Time and Place--Bancroft Library
    San Francisco, Sat., July 13th, 1878
Present--Grover, Bancroft & writer, A.B.
Personale--Tall and slender. Stature 5 ft 10 to 6 feet. Light complexion, full beard
    and mustache; hair partially gray. Blue eyes. Long and narrow head; sharp face;
    prominent, well-formed nose, high at the bridge. Deliberate, manly speech,
    good voice, and polished manner.
           
    I was away serving in Rogue River as a commissioner appointed by the Department of the Interior to audit the Indian war spoliation claims of the Rogue River region in 1853. The Indians broke out there in 1853 and burned all the houses in that country and killed a great many of the people, and the government assumed to compensate the settlers for their losses. They withheld the amounts from the annuities of the Indians. That was in the winter of 1854-5, at Jacksonville, that the commission sat. Every house had burnt from what is known as the Cañon up to T'Vault's house, at what is now called Dardanelles--through the Umpqua Mountains. There were several houses and quite a number of settlements all along that road. Every house was destroyed, and several people were murdered. All through the valley of the Rogue River there was a general destruction of residence property by the Indians, and the people were forted up at Dardanelles and at one point in the upper valley and were gathered into Jacksonville for safety.
    When these Indian hostilities were suppressed by the settlers with some aid from Willamette Valley in arms and ammunition, one company of men of which ex-Senator Nesmith was the captain and I was 1st lieutenant, and the present Indian agent at Umatilla Reservation, Major Connoyer was the 2nd lieutenant; we went out there and helped them to suppress the Indians. Gen. Jo Lane commanded all the volunteers. The old general was badly shot in the left arm near the shoulder in the battle of the mountains there, back of Table Rock. A good many whites were killed, and a good many Indians.
    After a good deal of skirmishing and some hard fighting the principal battle being this battle of the mountains, the Indians sent in word that they wanted to make peace, but that they would do it on one condition: that there should be only five men to come to talk about peace, and the whites should come out to their place near this Battle Mountain, six miles away from any troops. Prior to that the whites down on Applegate Creek had got a band of Indians in there to talk peace. They made a great feast and lured them in to have a talk, but while the Indians were eating their feast a set of rough men went in and killed about all of them, without notice. Gen. Lane was reminded of this circumstance when this word came in, and he said that old Joe and old Sam--the one was the war chief and the other the chief of peace--sent him word to come out there with others to talk about making a peace. And he said he would go out there and talk with them. They were to go unarmed, and no troops were to be within six miles of the place.
    He went around the camp to see who would like to go out there and make this talk. He said he wanted men who would not be afraid to go, and who would not get excited if they met with any difficulty. They went altogether without arms. Gen. Palmer, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, was to be one. He was present. Gen. Lane invited me to go and invited Capt. Smith of the regular army, who was there with a few regulars--the late Major General A. J. Smith, in the late war. He invited Mr. Metcalfe, who was connected with the Indian agency there locally, and one other as interpreter. And we went out there. We found the Indians drawn up in the form of a horseshoe; these two old chiefs at the head of the horseshoe and the warriors sitting all around here with their rifles loaded and capped in their hands. And we went into this horseshoe. When we first got there everything looked very solemn and morose, and there was not a word said to us, or to each other. We did not say a word to each other. It looked very black and dangerous. After a while there was a daughter of the old chief called Mary, Queen Mary. She was the wife of an Umpqua chief called Joe. She spoke to our interpreter, and after she had talked to the father some time she told the interpreter that the council could go on, that there was a difficulty, but it was not mainly on account of objecting to peace. But her father Joseph had intermarried into the tribe of the Rogue Rivers; he was an Umpqua, and that his ancestors were the original occupants of all the country north of the Siskiyou Mountains up to the Umpqua Mountains, and they were all called Umpquas, and that Jim, her husband, was the only surviving hereditary chief of the great chief of the Umpquas, who owned all that land, that the Rogue Rivers were interlopers, that her father originated from a northern California chief of Pit River Indians, who were more warlike, and Jim's people having already had a good deal they came in on to this part of the old original Umpqua domain and held it, that that feud had been settled by their marriage.
