the western side of the mountain, that 
 approaching the tunnel being only seventy-four feet. In 
 order to make the ascent required to reach the east 
 entrance to the tunnel, the track makes two long 
 loops forming a lette"- S. The longest of these is three 
 miles, in which only three-fourths of a mile distance is 
 gained, but the elevation gained is 302 feet. A short 
 tunnel 533 feet long, called the Iron Ridge Tunnel, takes 
 the road through a mountain spur. This was driven 
 through yellow limestone rock, and is timbered for its 
 entire length. 
 
 The entire distance covered by heavy grades in crossing 
 the Mullan Pass is only six miles, and at no point is the 
 limit of 116 feet to the mile prescribed by law exceeded. 
 At both the Mullan and Bozeman passes the policy of 
 the Northern Pacific engineers was to concentrate the 
 resistance of heavy grades in as short a distance as was 
 feasible within the prescribed limitation of grade, in order 
 that the application of extra power to overcome such 
 resistance might be made on a few miles only of road and 
 the usual operating methods speedily resumed. By this 
 plan the entire length of heavy grades, ascending and de- 
 scending, over the Bozem;in and Mullan summits and the 
 third high summit in the Corsican defile beyond Mis- 
 
412 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 soula, described in the following chapter, is reduced to 
 iibout eighteen miles. 
 
 The aspect of the Main Divide of the Rocky Mount- 
 ains, when approached from the west, is very different 
 from that presented by the eastern slope. Instead of 
 towering crags, gigantic walls of granite, precipitous 
 ascents and deep ravines, the eye encounters only gentle 
 slopes covered in the spring and early summer with a 
 luxuriant growth of grass and flowers, broad natural 
 meadows, through which flow swift streams, and belts of 
 evergreen forests. It is diflicult to realize, when emerg- 
 ing from the western portal of the MuUan Tunr.el, that 
 one is on the summit of the great water-shed mountain 
 range of the American continent. Only a few miles west 
 of the tunnel the railroad resumes its standard grade of 
 one foot to the hundred, and follows the course of the 
 Little Blackfoot River down into the deep valley of a 
 stream .vhich bears many names in different parts of its 
 course, and is here called the Hell Gate. This fine river, 
 heading in the mountains near Butte, is first called the 
 Silver Bow, then the Deer Lodge, then the Hell Gate, 
 then the Missoula and finally Clark's Fork of the Co- 
 lumbia. 
 
 Thus far in the description of the road we have fol- 
 lowed the line from east to west, in the order of its con- 
 struction, division by division. From Wallula, on the 
 Columbia River, to the valley of the Little Blackfoot, the 
 road was built from west to cast, the point of junction of 
 the tracks advancing from the two sides of the Continent 
 being a few miles west of the Mullan Tunnel. The 
 reader is now asked to turn to the valley of the Colum- 
 bia at Wallula, the place selected for a junction with the 
 main line of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Com- 
 pany, and follow the progress of the road across the plains 
 of Eastern Washington and up the valleys of the Clark's 
 
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN DIVISION. 
 
 413 
 
 
 Fork, the Flathead, the Jocko and the Hell Gate to the 
 western slope of the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 The construction of the Pend d'Oreille Division was 
 determined upon by the Northern Pacific Board, as we have 
 seen in the historical part of this work, in the spring of 1 879. 
 Itbegins at VVallula, and extends in ageneral north-easterly 
 direction to Lake Pend d'Oreille, and thence around the 
 Lake and up the Clark's Fork to Heron, a distance of 269.^ 
 miles. The maximum grade going east is 52 feet to the 
 mile, and going west 34 feet, and the line is characterized 
 by directness as well as by easy grades, there being in 200 
 miles of distance 150 of tangents. Construction work 
 necessarily began at the western end of the division, 
 where the Columbia River served as a base of supplies. 
 There were at that time no settlements along the sur- 
 veyed route of the road, save a trading poi,t at Spokane 
 Falls. The country i?^ for the most part a grassy plain, 
 except near the Columbia, where there is a small area of 
 sage-brush desert, and no timber is found until the vicinity 
 of the lake is reached. A little grading was done in the 
 fall of 1879, t)"t operations were not vigorously begun 
 until early in 1880. During that year the grading was 
 completed from Wallula as far eastward as Rathdrun, 189 
 miles, and track was laid from Wallula to the south bank 
 of the Snake River, and from Ainsworth, on the north 
 bank of that stream, 48 miles further, to Twin Wells. 
 At the close of the season the grade was 124 miles in ad- 
 vance of the track ; an unusual thing in railroad building 
 in a new country, where the advancing track is the only 
 base of supplies. This circumstance resulted from the 
 delay in procuring ties and bridge timber. The country 
 traversed by the line was bare of trees, and the nearest 
 available forests were on the Yakima River, a stream 
 which empties into the Columbia above the mouth of 
 Snake River. Parties of workmen were sent up into the 
 
w 
 
 414 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 foothills of the Cascade Mountains in the winter of 1879- 
 80, to cut ties, piles, and bridge timber, ready to be 
 floated down the Yakima in the spring freshet. The 
 "drive," for some reason, did not come down, and was 
 left stranded up the river, so that there were no ties all 
 the summer of 1880, and supplies for the grading camps 
 had to be hauled in wagons. In the spring of 1881 the 
 " drive " was got afloat, and came rushing down pell-mell, 
 on top of a powerful freshet, which broke the booms, and 
 scattered ties and timbers all down the Columbia River. 
 Much of the material was picked up, but a portion was 
 carried out to sea. Enough was saved to complete the 
 track to the forest region east of Spokane Falls, where 
 there was no lack of good timber for railroad uses. The 
 track reached the shore of Lake Pend d'Oreille January 
 9th, 1882. 
 
