Wagons to the Willamette: Captain Levi Scott and the Southern Route to Oregon, 1844-1847
270Wagons to the Willamette: Captain Levi Scott and the Southern Route to Oregon, 1844-1847
270Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
In the early 1840s, emigrants who reached The Dalles and chose to continue to the Willamette Valley had to embark on a perilous raft trip and portage down the Columbia River. Answering the plea of settlers and the provisional government, Scott participated in two expeditions seeking a better, safer way through the Cascades. The second, organized by Jesse Applegate in June 1846, yielded the southern route through the Umpqua Valley, three mountain ranges, and the Black Rock Desert. Early on a July 1846 morning, the party found the Humboldt River along the established California Trail.
At Fort Hall, Applegate recruited parties to travel the new route. Scott led the initial wagon train west while others went ahead to prepare the road. He details a harrowing trip that included unwatered desert, soda plains, mirages, a heroic mother, dense timber, and steep canyons.
In 1847 Scott led a second group to the Willamette Valley over the alternate trail and retraced it again in 1849. He faced narrow escapes and witnessed several deadly encounters with Native Americans. Later he ran cattle, founded Scottsburg, and participated in Oregon's territorial legislature.
As he neared his ninetieth birthday Scott employed his friend James Layton Collins to help him record his life story, but the memoir was never published. Now edited and extensively annotated, Scott's autobiography has become Wagons to the Willamette. An exceptional contribution to Oregon Trail history, his reminiscence is the only first-hand account written by someone who not only searched for the southern route but also accompanied its first wagon train.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780874223330 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Washington State University Press |
Publication date: | 10/20/2015 |
Pages: | 270 |
Sales rank: | 494,076 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
James Layton Collins traveled with his family over the southern route to Oregon. He settled in Polk County, went to California in 1853 for a time, then served in the Yakima War in Washington Territory. He had a distinguished legal career. He was admitted to the bar in 1859 and appointed Polk County judge in 1869. In the 1880s, Collins helped his longtime friend Levi Scott revise and polish his manuscript.
Stafford Hazelett graduated from Willamette University in 1971 with a B.A. in English literature, and from Lewis & Clark Law School in 1983 with a J.D. The lifelong Oregon resident is a descendant of a three-generation family of emigrants who, guided by Levi Scott in 1846, followed the newly opened Southern Route, sometimes called the Applegate Trail. Since retiring from active law practice, Hazelett has devoted his time to studying the people and locations of the old Oregon Trail and in particular, the Southern Route.
Table of Contents
ContentsIntroduction
Preliminaries: Levi Scott's Life to 1844
The Collins Manuscript
Chapter V: Tragedy and Departure for Oregon, 1844
Chapter VI: Adventures on the Way to OregonAsh Hollow to Fort Hall
Chapter VII: Fort Hall to The Dalles
Chapter VIII: Exploring a New Country
Chapter IX: 1846 Trail Explorations
Chapter X: Finding a Way to the Humboldt River
Chapter XI: The Final Link and Recruiting Emigrants
Chapter XII: Scott Leads the Emigrants into Southern Oregon
Chapter XIII: Trouble: No Road and Death and Distress
Chapter XIV: More Trouble in 1846, and the 1847 Emigration
Chapter XV: Emigrant Adventures and the Whitman Incident
Postscript: Levi Scott's Life After 1847
Appendix 1: Levi Scott's Reminiscence, 1844-1847
Appendix 2: Provisional Governor George Abernethy's Advice to Emigrants of 1847
Appendix 3: Scott's Letter to the Oregon Spectator, October 25, 1847
Appendix 4: "From Oregon," by John Luce
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index