Pioneer reminiscences of Puget Sound Author:Ezra Meeker Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. The Arrival. About nine o'clock at night, with a bright moon shining, on October 1st, 1852, I carried my wife in my arms up the steep bank of t... more »he Willamette River, and three blocks away in the town of Portland to a colored man's lodging house. "Why, sah, I didn't think yuse could do that, yuse don't look it," said my colored friend, as I deposited my charge in the nice, clean bed in a cozy, little room. From April until October, we had been on the move in the tented field, with never a roof over our heads other than the wagon cover or tent, and for the last three months, no softer bed than either the ground or bottom of the wagon bed. We had found a little steamer to carry us from the Cascades to Portland, with most of the company that had floated down the river from The Dalles, in the great scow. At the landing we separated, and knew each other but slightly afterwards. The great country, Oregon, (then including Puget Sound) was large enough to swallow up a thousand such immigrations and yet individuals be lost to each other, but a sorrier mess it would be difficult to imagine than Confronted us upon arrival. Some rain had fallen, and more soon followed. With the stumps and logs, mud and uneven places, it was no easy matter to find a resting place for the tented city so continually enlarging. People seemed to be dazed; did not know what to do; insufficient shelter to house ail; work for all impossible; the country looked a veritable great field of forest and mountain. Discouragement and despair seized upon some, while others began to enlarge the circle of observation. A few had friends and acquaintances, whichfact began soon to relieve the situation by the removals that followed the reunions, while suffering, both mental and physical, followed the arrival i...« less