    Now Jim had not been consulted. He wanted peace, but he had not sent word that he would make peace. He had not sent word to that council and had not been consulted about treating in regard to his country. He was not there. These other Indians did not dare to go on without him. They knew that his right was a good one, and out of courtesy he claimed to be the first to be consulted and that he should be considered as the principal chief. Gen. Lane told them they must go and get that chief. He was twenty miles away. So we waited all that time, and they sent for him. In the meantime they began to pass the pipe around, which showed that they were going to make peace in earnest. Everybody must smoke the pipe--all the head Indians, and the five men that came there.
    In the meantime the Indians began to gather around and showed where they had been shot in the war. We saw that we could make a treaty.
    Directly Jim came in with fast horses. He was very much on his dignity. All was silent again when Chief Jim came in. Jim stood in silence again in this horseshoe. He would take a seat with nobody.
    I recollect he stood up there like a native orator, and began to talk. He spoke at least half an hour in the Indian dialect. There was no jargon about it. You never heard the most polished orator use more perfect intonations and gestures--and the effect it had [on] them was the effect of true oratory. He was recounting the history of his forefathers, and asserting his authority before those chiefs. He gave an affecting history and stated that they had settled it by marrying Queen Mary; she had his heart and she had his hand. Then they made a kind of love feast and went on and killed a fatted ox, and that was the great occasion of making a general treaty.
    Then old Chief Joseph got up. He made his speech in his own tongue. He made his speech for us, and it was interpreted to us. He said, "We have sent for you to come here to make a treaty of peace. We intend what we say. A few days ago some white men sent for the Indians to come into Applegate Creek to have a talk and to make peace. They went and while they were eating their feast the white men came in and killed them all. Now here you are, five of you. We sent for you to come here, and to leave the soldiers behind, six miles off. We told you to come without arms, that we wanted to make peace. We intended what we said. The white men killed the Indians when they said that to them. You are 5 and we are 200 all armed. We could kill you all now." But the Indian chief meant what he said: "The Indian is nobler than the white man." He spread himself up there and looked really a nobleman.
    Old Joe Lane said, "He makes a d---d hard case for us, don't he?" He said to the chief, "There are bad white men and bad Indians. The mistake your Indians made was that they listened to bad white men. They ought to go to the chief men of the whites. If you had come to us we would have treated you right."
    We had no guarantee of our lives when we started on this trip, only what Gen. Lane said--that he had faith in old Chief Joseph and Sam. He said, "I am going; now who will go with me?" He went around the camp and asked us if we would go. It was just such a situation as Thomas and Canby were in. They had the same opportunity, in fact better. There were but few Indians there. They came out between the forces. There were only the same number of Indians as white men and the principal forces were separate. Why, we were entirely at the mercy of the Indians. We were really unarmed; had no pistols, nor anything. Pistols would not have done us any good. We just had red shirts on that is all, and no means of concealing weapons. Red hunting shirts were the custom of the country. Jo Lane had a red hunting shirt on, and I had one on. I do not recollect how Gen. Smith and Palmer were dressed.
    That was the basis of permanent peace so far as that part of the tribe was concerned. A few years afterward Chief John made a difficulty, and he was transported down here to Benicia one time. He was kept there some time. You recollect he tried to take a steamer coming down. He and his son attempted to capture the steamer. That was quite an episode.
    Chief John after making his war in 1854-5 [sic] was captured and taken to Fort Vancouver. I was over there a day or two after he arrived. He was sitting there and had chains on. He looked up to me and said in his jargon, "A few days ago I was a great chief; now I am a dog." That is all he said. La Fayette Grover, Notable Things in a Public Life in Oregon, 1878, Bancroft PA 36-43


. . . not discover it from the Indians.