 The crossing of Snake River at Ainsworth is at present 
 effected by a transfer boat which carries an entire passen- 
 ger train. A bridge is in process of construction, how- 
 ever, and will be completed before the high-water season 
 of 1884, and, next to the Bismarck bridge over the Mis- 
 souri River, will be the most important structure of the 
 kind on the entire Northern Pacific line. Its length is 
 1,541 feet, and it is composed of a span of 125 feet, a draw 
 span of 350 feet, with 158 feet of clear waterway on each 
 side of the pivot pier, three spans of 250 feet each, and 
 two spans of 158 feet each. The piers are of granite, and 
 are seven in number, including the pivot pier, their aver- 
 age height being sixty-two feet. They rest on a solid 
 rock foundation. All were built in open caissons except 
 two, for which pneumatic caissons were required. The 
 abutments are also of granite, and are forty-three feet 
 high. The superstructure is an iron truss of the most ap- 
 proved pattern, the lower line of which is twelve feet 
 above the extreme known high-water mark. The Spo- 
 
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN DIVISION. 
 
 415 
 
 kane River is crossed east of the town of Spokane Falls 
 by a single span Howe truss bridge 200 feet long, with an 
 open truss approach on either side sixty feet long. As 
 the railroad approaches Lake Pend d'Oreille from the 
 west, the country becomes broken with ridges and deep 
 ravines, and much trestle and piling is required. Within 
 three miles of the lake there are three trestles — one 2,000 
 feet long, one 1,400 feet, and one 1,300 feet. Then comes 
 the long pile bridge across an arm of the lake to Sand 
 Point, the end of the division, which is 8,400 feet long, 
 with a draw of ninety-four feet. Six hundred feet of this 
 structure runs across such deep water that piles of from 
 90 to 100 feet in length are required. 
 
 During the construction operations the portion of the 
 road between Sand Point on Lake Pend d'Oreille, and the 
 crossing of the Flathead River, seven miles above the 
 junction of that stream with the Missoula (the two forming 
 the Clark's Fork or Pend d'Oreille), a dista :e of 1 30 miles, 
 was called the Clark's Fork Division. Ir. was by far the 
 most difficult division to construct of the entire Northern 
 Pacific line, and much the most expensive. For its whole 
 length it traverses a forest, and save for a few miles on 
 the eastern end, where the timber growth is open and 
 park-like, this forest is of phenomenal density, the trees 
 standing so close together that they seem almost to form 
 a solid rampart of trunks. Pine, fur, spruce, cedar, and 
 tamarack constitute this remarkable growth. A thick 
 undergrowth covers the ground, and the interlaced 
 branches overhead make a sombre twilight of the bright- 
 est noonday glare. The forest was but one of the obsta- 
 cles to railway building, however. No valley proper is 
 formed by the river, which flows for about a hundred 
 miles through a tremendous gorge. Tl\e mountains rise 
 abruptly from the edge of the swift green stream, in some 
 places in towering walls of slate rock, in others in exceed- 
 
4i6 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 ingly steep timbered slopes. Here and there in the caflon 
 elevated benches of a few miles in length occur, which 
 were eagerly occupied by the engineers as welcome 
 respites to the enormous labor of digging and blasting a 
 roadbed out of rocky walls or precipitous and treach- 
 erous slopes ; but a considerable part of the line is stcej^ 
 side-hill work or blasting through places where the mount- 
 ains thrust bare shoulders of rock into the river. 
 
 The management of the Northern Pacific Company 
 had been changed in September, i88i, by the accession of 
 Mr. Villard to the presidency. Mr. H. Thielsen, the chief 
 engineer of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Com- 
 pany, became supervising engineer of the Clark's Fork 
 Division, and the work, instead of being let by contract, 
 was done by the Company under the charge of a super- 
 intendent of construction, Mr. J. L. Hallett. Chinese 
 labor, the only kind obtainable in large quantity on the 
 Pacific slope, was employed in the clearing of the line and 
 the grading. 
 
 Lake Pend d'Oreille may be said to be a widening 
 of Clark's Fork. After passing around it on the north 
 to avoid the high and precipitous mountains on th^ 
 western side, the railroad runs through a forest of fir 
 and cedar for twenty-four miles, crossing, by a pile bridge 
 lOO feet long, a bay into which flows Pack River, and 
 coming to the Clark's Fork four miles above its entrance 
 to the lake. Most of the work through the woods and 
 swamp along the lake shore was done in the winter of 
 1881-2, in spite of heavy snow-falls. Thousands of men 
 were engaged at times in shoveling the snow from the 
 line in order that the grading and track-laying might pro- 
 ceed. As soon as the opening of spiing brought welcome 
 relief from the snow troubles, high water on the river be- 
 came an obstacle to the building of bridges, and the 
 wagon road which had been built at great labor and 
 
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN DIVISION. 
 
 417 
 
 thecaflon 
 ur, which 
 welcome 
 )lasting a 
 d treach- 
 e is steep 
 e mount- 
 
 company 
 :ession of 
 the chief 
 on Com- 
 k's Fork 
 contract, 
 'a super- 
 Chinese 
 Y on the 
 iline and 
 
 ividening 
 le north 
 I on tli^ 
 ;st of fir 
 le bridge 
 iver, and 
 entrance 
 ods and 
 -'inter of 
 ! of men 
 rom the 
 ght pro- 
 velcomc 
 ■iver be- 
 ind the 
 bor and 
 
 expense to transport supplies to the grading camps got 
 into such a bad condition that four horses could barely 
 draw a load of one thousand pounds, and most of the ani- 
 mals had to be withdrawn for a time from work on the 
 grade to haul food and forage. Great assistance was ob- 
 tained from a little steamer built oon the lake and named 
 the Henry Villard, but this co i.. •<'/ run about twelve 
 miles up the river, owing to the obstacle of the Cabinet 
 Rapids. A second steamer was put upon the river above 
 the Rock Island Rapids, in the summer of 1882, the hull 
 having been built on the spot, and the machinery at the 
 Dalles, in Oregon ; but an error of the builders made her 
 draft too great for her to be of service at a low stage of 
 water. It should be remarked that no wagon road existed 
 in the Clark's Fork gorge until the Railroad Company con. 
 structed one as an essential preliminary to building its 
 line, the only means of getting through the country hav- 
 ing been a rude bridle-path traveled by Indians, fur-trad- 
 ers and gold-seekers, over which pack animals could be 
 got with no small difficulty at a rate of progress of twelve 
 or fifteen miles aday ; and this trail was not on the side of 
 the river followed by the road, where the work was most 
 serious. 
 
