Incidents in Pioneer Days
People who come to the Pacific States in palace cars, making the trip in four or
five days, can have but a faint conception of the toils and hardships endured by
those who crossed the plains with teams before the advent of railroads.
Experience would also be necessary, perhaps, to enable one to fully appreciate
the humorous phases of the journey; but doubtless scores of old pioneers have
smiled at sight of a certain paper which was posted on a tree by the side of the
trail between Elk creek and Auburn in the fall of '62, for it could not but
remind them of the manner in which emigrants asked any one of whom they chanced
to meet on the plain, for information about the country beyond, and also about
mining for gold when they first encountered men who were engaged in following
that pursuit.
In a gulch a few rods from the place where the paper above alluded to was
posted, three or four miners were at work, and when any one stopped to read the
questions and answers written upon the paper referred to, they evidently enjoyed
taking observations of the progress he was making in the pursuit of knowledge.
The queries and replies ran something like this:
Q. Are you digging gold?
A. Yes sir.
Q. How much do you get?
A. About enough to pay grub.
Q. Are you on a lead?
A. Not that we know of.
Q. Where could I find a rich claim?
A. Don't know.
Q. What do you pile the stones up for?
A. To get them out of our way.
Q. Ain't there any gold in 'em?
A. Think not.
Q. Ever mash any of 'em?
A. Never did.
Q. What you got troughs for?
A. To wash dirt in.
Q. Gold in that dirt? A. Some
Q. Don't it go through the troughs?
A. Not much.
Q. What's your name?
A. Wright.
Q. Where'd you come from?
A. California.
Q. Did you know Ezekiel Snyder there?
A. No.
Q. Did you ever get acquainted with Jonas Fowler?
A. Never did.
Q. Did you ever see Samuel Finch?
A. No Sir.
Q. Or Joseph Blazer?
A. No Sir.
Q. Or Hugh Crapper or his brother?
A. No Sir.
Q. Does this path go to Auburn? A. Yes sir.
Q. How far is it?
A. Three miles.
Q. Can a fellow get a good claim A. Can't tell you.
Q. Did you ever prospect that hill?
A. Never did.
Q. If you don't make more than grub what do you stay here for?
A. Just to answer questions for immigrants.
'Away back in the sixties,' to use a pioneer's phrase,
when the wild geese and ducks were plentiful in the valley, parties of sportsmen
would go down from Auburn on a shooting expedition every spring. On one occasion
quite a number of persons went down to the valley and camped near the old Slough
House. The next morning they struck out through the valley hunting wild fowl. C.
M. Foster and David Littlefield going in the same direction but keeping a little
way apart. Presently Littlefield fired both barrels of his shotgun and called
excitedly to Foster to come to him. When Foster came up he inquired: "What were
you shooting Dave?" "I don't know, but its something big," said Dave. He had his
gun reloaded by that time and seeing the dry grass and weeds shake, he
discharged both barrels again in the direction of the big animal evidently with
fatal effect that time. Upon going to the spot he found a dead sheep.
Littlefield begged Foster not to tell about it when they returned to Auburn.
Foster told the boys in camp without letting Dave know what he had done, and
when the party started for home, some of the boys went across the hills and told
everybody in Auburn. Littlefield returned by way of the river road, and when he
arrived at town all of the people were imitating the bleating of sheep.
In 1863, the few settlers in Powder River Valley who
tried farming and gardening, realized great profit, as all kinds of vegetables
were in demand at high prices. Mr. Kinnison had quite a patch of corn which he
sold at one dollar per dozen ears, and all kinds of garden vegetables sold at
corresponding rates. Some rutabagas were grown, requiring no other care than to
plow the ground and sow the seed and gather the crop in the fall. The yield was
great, and prices being so high, they were a most profitable crop, and the next
year so many were grown that there was no market for them, although they were
rated at three cents per pound. In the winter of '64-5 a trade could be made any
day if a person could be found who would take rutabagas in exchange for anything
he might have to dispose of. It became a kind of stereotype joke to refer to
anything pertaining to the valley as a rutabaga arrangement, &c., the name even
being taken into politics in 1870 when it was thought the candidates in the
democratic convention who hailed from the mining districts were slighted, and
the ticket nominated by the convention was called the rutabaga ticket.
One of John Furman's characteristic jokes was an
allusion to the notoriety of the rutabaga. He was telling in the presence of an
Auburn landlord, how he had been flattering himself with the prospect of a
different fare, during his stay in the city, from what he had been having in the
valley. He said the landlord who was helping to serve the guests, asked a city
gent who was next to himself, if he would have roast beef, roast pork or mutton
chop. Furman said he thought when his turn came he would order what would be a
real change from the valley fare, but when the city gent was served, he said the
landlord came to him and asked: "Which will you have, soft cabbage or
rutabagas?"
Some of the valley boys organized a troop in the winter
of '67-68, which they called the Ruta Baga Minstrels. They gave several
entertainment's in the rutabaga district and then made an appointment at Baker
City. The evening the exhibitions were to be given they came into town in a
wagon, bearing two poles, each have a large ruta baga on its top. The price of
admission was $1; sixty tickets were sold.
A Mr. McConkey who spent the winter of '64-5 in Powder River Valley 'rustling
for grub," said he could get pleanty of work to do, but when he would apply for
a job, he said: "they jist got to pokin' bagas at me.
Thirty-one Years in Baker County, Isaac Hiatt
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