    Mr. Bancroft. I do not see that this throws any light on it.
    Mr. Grover. No, no light, but it gives it as a name. Several of our historians in Oregon have discussed the matter, & I have mentioned what I saw on that chart. I think I can go into some of those old shops & offices in New York & find that chart. It was an old English chart compiled from the French & Spanish voyages. The name as mentioned by Carver is the first mention undoubtedly of the name.
    Archbishop Blanchet insisted to me that this was called the "Rogue River" because the Indians were wild & roguish. They were bloodthirsty, treacherous & murderous. They never were thieves.
    Mr. Bancroft. That name could be as well applied to one Indian as another. These Indians were so murderous that the early missionaries never dared to go among them. And to show how far they were from any religious instruction even as late as 1855, when they were moved to the Willamette on a reservation, although the different missionaries had been there more than twenty years, those Indians had never received any religious instructions, & there never had been any mission among them because of their wild & savage nature. Everybody was afraid to go there. When they were taken to the Yamhill Co. reservation where the remnants of the tribe now are the Methodist Church at its conference appointed a missionary to go & preach to them.
    The missionary went over there, & he could speak the jargon tongue. He explained to them the nature of the Christian theory, the crucifixion of Christ, his death & the atonement, & spread it out in a light the would attract their attention & invite their sympathies in order to get them to accept religion; he explained that by this atonement all men who were wicked and wrong could be saved. He gave them a full discourse upon the origin of the tenets of the Christian doctrine. They listened to him with a great deal of attention. And the chiefs, when he made a point, said Ugh in giving their assent or dissent.
    After he got all through he told them he would come there every Sabbath & preach to them & he wanted to form a society. He wanted them to come & be good Indians and to join this society. He gave them a pressing invitation.
    Well, they told him after the services were over that they desired him to meet them the next morning, on Monday morning. He was going to leave them that day.
    They said they wanted to see him specially about this matter that he had been stating to them.
    "Well," he said, he would be very happy to confer with them.
    They came, three or four of the principal chiefs, & said they wanted to ask him a few questions about what he had said to them the day before. They said we heard all you had to say, and we were glad to hear you talk. You made a good talk. We are interested in your talk. We want to be good Indians. We have given up our wild habits now.
    "Now we want to know," they said, "if those Jews you spoke of, who killed Christ, were Indians or white men."
    Well, he said, he must state to them that they were white men.
    Then they thought they were very bad white men, as he had said. Now, Christ, "he was a very good man?"
    "Yes."
    "Now what was he? Was he an Indian or was he a white man?"
    "Well, he was a white man. He was a good white man."
    Then they went away and talked together, and came back and told him they did not want him to come up there any more, that they had often got into difficulties by taking up the quarrels of white men, that they frequently were led into difficulties by white men. They believed what he had said, that this Christ was the best man of men, & that he suffered wrongly, but those who killed him were white men, they were not Indians, & they did not wish to be mixed up in that matter. They told him he need not come anymore.
    He never could get their ear, & there never was any religious service of any effect among them until the Catholics came. The Catholics are there now as their religious instructors.
    Mr. Bancroft. They thought it was a regular white men's row, & they did not care anything about it.
    I would like to have you go back to the Provisional Government, & to the character of the different legislatures.
    Mr. Grover. The mere records of the Provisional Government as far as they are preserved are in a small volume collected by myself under authority of the legislature of 1852, called the "Oregon Archives." You will find in that the first meeting of the settlers announced that they proposed to form a government until such time as the United States should extend its government over that country. That simple sentence indicated the controlling idea that they had in forming that government--that it was American in form, & American in purpose. You will find also a rude protest against that first . . .
Notable Things in a Public Life in Oregon, 1878, Bancroft PA 36-43, pages 18-23


    An unexpected attack of heart failure caused the sudden death at 707 Irving Street yesterday morning of La Fayette Grover, ex-Governor of Oregon, ex-Representative, ex-United States Senator, one of the two last surviving delegates to the convention which in 1857 framed the constitution of Oregon and the man who, as Governor of Oregon, in 1876 became a national political figure by refusing to certify the selection of a Republican elector who was holding a federal office, thereby nearly causing the election of Tilden, Democrat, as President of the United States instead of Hayes, Republican.