 The bridge at the first crossing of Clark's Fork is a five- 
 span Howe truss, 800 feet long, with a trestle approach of 
 600 feet. The river is crossed again, fifty miles further 
 up, by a Howe truss bridge of three spans, 480 feet long 
 in all and ninety feet above the river, approached by 600 
 feet of trestle; and a third time, seven miles above the 
 junction of the Flathead and Missoula, by 750 feet of 
 truss with 300 of trestle approach. The purpose of the first 
 and second crossings is to avoid the Blue Slide, an immense 
 sliding mass of clay 1,000 feet high, and impossible to pass 
 with a railroad. 
 
 In the rock work Mr. Hallett employed a method new 
 27 
 
4i8 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 in railroad construction, wliich he had first successfully 
 used on the Columbia River line. The old way of cutting 
 a roadbed along the face of w. cliff was to begin at the top, 
 drill small lioles and blow off the rock, little by little, down 
 to grade. Mr. Hallett began at the bottom, a little below 
 grade, made a number of T-shapcd tunnels, filled them 
 with great quantities of powder, and touched them all off 
 at the same moment by electricity. The effect was stu- 
 pendous, the whole side of the mountain wall being lifted 
 up and hurled into the river. Great saving in time and 
 money was thus effected. A similar method was applied 
 to through cuts by means of perpendicular shafts and 
 lateral galleries. One cut 24 feet deep by 400 feet long 
 was excavated by a single blast of giant powder, most of 
 the rock being thrown entirely out, and the rest so 
 broken up that it was readily removed by derricks. 
 
 Between the first and second crossings the road passes 
 through extensive clay deposits for a distance of about 
 forty miles, known by early travelers as the Bad Lands. 
 These gave great trouble to the construction force by 
 heavy slides. One of these slides was probably unrivaled 
 in its extent and suddenness by anything known in the 
 history of railway building. In April, 1883, a surface area 
 of forty acres, covered with trees, slid off into the river, 
 carrying the track with it, and partially obstructing the 
 river. The track sunk down to a depth of sixty feet be- 
 low the grade, and a chasm was opened 1,300 feet in 
 length. The mode adopted where slides filled up cuts 
 was to reopen the cuts with steam excavators and then 
 drive a line of piles twelve feet from the centre of the 
 track and four feet apart, cut them off six feet above the 
 track, cap them, and make a wall of logs behind them to 
 hold up the clay slopes. 
 
 The grading on the portion of the line between the 
 bridge over the Flathead River known as the " third 
 
THE ROCKY MO Uy TAIN DIVISION. 
 
 419 
 
 crossing," and the Mullan Tunndl, about 200 miles, was 
 done in 1882 by Mormons from the settlements in 
 Northern Utah, wiio came with their families and teams 
 and took sub-contracts on the road. They proved an 
 excellent clas;, 01 laborers, and coming as they did into 
 the gap between the eastern and western divisions of 
 the railroad, where workmen could not, without con- 
 siderable difficulty and heavy expense, be thrown in, 
 either from the Pacific slope or from the East, their serv- 
 ices were of great value. In the building of the road 
 across the Flathead reservation, a distance of about 60 
 miles, their sobriety and general good behavior prevented 
 trouble with the Indians. Right of way across this reser- 
 vation was obtained after negotiations conducted by a 
 Government commissioner with the chiefs of the Flat- 
 head, Kootenai and Pend d'Oreille tribes, occupying the 
 reservation, on payment by the Railroad Company of 
 $5,000. 
 
 Leaving the valley of the Flathea 1 near the third 
 crossing the road follows the narrow valley of the Jocko 
 and then the course of Findlay Creek up to the summit 
 of a spur of the Rocky Mountains. For the ascent and 
 descent the mountain grade of 116 feet to the mile is 
 adopted, the entire length of heavy grade being 13 miles. 
 The sum.mit is nearly level for 3 miles. The descent is 
 through a deep narrow gorge known as the Coriacan De- 
 file. At the eastern entrance to the Coriacan Defile is 
 a trestle known as the O'Kcefe trestle;, 112 feet high, and 
 1,000 feet long. A still more formidable trestle crosses 
 the Marent Gulch in the defile. It is 226 feet high and 
 860 feet long, and is one of the highest bridges in the 
 United States. The stream that comes down the gulch is 
 of inconsiderable size, but the gulch itself is a deep gorge, 
 and the grade of the road, carried high up on the steep 
 mountain sides to attain the summit of the pass, crosses it 
 
r^i 
 
 420 
 
 NOHrj/EKX PACU-IC RAILROAD. 
 
 at the great height mentioned. The superstructure of 
 this remarkable bridge is a Howe truss resting on eight 
 towers. 
 
 It would have been practicable to avoid crossing the 
 mountain spur by following the Missoula River up from 
 its confluence with the Flathead, but the alternate route 
 was never seriously contemplated after the country had 
 been examined by Chief Engineer Roberts in 1S69, be- 
 cause of the long detour made by the stream, which would 
 have added about thirty miles to the length of the road 
 between the town of Missoula and the junction of the two 
 rivers. 
 
 From the town of Missoula to the mouth of the Little 
 Blackfoot River, a distance of 75 miles, the railroad follows 
 the course of the Hell Gate River, which runs through 
 a narrow valley hemmed in on either hand by steep moun- 
 tain ranges. The valley makes an admirable route for a 
 railroad. On one side or the other there is always a con- 
 siderable stretch of level bottom land. The engineering 
 problems on this part of the Northern Pacific line con- 
 cerned first, the management of Gold Creek, the pioneer 
 placer mining stream of Montana, on which considerable 
 hydraulic mining is still done and which carries down to 
 its mouth larg" quantities of " tailings." The mouth of 
 the stP^am was narrowed by two dikes, so as to be easily 
 crossed by a short bridge. Next there was the question 
 whether to bridge the river where it shifts from side 
 to side or to keep the road on one side and cut a 
 roadbed out of the bluffs, as was done on the Yellow- 
 stone. This was decided in favor of bridges — a safe 
 decision, because the stream, fed by the gradual melting 
 of the snows on the high mountain ranges, rises steadily 
 and is not subject to sudden freshets, its high-water 
 mark varying but a few inches from year to year. At 
 two points bridges were avoided by cutting new channels 
 
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIX D/l'IS/OJV. 
 
