The Busy Life of Eighty-Five Years of Ezra Meeker Ventures and adventures by Ezra Meeker

Author:Ezra Meeker [Meeker, Ezra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-09-06T22:00:00+00:00

Directly this party was sent out to search for a pass through the mountains another party was set to work to follow and cut the trail. All seemingly went well for awhile, and until there came no word to the public from DeLacy. The trail workers were yet at work, but did not know what was ahead of them. DeLacy had to them become a sort of myth. The fact was he had failed to find a pass, and when he arrived at a point that he thought was the summit, he had yet fifty miles or more of the worst of the mountains ahead of him. Meanwhile, the trail out from Whatcom for forty or fifty miles became well worn by men and animals going and returning. I saw sixty men with heavy packs on their backs start out in one company, everyone of whom had to come back after floundering in the mountains for weeks. So long as there could be kept up a hope that the trail would be cut through, just so long a complete collapse of the townsite boom might be averted, and so DeLacy was kept in the mountains searching for a pass which was never found.

About the time I landed in Whatcom, H. L. Yesler and Arthur A. Denny headed a party to go through the Snoqualmie Pass, but they did not reach the open country. W. H. Pearson, the intrepid scout, who won such laurels with Governor Stevens in his famous ride from the Blackfeet country, conducted a party of eighty-two persons, sixty-seven of whom packed their bedding and food on their backs, through the Snoqualmie Pass to the Wenatchee, where they were met by the Indians in such numbers and threatening mood that nearly all beat a hasty retreat.

Simultaneous with the movement through the Snoqualmie Pass, like action was set on foot to utilize the Natchess Pass, and large numbers must have gotten through, as on August 7th the report was published that fourteen hundred miners were at work on the Natchess and Wenatchee. This report we know to be untrue, although it is possible that many prospectors were on those rivers, and we know also some gold was taken out, and more for many years afterwards. But the mines on these rivers did not prove to be rich nor extensive.

At the same time efforts were made to reach the mines by crossing the mountains further south. The people of Oregon were sure the best way was to go up the Columbia River to The Dalles, and thence north through the open country, and more than a thousand men were congregated at The Dalles at one time preparing to make the trip northward.

All this while the authorities of British Columbia were not asleep, but fully awake to their own interests. Soon Governor Douglass put a quietus upon parties going direct from Puget Sound ports into the Fraser River, and several outfits of merchandise were confiscated, among which was one of McCaw and Rogers from Steilacoom.

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