    Mr. Grover, who was 88 years old, had been in a weakened condition for several years, but his appetite and spirits were good and no immediate apprehension was felt. He arose yesterday and went to the breakfast table as usual. When eating he complained of a feeling of dizziness and leaned back in his chair. Soon he seemed to be on the verge of fainting. He was lifted to a couch and Dr. K. A. J. Mackenzie, the family physician, was summoned. Before the doctor arrived, however, the veteran statesman, the history of whose life is so closely entwined with the early history of Oregon, had died.
    He is survived by his widow, who before her marriage to Governor Grover in 1865 was Miss Elizabeth Carter, daughter of Thomas Carter, a pioneer resident and merchant of Portland, and a son, John Cuvier Grover, an artist and sculptor, now living in Paris.
    La Fayette Grover was born in Bethel, Oxford County, Maine on November 29, 1823. He was a direct descendant of Thomas and Eliza Grover, who came to Massachusetts with Governor Winthrop's colony in 1630. His father, Dr. John Grover, was one of the most distinguished physicians of Maine, rising to be somewhat of a national figure in his profession.
    Mr. Grover was educated at an academy in Bethel, his native town, and spent two years at Bowdoin College. He entered the law office of Asa I. Fish, of Philadelphia, attended the lectures of the Philadelphia Law Academy and was admitted to practice in 1850. He came around the Horn in a merchant vessel in the fall of the same year, arriving at San Francisco in July, 1851. He continued to Portland on the steamer Columbia, which shortly before had inaugurated water service between the two cities, and went at once to Salem.
    His first position of public service was as clerk of the United States District Court, the first session of which was in progress at Salem at the time of his arrival. He resigned after six months' service and associated himself in the practice of his profession with Benjamin F. Harding, who afterwards became United States District Attorney, Secretary of Oregon Territory and United States Senator. In 1852 Mr. Grover was selected by the Legislature as Prosecuting Attorney of the Second Judicial District, which included Marion County and extended south to the California line. He was elected the following year to the Territorial Legislature, and the chairmanship of the judiciary committee was assigned to him. This position enabled him to exercise much influence on the character of legislation enacted. At this session he was the promoter of the bill which led to the establishment of Willamette University, of which institution he was for several years one of the trustees. He was chairman of the board which formulated the first courses of study for the university.
    In 1853 he served as First Lieutenant of a company of volunteers raised at Salem to suppress a serious Indian uprising. The campaign over he was appointed Assistant United States District Attorney for Southern Oregon and in 1854 was chairman of a board of commissioners which settled the value of the damages done to the holdings of settlers by the Indians. The damages were paid by the United States government. During the second Indian war, known as the Yakima campaign, he assisted in raising 2000 volunteers in the states of Oregon and Washington and served on Colonel Nesmith's staff. He was a member later of a military commission that audited the accounts of the two states and presented bills for the expense which they had borne in suppressing the uprising to the national government.
    He was chosen a delegate from Marion County to the constitutional convention in 1857 and became the most important member of that famous body. Slavery and anti-slavery issues were beginning to be agitated through the United States and when the delegates came to that question they submitted it to the electors, the result being an overwhelming vote in the negative. At the election held under the constitution adopted, Mr. Grover was elected the state's first representative in Congress and shared with Joseph Smith and Delazon Smith, selected as Senators, the brunt of the fight at Washington, which resulted in the state's admission by a close margin in 1859.
    The only surviving delegate to the convention which formulated the Oregon constitution is now William Packwood, a resident of Baker.