 421 
 
 for the river so as to straighten its course and throwing 
 dikes of piles, brush and rock across the old channel. 
 Between the Little Blackfoot and Missoula the river is 
 crossed ten times, the largest bridge having two spans of 
 220 feet each. There is also a long bridge across the 
 mouth of Bear Creek, having four spans of 66 feet 
 each. All these bridges are wooden truss structures 
 built from the timber of the adjacent country and resting 
 on cribs of plank filled with stone. They will be replaced 
 in time by durable iron bridges. The line through the 
 Hell Gate Cafion is a low embankment for nearly its 
 entire length, and having no cuts will not be obstructed 
 by snow, which falls to a considerable depth in the 
 valley. 
 
 '. ¥i 
 
CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 TIIK COLUMBIA KIVLR LINE AND I'ACinC AND CASCADK 
 
 DIVISIONS. 
 
 The Colip-.iuia River Line of the Oicj^on Railway and Navigalidii Com- 
 pany — Its Relations to tlic No'-'Jicrn I'acific System — A Roailljcd jjlasteil 
 fiDiii liic I'ac; of ric(li)iccs--I'iny 'riiousaiul rounds of I'owdci uset! in 
 a Single IJlast — Otli .'r I,ine?> • i tl.e Oroqon Railway and Navigation 
 System — The I'acific I"''v'';un of the Nort icrii Pacilk Com|)any — Fi(jm 
 I'oilland to I'nget Sound — l''irst Constructi.jn Operations on the I'r.cifie 
 Coast — The Ca^eade Division — An Impcttant Coal Road — W. Milnoi 
 Roberts' Report on IJuilding aeross llie Cascade Mountains — The Seattle 
 Extension. 
 
 TlllC Columbia River line of the Oregon Railway am! 
 Navic^ation Company may bo regarded as one of the 
 links of the Northern Pacific transcontinental system. 
 Although ownetl by a separate comi)an\', its general 
 management is identical 'vith that of the Northern Pr.cific, 
 the presi^icnt of botl\ companies being Henry Villard, and 
 a controlling intert.st in the stock o^ both being held by 
 the Oregon and Transcontinental Company, a permanent 
 harmony and close alliance are assured. The Nortiicrn 
 Pacific lias the right under its charter to build a line of 
 its own down the Columbia to Portland, but the prior 
 construction of the river road of the Oregon Railway and 
 Navigation Companw aiKJ the unity of interest and direc- 
 tion effected by Mr. Villard, relieved it from the necessity 
 of building such a line at a time when all its resources 
 and energies were demanded for completing its roail and 
 joining its tracks in Montana. The question of building 
 a second line down the Columbia was left open until the 
 Northern Pacific could wiseh', in the liiilit of its financial 
 
 m 
 
Glaciers u( Muiint Tacoma. 
 
'Imq 
 
COLUMBIA RIVER LINE AND PACIEIC DIVISIONS. 423 
 
 resources, decide it affirmatively. Such a line following 
 the north bank of the river is now under construction. 
 
 From Wallula, where the Pcnd d'Oreille Division of 
 the Northern Pacific joins the main line of the Oregon 
 Railway ond Navigation Company, the distance to Port- 
 land is 214 miles, and, with the exception of the last forty 
 miles, •the railroad runs for the whole way in the narrow 
 gorge of the Columbia, cutting through the steep basaltic 
 cliffs, and crossing on trestles the numerous ravines 
 which serve as channels for the smaller stveams. The 
 heaviest work is between the Dalles and Bonneville, a 
 distance of forty-five miles, where the river has forced its 
 way through the tremendous barrier of the Cascade 
 Mountains. In many places on this portion of the line 
 the mountains rise in sheer precipices from the water's 
 edge. The roadbed had to be blasted out v>{ the Hice of 
 the lofty walls, and the workmen were .sus])cnded by 
 ropes from the summits of the cliffs while drilling for the 
 first blasts. Enormous quantities of powder were used 
 in single blasts to throw down great masses of rock into 
 the river. The largest quantit)- ( xploded at one time 
 was 1,000 cases of fifty pounds each, v.hich was placed in 
 drifts run into the face of the cliff above tunnel No. 3. 
 The drifts were from 50 to 75 feet long, with lateral 
 chambers at the end of each, and were 150 feet apart. 
 The cliff had a vertical height of 450 feet above the river, 
 and at its base the water was 125 feet deep. The powder 
 in the drifts was fireil at the same moment by electrical 
 sparks, and the whole face of the cliff was thrown into 
 the river. A shot fired at another point on the river u as 
 even more successful in regard to the quantity of rock 
 displaced. IIi;re the track had already been laid around 
 a shelving bluff, but there was so much trouble from 
 slides that a remedy was sought by blowing off the 
 shoulder of t'leslopin^^ mountain. Drifts were run in fur 
 
424 
 
 NORTHERX PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 123 feet, at an elevation of 470 feet above the track, a 
 footpath first beinj^ cut around the cliff for the laborers. 
 The powder and the material for tampincj the drift were 
 passed from hand to hand along a line of men stationed 
 on this dizzy path. The amount of powder used was 
 470 fifty-pound case?, and the blast threw down 140,000 
 cubic yards of rock. * 
 
 It may well be doubted whether there is an equal 
 mileage of railroad anywhere in the United States, the 
 building of which involved as much labor as that from 
 the Dalles to Bonneville, at the foot of the Lower Cas- 
 cades of the Columbia. No bottom-lands arc found along 
 the river in the entire distance, and where the road is 
 not cut out from the mountain-sides or from lofty basal- 
 tic escarpments, it runs across profound ravines, where 
 high embankments or trestles are required. There are 
 eight and a quarter miles of trestle on this part of the 
 line, much of which will, however, be replaced by embank- 
 ments. Hetween the Dilles and Wallula the work is 
 much lighter. Although many bluffs are cut tin'ough, 
 there are numerous long benches or stretches of bottom 
 land between the bluffs and ^*,e river. Helow Bonneville 
 the road leaves the river and rims across the level delta 
 formetl by the Willamette and the Columbia. 
 
