Editor of Statesman:
    Sir--Last evening two men, named Hayden and Williams, arrived at this place, reporting that they were attached to Colonel T'Vault's party of twenty men, which left Port Orford a short time since in search of a passage from that port to the mining country in the interior. They give the following account of that expedition:
    After spending several days in the mountains in an ineffectual attempt to discover a passage, the men and horses becoming worn down with fatigue and hunger, they separated into two parties of ten men each, one half retracing their steps to Port Orford, while Col. T'Vault, with the remainder, attempted to strike across the country for the Umpqua. They (the latter party) abandoned their animals, and arriving at the headwaters of the Coquille River (which, unfortunately, they mistook for the Coos), engaged some Indians to convey them in their canoes to the coast. Towards night (one of the canoes containing four men being three miles in the rear) Col. T'Vault with five of their party reached an Indian village and requested to be landed on the opposite shore, which the Indians refused to do, but carried them directly to the village, when the instant they touched the shore they were suddenly attacked by about 200 Indians, and their arms wrested from them.
    Messrs. Hayden and Williams escaped to the woods with one other of the party, whom they have since neither seen nor heard from. At the time of their escape one of their number had been killed. Col. T'Vault was thrown down on the beach, and another was held in the water by the Indians, who were also beating them on the head with guns and paddles.
    Hayden and Williams have been eight days reaching this place, having subsisted, in the meantime, on berries and mussels, and being almost entirely without clothing. The former is unhurt, except from fatigue and exposure, while the latter is badly if not mortally wounded, having two arrows shot into him and otherwise much bruised and cut.
Oregon Statesman, Oregon City, October 7, 1851, page 2




    They did not find their way through to the Rogue River country; after several days' travel they came upon the headwaters of a river which they learned put into the Pacific some thirty miles north of Port Orford. Here they induced some Indians to take them (the eight) in a large boat to the ocean. When the boat party arrived within a mile or so of the ocean they met, on the bank of the river, the tribe of Indians called the Coquilles, that being the name of the river down which they had come. It being in the morning, they concluded to stop there among the Coquille for breakfast, and as they turned their boat to the shore they saw nearly a hundred Indians standing on the bank
and glad to see so many white men who, they supposed, had come down from the settlements in Oregon. As the boat approached the shore, an Indian chief stepped into the water and took hold of the side of the boat to pull it up so the men could get out without wetting their feet. This act of the chief was construed by one of the white men as unfriendly. He struck the chief's hand with a paddle, drawing blood from the hand and bruising it considerably, whereupon the chief jumped into the boat. At that instant a white man standing in the stern of the boat fired his rifle, killing the chief; thereupon two more Indians jumped into the boat, and they, too, were shot dead, making three dead Indians in the boat before there had been the slightest demonstration on the part of the Indians of unfriendly feeling, and this, too, while upward of a hundred Indians stood on the bank of the river witnessing the whole transaction--the violence of the white men and murder of their chiefs. It is hardly necessary to say a deadly fight ensued.
    The Indians supposed they had killed all the white men, but it seems an Indian boy with his boat saw two men (while) struggling in the water, a few rods down the river from the scene of the affray. The boy helped them into his boat and carried them to the other side of the river, and signed to them to hide in the bushes out of sight until darkness set in. After dark they crept along the riverside to the ocean beach, and thus they proceeded, hiding by day and traveling by night, until they got within six miles of Port Orford, when they were discovered by the Indians. This was on Sunday, the same day I arrived at Port Orford.
    My first act on landing was to call some ten or twelve Indians who were hovering about the shore to me. I opened a bale of red blankets and gave one to each Indian. They seemed delighted, and after talking to them through my interpreters they started off, some up and some down the coast. Two of those Indians belonged to the band who had discovered the two survivors of the eight explorers who were to make their way to Port Orford. Upon their being discovered by the Indians they were tied hand and foot to a small tree, and their captors were deliberating as to the mode of putting them to death. While thus deliberating, two of the Indians to whom I had given the red blankets came running into the Indian camp, announcing that a good friend of the Indians had arrived at Port Orford from their Great Father, and exhibited the red blankets as gifts from
and repeated the talk I had with them. The Indian council at once liberated the two white prisoners, dressed their wounds, fed them bountifully and prepared a bed of bearskins for them. The poor, wounded, half-dead and terrified whites slept in peace and continued to sleep for twenty-four consecutive hours. On awakening they were again washed, their wounds dressed, again fed and brought into Port Orford on litters made by the Indians, and carried by them six miles into Port Orford. Most of the facts in relation to the doings of the exploration party of eight was derived from the two prisoners brought to me at Port Orford. They finally recovered, and always attributed their rescue to the gift of the red blankets and my friendly talk and treatment of the Indians on my landing at Port Orford. [The pair were apparently T'Vault and Brush.]
Anson Dart, "Early White Treachery," San Francisco Chronicle, May 18, 1873, page 7


    Captain Tichenor left between forty and fifty men at Port Orford, and in August again visited the place, bringing with him a reinforcement from Portland, increasing the population to about seventy. Preparations were now made to explore for a road to the mines in the interior, and on the 24th of August a party of twenty-three, headed by W. G. T'Vault, Oregon's Postmaster General under the provisional government, set out on this mission. T'Vault was an experienced frontiersman, but the majority with him were young Californian adventurers, eager to arrive at the mines. They were furnished with horses, and proceeded southward along the coast as far as Rogue River, having no trouble with the Indians until they reached that stream, where they suffered some annoyance. On the 1st of September, when they were about fifty miles inland on Rogue River, their provisions running low, and the course they should pursue being very uncertain, fourteen of the party turned back, leaving T'Vault with but eight followers, only
one of whom was a hunter.