    For several years thereafter he devoted himself almost exclusively to the practice of law, politics being left in the background. In 1870 he became the Democratic nominee for Governor, after serving four years as the chairman of the party's state central committee, and was elected, basing his campaign on the demand that the Burlingame treaty, which allowed practically free entry of Chinese to the United States, be abrogated. Following his election, the Legislature adopted his view of the Chinese question and adopted a memorial to Congress. Later, when he was selected as United States Senator, in 1877, he continued his fight for the exclusion of Chinese labor from the Northwest. He was re-elected Governor in 1874, resigning in 1877 to go to the United States Senate.
    In his administration the law providing two tugboats at the mouth of the Columbia was enacted. He also interested himself in securing the passage of a measure providing for the construction of the locks on the Willamette River at Oregon City by a private company with state aid. This improvement made the upper end of the river navigable and provided water transportation in competition with rail transportation.
    The most noteworthy act of his incumbency as Governor was his veto of the bill which proposed to allow the City of Portland to issue $300,000 of bonds, the proceeds from the sale of which were to have been donated to Ben Holladay to assist him in building a railroad from Portland up the west side of the Willamette Valley. His action settled the policy of the state on the question of granting public assistance to railroad corporations.
    He was active in the promotion of the state university and the state agricultural college and the institutions for the care and education of deaf mutes and the blind. The Capitol buildings at Salem were constructed during his administration. He also segregated the various grants of land by Congress to the state and put them in such condition that they could be utilized for the support of educational institutions.
    The counting of the electoral votes in 1876 disclosed that Hayes, the Republican nominee, would need the votes of all three Oregon electors if he were to be successful over Tilden, the Democratic aspirant. The deflection of one vote would have meant the success of Tilden. Then it was that Governor Grover became the storm center of political United States. He refused to allow Joseph Watts, who was postmaster at Lafayette, to qualify as an elector, on the ground that he was holding a government position, and sought to name a Democrat, an attorney named Cronin, in his stead.
    Instantly there was a storm all over the United States, the Democrats applauding and the Republicans hurling invective. The other two Republican electors refused to meet with Cronin. They had Watts resign his position as postmaster and then named him the third delegate, a right which they claimed under the Constitution. They were upheld by the Electoral Commission, a body named by Congress to settle this controversy, as well as controversies in Florida and Louisiana. The issue was settled in favor of Hayes with respect to the two Southern states. The Oregon decision resulted in his selection as President by a margin of one electoral vote. After it was all over Watts received his postmastership again.
    In Grover's administration Oregon volunteers captured 12 of the Indians who in the Modoc Indian War murdered General Canby and Rev. Dr. Thomas. a peace commissioner, and turned them over to the United States government for trial.
    In his six years as United States Senator, from 1877 to 1883, he served on the committees on public lands, military affairs, railroads, territories, manufactures and private land claims. He succeeded in having an extension of time granted the Northern Pacific Railroad Company for the completion of its line to the Coast. He also interested himself in obtaining appropriations for river and harbor improvements in Oregon and the extension of the surveys of public lands west of the Rocky Mountains. He was active in the furthering of legislation which eventually led to the virtual exclusion of Chinese labor from the United States.
    Since 1883 Mr. Grover had lived apart from political life. His health forced retirement, and the succeeding years of his life were devoted to private enterprises. Governor and Mrs. Grover laid out the first addition on Portland Heights and they had also been interested in many other real estate investments and improvements. Mr. Grover had been at various times a director of the Ainsworth National Bank, now the United States National Bank, and the Portland Trust Company of Oregon. Of late years Governor Grover, however, met with serious financial reverses. The greater part of his wealth was lost and he died quite poor. One of his earliest business ventures was a large woolen mill at Salem, which is still operating. He was a director of the company, controlling this industry for 15 years. He was also interested in a large flouring mill at Salem.
    The funeral service will be held in Trinity Episcopal Church at 2 o'clock Friday afternoon, Rev. A. A. Morrison, rector of the church, officiating. Burial will be in Riverview Cemetery. The services at the grave will be private.
Oregonian, Portland, May 11, 1911, page 12