 Construction began on this line in 1880 between Wal- 
 lula and Cclilo under the direction of chief engineer II. 
 Thielsen. In the fall of 1881 the grade was completed 
 as far down as Bonneville, and track-laying was finished 
 so th.'t- the road was operated to Bonneville in the spring 
 of 1882. The remaining section of the line, from Bonne- 
 ville to Portland, was opened in October of that year. 
 
 In this connection a few words may properly be said 
 concerning other lines built by the Oregon Railway and 
 Navigation Company as a part of tiie efficient transporta- 
 tion system it has established in the State of Oregon. 
 
COLUMBIA RIVER LINE AXD PACIEIC DiriSIOXS. 425 
 
 From Umatilla, 209 miles above Portland, a branch road 
 leaves the Columbia, traverses the fertile wheat-producing 
 plains of Umatilla County, crosses the lilue Mountains to 
 the beautiful grain and grazing valleyoftheGrande Ronde, 
 reaches the Powder River Valley and the mining dis- 
 tricts around Baker City, and will finally effect a junction 
 with the Oregon Short Line brarch of the Union Pacific 
 Railroad at the Snake River. This line is now open 
 to the Blue Mountains, and will be finished in 1884. The 
 main line continues eastward above Wallula, where it joins 
 the Northern Pacific Railroad, to Walla Walla, the most 
 important town in the great interior basin of Oregon 
 and Washincrton. From that town there is a branch 
 south to Pendleton, 46 miles, one north to Riparia 37 
 miles, whence steamboats belonging to the Company run 
 up the Snake River to Lewiston '^'i miles, and diverg- 
 ing from this branch at liolles J unction, a line to Dayton, 13 
 miles, soon to be extended to Pataha City, 37 miles further. 
 This system of railroads, supplemented by steamboats on 
 the Columbia and Snake Rivers, tirains all the rich, newly 
 developed wheat and cattle country I\ing south of Snake 
 River, between the Bitter Root and Blue Mountains, on 
 the east and south, and the Cascade Mou«itains on the 
 west. 
 
 THK rACII'IC DIVISION. 
 
 The railroad line from Portland to Pugct Sound belongs 
 to the Northern Pacific Company, and is called the Pacific 
 Division. It is linked, as we have seen, to the main line 
 at W^dlula bN' the river road of the Oregon Railwav and 
 Navigation Company. The section of the Sound line im- 
 mediately west of Portland will be finished this summer 
 (18S3). It follows the Willamette River to its mouth, 
 and then the Columbia to i crossing place about two 
 miles above a point opposite the town of Kalama and 
 
426 
 
 NORTHERN PACIIIC RAILROAD. 
 
 about forty miles from Portland, where trainr, will be 
 ferried over the Columbia on a large transfer steamer. 
 
 The line from Kalama to Tacoma, on Puget Sound, is, 
 next to the Minnesota Division, the oldest portion of the 
 Northern Pacific road. The Act of Congress of 1870, 
 amending the charter of the Company and making the 
 line down the Cc^lumbia to Portland and thence to the 
 Sound the main line, and that across the Cascade Mount- 
 ains to the Sound a branch, provided that twenty-five 
 miles of road between the Columbia River and tlie Sound 
 should be built within a year from the date of its passage, 
 and that the whole road should be opened to its terminus 
 on the Sound before the close of 1873. In obedience 
 to these provisions of law, the Company began to build, in 
 April, 1 87 1, from Kalama, a new town on the Columbia 
 nine miles above the mouth of the Cowlitz River. There 
 was no question as to the route to be adopted to reach 
 the .Sound. Nature seemed to have marked out the val- 
 ley of the Cowlitz as an easy route for railroad construc- 
 tion. This was the route followed by General (then 
 Cap^nu) McClellan in the prosecution of the Govern- 
 ment surveys in 1853, and it was in 1871 the route of the 
 wagon and mail road leading from tiie Columbia Ri\er 
 to 01ym[)ia, the head of navigation on tlie Sound, and 
 the capital of Washingion Territor}'. The surveyed line 
 of the railroad followed the Cowlitz for about forty miles, 
 crossed a low divide to a tributary of the Niscjually 
 River, which flows into Gray's Harbor on the Pacific 
 Ocean, then crossed a second diviile to the Nis(|ualiy, 
 and then ran across level gravelly prairies until nciU the 
 Sound, when it ran down to the level of the tide at Com- 
 mencement Bay, by a sliarp descent. There are no grailes 
 on the line greater than fifty-two feet to the mile save for 
 two miles uj) from the Sound, where the heavy grade of 
 116 feet to the mile was adopted. An easier grade will 
 
COLUMBIA RIVER LINE AND PACIFIC DIVISIONS. 427 
 
 soon be secured at tliat point. The Cowlitz and the Nis- 
 qually arc crossed by wooden truss bridges. No heavy 
 cuts or higli embankments occur, and tlic line was in all 
 respects an easy one to build, except the clearing of the 
 dense forest growth which covered the face of the country 
 for nearly the entire distance. It was made expensive, 
 however, by the high cost of labor and supplies, and the 
 necessity of transporting iron, locomc^tives and cars over 
 the long sea route around Cape Morn. 
 
 Only twenty-five miles of the division were built in 1 871. 
 Next year fifty miles more were constructed. Work was 
 begun anew in the spring of 1873, but the collapse of that 
 year found the road still twenty-two miles from its ter- 
 minus at Tacoma, on the Sound. For a short time work 
 was continueil without interruption, but there was no 
 money to pay the laborers, and after ten miles more of 
 track had been laid the men took armeil possession of a 
 bridge across Clover Creek, and declared that the road 
 should go no further until they got $73,000 th<.Mi due 
 them. In tliis emergency Capt. J. C. Ainsworth, then 
 managing director for the Pacific Coast, came to the res- 
 cue with his individual means and credit. A compromise 
 was made, the men received a part of their wages in cash 
 and a part in due bills indorsed by Capt. Ainsworth, and 
 went to work again. Uy great effort the track was com- 
 pleted to the Sound just twenty-four hours before the 
 time prescribed by Congress expired. 
 
 TMJ: CASCADi; divimon. 
 
 Many f.uitless attempts were made by the Northern 
 Pacific Company to find a pass through the Cascade 
 Mountains of sufficiently low altitude and eas\' approach 
 to favor the construction of a direct railroad line from 
 Eastern Washington to Puget Sound. Almost every 
 pass in tiie whole range between the Columbia River and 
 
428 
 
 N0K77/ERX PACIFIC KAIL/WAD. 
 
 the l^ritish boundary that offered any apparent encour- 
 agement to the eye of an engineer was expU)red, but it 
 was not until about a year ago that one was discovered 
 where the estimated cost of constructing a road, and of 
 operating it when once built, was not too great for the 
 undertaking to meet with any favor from practical rail- 
 road men. At last the long-sought gateway in the lofty 
 mountain wall was found at the Stampede Pass. A long 
 tunnel will be required at the summit of this Pass and 
 the approaches involve much difficult work, but the line 
 is practicable and will be built. 
 
 The portion of the Cascade Division generally known 
 as the Puyallup Branch, was built in 1876 from Tacoma to 
 the VVilkeson coal field, near the sources of the Puyallup 
 River, on the eastern base of the Cascade Mountains, a dis- 
 tance of thirty miles, and a short spur was afterward built 
 to Carbonado, two miles further, to reach a mine sold by the 
 Northern Pacific to the Central Pacific Railroad Company. 
 On the eastern end of the Cascade Division construction 
 is in progress the present season in the valley of the 
 Yakima, the purpose being to build from a connection 
 with the main line near Ainsworth up to the eastern 
 base of the mountains, leaving to be built, at some time 
 in the near future, the connecting link across the rugged 
 range of the Cascades. The length of this division, from 
 a junction with the main line 3 miles from Ainsworth, to 
 Tacoma, is 240 miles. 
 
 In this connection an extract from a report of the late 
 Chief Engineer Roberts is of interest. The report was 
 written on Puget Sound October 3d, 1872, and addressed 
 to the Board of Directors. It discussed with a thorough- 
 ness characteristic of its author all the questions relating to 
 the Columbia River route and the various lines surveyed 
 across the Cascade rancre, and summed up his opinions 
 
 as 
 
 foil 
 
 ows: 
 
 Independently of land grant considera- 
 
cncour- 
 1, but it 
 >covcrccl 
 , and of 
 
 for tlic 
 cal rail- 
 he lofty 
 
 A long 
 
 *as3 and 
 
 the line 
 
 ,' known 
 
 icoma to 
 
 I'uyallup 
 
 ins, adis- 
 
 ard built 
 
 •Id by the 
 
 ompany. 
 
 struction 
 
 of the 
 
 ncction 
 
 eastern 
 
 mc time 
 
 rugged 
 
 on, from 
 
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 the late 
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 urveyed 
 opinions 
 nsidera- 
 
 COLUMBIA RIVER I.IXE AND PACIFIC DIVISIO.XS. 
 
 429 
 
 tions, and if but one main line should be built, and the 
 Company should be obliged to choose between the line 
 via the Columbia River, on the one hand, and the route 
 over the Cascade Mountains, on the other hand, my pres- 
 ent information would lead mc to recommend the valley 
 route, notwithstanding its much greater length. Grant- 
 ing that the valley route may be a hundred or a hundred 
 and fifty miles longer (depending, of course, upon what 
 point along the Sound is to be assumed), the saving of 
 6,cxx) feet of rise and fall over the Skagit line, or 4,000 
 feet over the Snoqualmie line, goes far toward reducing 
 the lines practically to a par as to length. Secondly, the 
 vallej' route avoids the snow difficulty. Thirdly, it runs 
 throughj or so as to command the business of Portland, 
 the commercial capital of 0\\ -;on, and so as to secure the 
 trade and travel of the Willamette Valley, the most valu- 
 able on the Pacific coast. I'ourthly, on the valley route 
 the Company can start their road, building 350 miles from 
 the Sound to open it eastward, and running it in con- 
 nection with the O. S. & X. Company's steamers and 
 railroads along the Columbia, meanwhile pushing the 
 track eastward into a region which admits of settlement." 
 Time has justified the opinions thus early formed by 
 the great engineer — opinions which led the Company to 
 prefer the longer route to Pugct Sound by way of the 
 Columbia and the Cowlitz valleys to the shorter one 
 across the mountains for the main line to be first built. 
 The ultimate completion of the Cascade Ikanch is, how- 
 ever, assured by the action of the Company in building 
 up to the base of the range on both sides. In spite of 
 the great expense of snow-sheds, heavy grades, and a 
 long tunnel, the evident value of a short line from the 
 grain fields of the interior to the deep waters of the 
 Sound will induce the completion of this branch at no 
 distant day. 
 
II 
 
 430 
 
 ■I 
 
 NORTHERN PAC/F/C RAILROAD. 
 
 TIIK SKATTLl!: KX TENSION. 
 
 The Seattle branch or extension, connecting tlic town 
 of Seattle with the Cascade IJranch of the Northern 
 Pacific, and thence with the main line at its terminus at 
 Tacoma, was built by the Oregon and Transcontinental 
 Company in the summer of 1883. Its length is thirty 
 miles, nine of which is a widening of the narrow-gauge 
 coal road running from Seattle to Newcastle. There are 
 four bridges and five miles of piling across swamps. The 
 ground is heavily timbered, and construction work was 
 rendered difficult by the wilderness character of the 
 country and the extensive swamps traversed in the 
 valleys of the Stuck, the White and the Dwamish rivers. 
 The junction with the Cascade Branch is made near the 
 village of Puyallup, ten miles cast of Tacoma, and the 
 line, being operated by the Northern Pacific Company, 
 gives Seattle the advantage of a connection with its 
 general system, as well as with the Columbia River, Port- 
 land, Oregon and California. 
 
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 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 MD RENDERED BY THE ARMY. 
 
 Hostility of the Indians along the Northern Pacific Line — Warlike Charac- 
 ter of the Sioux — Their Struggle for the Yellowstone Valley — General 
 Sherman's Opinion of the Railroad Enterprise — Valuable Assistance ren- 
 dered by him and his Subordinate Ofificers — Important Military Move- 
 ments — Protection given Surveying Parties and Construction Forces — 
 Expeditions of 1871 and 1S72 — Major Baker's Battle in the Yellowstone 
 Valley — Major Forsythe's Expedition — The Campaigns of iS76and 1877 
 against the Sioux — Final Subjection of the Indians — The Pathway Cleared 
 for the Railroad. 
 
 No historical account of the Northern Pacific enterprise 
 would be just or complete without an acknowledgment 
 of the very valuable services rendered by the army of the 
 United States in protecting the surveys and construction 
 of the road, and in reducing to subjection the hostile In- 
 dian tribes along its line, and removing them to reserva- 
 tions, so as to open the country to settlement and civili- 
 zation. When the building of the Northern Pacific began, 
 the greater part of the country through which its line was 
 projected between the Red River of the North and the 
 Columbia River, was occupied as a hunting ground by 
 warlike tribes of savages that acknowledged the authority 
 of the Government only in an intermittent sort of way, 
 when forced to do so by defeat and hunger. War was 
 their trade and diversion, and they were not slow to take 
 advantage of slight pretexts for breaking off peaceable 
 relations with the whites. They were intelligent enough 
 to know that the building of a railroad across the plains, 
 where they roamed at will, meant the destruction of the 
 buffalo, on which they depended mainly for food, the in- 
 flux of white settlers, and their own confinement to small 
 
432 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 AID RENDERED BY THE ARMY. 
 
 433 
 
 areas of territory. This knowledge added to their natural 
 combativeness a feeling of barbarous patriotism, which 
 urged them to a stubborn resistance to the invasion of a 
 region which they regarded as their own by birthright. 
 Particularly was this the case with the numerous aggrega- 
 tion of bands and tribes called by the general name of the 
 Sioux, that roamed over Dakota and a large part of east- 
 ern Montana. The Sioux were good fighters, well armed, 
 possessed of some military skill, and able to put into the 
 field a force of warriors larger than the Government in 
 its hard struggle with them ever matched man for man 
 with its troops. 
 
 Gen. W. T. Sherman, the Commander-in-chief of the 
 army, having a thorough knowledge of all the new coun- 
 try of the Far West, gained by long and toilsome journeys 
 between the two frontiers — journeys which took him 
 through every Territory and to nearly every military post 
 — was from the first an earnest friend of the Northern 
 Pacific enterprise, regarding it from both a military and a 
 patriotic point of view as an agency for settling forever 
 the Indian question in the Northwest, by throwing a belt 
 of settlement across the chief hunting and fighting ground 
 of the savages, and by afifording the means of moving 
 troops with rapidity, and thus of compelling the restless 
 tribes to remain upon the reservations set apart for them. 
 In his annual report for 1876 he spoke of the Northern 
 Pacific as " the great Pacific Railway," and characterized 
 it as " an enterprise of infinite advantage to the national 
 welfare and to civilization." In the spirit of this sentence 
 the veteran commander instructed his subordinate officers 
 to furnish escorts to the surveying parties sent out by the 
 Company, and to protect its engineers and laborers en- 
 gaged in construction work ; and he directed the move- 
 ments of the troops engaged in operations against hostile 
 tribes with a view of pushing such tribes far off the line 
 
 
 of the projected road, which Jie knew would be occupied 
 by the vanguard of settlement as fast as the locomotive 
 moved forward into the wilderness. 
 
 The invaluable aid thus afforded by the Commander- 
 in-chief was seconded by Lieutenant-Geaeral Philip H. 
 Sheridan, commanding the Military Division of the Mis- 
 sissippi, and by Major-General W. S. Hancock, who was 
 in command of the Department of Dakota, embracing 
 northern Minnesota, Dakota and eastern Montana, from 
 the time when construction began upon the Northern 
 Pacific road until 1878, and by his successor. General 
 Alfred H. Terry. This department was a part of the 
 Lieutenant-General's military division. Major-General 
 Irwin McDowell, commanding the Military Division of 
 the Pacific, and Brigadier-Generals E. O. C. Ord, George 
 Crook, O. O. Howard and Nelson H. Miles, commanding 
 successively the Department of the Columbia, also ren- 
 dered valuable assistance to the railroad enterprise in the 
 territory west of the Ro'cky Mountains. In the limits of 
 a single brief chapter it is not possible to fittingly recog- 
 nize the services of the many subordinates of these 
 general officers,, who, at lonely military posts, on fatiguing 
 scouting expeditions, or in deadly combats, contributed 
 to the success of an enterprise which has given toagri- 
 culture and commerce, for peaceful homes and prosperous 
 communities, the last domain of savages in the United 
 States. 
 
 Some brief account of the more important military 
 movements and expeditions undertaken in behalf of 
 the Northern Pacific may properly be given here. The 
 party sent out by Jay Cooke & Co. from St. Paul in 
 1869, undercharge of Governor Marshall, of Minnesota, 
 to make a reconnaissance as far as the Missouri River] 
 was furnished with an escort by General HanCock. The 
 party which left the Pacific coast the same year in charge 
 
 i 
 
434 
 
 NORTHER.'^ PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 of Chief Engineer Roberts, and penetrated as far east- 
 ward as the head of the Yellowstone Valley, was given 
 aid and protection by the commander of Fort Ellis, near 
 Bozeman, Montana. In his annual report for 1871 Gen- 
 eral Hancock thus referred to two expeditions sent out 
 that year : " In connection with that great national 
 enterprise, the construction of the Northern Pacific Riil- 
 road, two detachments are now in the practically un- 
 known and unexplored region lying between the Mis- 
 souri River and the Rocky Mountains, in the general 
 direction of the course of the Yellowstone, in the p"o- 
 tection of surveying parties on the road engaged upon 
 a reconnaissance to ascertain if a practicable route 
 therefor is to be found from tie junction of the Heart 
 River with the Missouri, nearly due west to the Yellow- 
 stone, near the mouth of Powder River, and thence up 
 the Yellowstone to a practicable pass in the Belt range 
 of the Rocky Mountains." The first of these expeditions 
 consisted of 400 men of the 20th and 22d Infantry, under 
 command of Major J. N. G. Whistler, escorting a well- 
 armed surveying party. It left Fort Rice on the 9th of 
 September, reached the Powder River, and returned 
 without encountering hostile Indians. The second expe- 
 dition, under Captain Edward Ball, of the 22d Cavalry, 
 was composed of two companies, which left Fort Ellis, 
 Montana, September i6th, to escort the railroad engineers 
 in their examination of the Belt range of mountains, and 
 returned without mishap. Smaller escorts were fur- 
 nished the same year to the company's surveyors en- 
 gaged in running lines between the Red River and the 
 Missouri. In 1872 General Hancock stationed a com- 
 pany at Bismarck to protect the railroad stores and sup- 
 plies, and another at the present site of Jamestown, 
 Dakota, where a post called Fort Seward was established. 
 Several companies of the 20th Infantry encamped that 
 
 AID RENDERED BY THE ARMY. 
 
 435 
 
 summer along the line of the railroad between Fargo and 
 Bismarck to protect the workmen. 
 
 In his report for 1872 Gen. Hancock says: "The In- 
 dians of the plains, through some of their chiefs, notified 
 us that they intended to resist the building of the North- 
 ern Pacific Railroad west of the Missouri, and notwith- 
 standing that threats of Indians are not always followed 
 by attacks, in this case it proved that they were not en- 
 tirely idle, as attacks more or less formidable were sub- 
 sequently made by them upon commands sent as escorts 
 to railroad surveying parties during the summer and fall 
 on the Missouri and along the Yellowstone rivers. On 
 the 29th of June I received instructions from the Lieu- 
 tenant-Gcneral to jDreparc two commands as escorts for 
 two surveying parties of the Northern Pacific Railroad, 
 one to proceed from Fort Rice on the Missouri River 
 about 240 miles and return, the other to start from Fort 
 Ellis, Montana, proceed to the mouth of Powder River, 
 310 miles, and return byway of the Musselshell River." 
 
 A subsequent report gives an account of these expedi- 
 tions. The first, under command of Col. D. Stanley, 22d 
 Infantry, was composed of 600 infantry. It reached 
 the Powder River on the iSth of August, after numerous 
 skirmishes with Indians, and then returned to P'ort Rice. 
 The second expedition, commanded by Maj. E. M. Baker, 
 was made up of 400 men, of whom 182 were cavalry. It 
 left Fort Ellis on the 27th of July, and on the 14th of 
 August was attacked at the mouth of Pryor's Creek, on 
 the Yellowstone, by a large body of Indians. The In- 
 dians were repulsed ; but Maj. Baker apprehending an 
 assault by a still more formidable force, only went as far 
 as Pompey's Pillar, and then crossing the plains to the 
 Musselshell River returned to Fort Ellis, Gen. Han- 
 cock expressed his dissatisfaction at the result of this 
 expedition. 
 
m 
 
 436 
 
 NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 AID RENDERED BY THE ARMY. 
 
 437 
 
 M. 
 
 In December, 1872, Gen. Hancock was transferred to 
 another department, and was succeeded by Gen. Terry. 
 In 1873 Gen. Sheridan, commanding the military division, 
 arranged with Capt. Coulson, who owned a line of steam- 
 boats on the Missouri, to furnish a boat to ascend the 
 Yellowstone with supplies for a depot to be established 
 for the protection of the Northern Pacific surveyors. 
 The command of this expedition was given to Maj. George 
 A. Forsythe, of Sheridan's staff. A site near the mouth 
 of Glendive Creek was fixed upon for the new post, and 
 troops were sent out to it from Forts Rice and Abra- 
 ham Lincoln. 
 
 During the five years of inactivity in the affairs of the 
 Northern Pacific Company which followed the commer- 
 cial crisis of 1873 occurred the last great struggle with 
 the Sioux tribes, with its terrible incident of the massacre 
 of General Custer and his entire command of five com- 
 panies of cavalry in the battle of the Little Big Horn, in 
 1876. The war was not ended until 1877, when the 
 operations of Generals Crook and Miles, under the orders 
 of General Terry, were successful in clearing the Indians 
 out of the Yellowstone Valley and reducing them to sub- 
 jection. When construction work was recommenced on 
 the Northern Pacific line west of the Missouri in 1879, 
 the warlike Sioux v/crc established upon reservations 
 and peaceably disposed, and the pathway of the railroad 
 was open through to the Pacific slope. The Crows, who 
 inhabit a large reservation in the Upper Yellowstone 
 Valley, were friendly to the whites, and readily ceded for 
 a price the right of way through their reservation. The 
 Flatheads, through whose reservation in northwestern 
 Montana the road runs, also made reasonable terms for 
 right of way. The small tribes in western Idaho and 
 eastern Washington were well disposed during the build- 
 ing of the road, and the military posts established at Lake 
 
 Coeur d'Al^ne, Colville and on the Spokane River afforded 
 ample safeguards against any unexpected demonstration 
 on their part. The outbreak, long retreat and final capt- 
 ure of the Nez Perce Chief Joseph and his followers in 
 1877, and the brief campaign of the Bannocks the follow- 
 ing year, were the final chapters in the long history of 
 Indian wars in the Northwest. The Northern Pacific 
 Railroad has done what General Sherman predicted it 
 would do — it has settled the Indian question in all the 
 States and Territories it traverses. When the locomotive 
 came the red man knew that his fight against civilization 
 was at an end. 
 
 THE END. 
 
ujr 
 
 12«* 
 
 M 
 
pjBa,;iiiMipi|i 
 
 MAP 01 'I HE NOUTllFRN PA( IFIC' HAIl.HOAD.I 
 
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