    It had been the intention to follow up the river to the crossing of the Oregon
and California trail, but the trend of the ridges they were compelled to cross carried them northeast, until on the 9th they found themselves upon the headwaters
of a stream apparently falling into the ocean in the latitude of Cape Blanco. Convinced they were traveling in a circle, and despairing of reaching the interior, the explorers followed this stream down to its junction with a river which one of the party, who had been with Kirkpatrick in his flight, recognized as the Coquille, and where they fell in with some of the natives.
    Their horses were by this time worn out, and it was difficult forcing them through the thick undergrowth of the Coquille bottom land, and as they had
nothing left to carry but their guns, it was decided to abandon the horses and trust to the natives, whose canoes were drawn up on the bank of the river. An agreement was entered into, and two canoes engaged to take them to the river's mouth.
    Hungry and exhausted, the party gladly seated themselves in the frail wherries, and passed several days on the journey after the loitering fashion of Indians. The only incident that excited suspicion was the discovery of a gun in the possession of one of the natives, which had been broken over a savage head three months before in the battle of Port Orford. This fact seemed to inculpate the Coquilles, although they might have obtained it of a neighboring tribe.
    Early on the morning of the 14th the canoes arrived at the Coquille village, about two miles above the mouth of the river. Without consulting their passengers the Indians landed, and the canoes were drawn up on the sands. No sooner had they touched the shore than they were attacked by a waiting horde of savages armed with bows and arrows, to which had recently been added long knives made of the band-iron of the wrecked Hackstaff. The first movement of the Indians was to disarm the white men. If they could effect this, they might kill them by any fiendish mode of torture their imaginations could invent.
    A fearful struggle now took place. Those who could, sprang into the river, where they saw and heard, while fighting for their own lives, a horrible confusion of blows, yells, shrieks and all the bloody business of a massacre. T'Vault, who was in the water, saw not far from him one of his men, with an Indian standing over him in a canoe, beating him on the head with a paddle.
    At this painful moment there darted out from shore a canoe in which stood a young Indian lad, who directed his course to this man, and pushing off the other canoe assisted him into his own, and picking up T'Vault also handed him the paddle, and swam back to the company of his cruel kindred. This act saved their lives. T'Vault was not seriously wounded, but his companion had a portion of his scalp torn off, and both were sore with bruises. Stripping off most of their clothing, they crept into the woods and made their way, famished and suffering much, to Port Orford.
    The most remarkable experience in this unfortunate expedition was that of L. L. Williams, then a young man just from Michigan, but now an Oregon pioneer residing at or near Ashland. In a hard struggle with two powerful savages, who were attempting to take away his rifle, the piece was discharged; the report alarmed his assailants, and gave him an instant's time to collect his thoughts. Dashing through the crowd of yelling savages, hearing the cries and groans of his companions, he fought madly with the empty rifle until only the barrel remained in his hands. Once
he was felled to the ground, but quickly recovering himself, he broke through the surging ranks and darted towards the woods. As he ran he was hit between the left hip and lower ribs by an arrow, penetrating the abdomen, and instantly checking his flight. Finding it impossible to move, he attempted to draw out the shaft, which broke off, leaving a portion of its length, with the barb, in his body, but so greatly was he excited that he was conscious of no suffering from it.
    Being still pursued by about a dozen savages, a race for life ensued, and singular as it may appear under such conditions, Williams distanced all but two, who ran about evenly with him, one shooting arrows at him every minute or two. Being in despair of escaping alive, he at length turned on them, pursuing in his turn. But while he ran after one, the other shot at him from behind. To make him utterly hopeless, his pantaloons fell about his feet, the suspenders giving way, and compelling him to stop while he kicked them aside. From a wound on his head the blood ran down into his eyes, blinding him, and as he made for the cover of the forest he fell headlong. At that the Indians rushed upon him, and one who carried the captured gun attempted to fire, but the gun snapped without going off.
    When the gun failed a sudden hope was born in the young man's brain, and springing to his feet, he met his assailant with his own gun barrel drawn. A duel with guns for clubs followed, short but effective. After a few bruises received, a fortunate blow directed with skill laid his antagonist in the dust. Seizing the gun the Indian let fall, he aimed at the last of his pursuers, if only to frighten him, but to his surprise and joy it was charged, and the Indian fell dead.
    Exhausted, and expecting only to die of his wounds, Williams sought the shelter of the woods and lay down to await death, but feeling, after an hour's rest, life still stirring in his body and brain, he set forward in the direction of the Umpqua, and in the afternoon fell in with Cyrus Hedden, one of his companions, who, having been with Kirkpatrick when he left Port Orford for the Umpqua, was consequently somewhat familiar with the country. By the aid of Hedden and some friendly Indians he finally reached Umpqua City. Perhaps the strangest part of Williams' remarkable story, which included six days of intense suffering from his wounds, from cold, for he was naked, and from famine, for there was nothing to eat except what the beach furnished, is that he did not die. His wounds healed quickly, except that in the abdomen, which discharged for a year. Three years later the arrowhead worked out, but not until the seventh year did that portion of the shaft which had borne the head follow it. The five men who did not escape were never heard from.
    I do not know what state T'Vault was from--probably from Missouri [no]. The man who escaped with him was Gilbert Brush of Texas. T. J. Davenport, who escaped, was from Massachusetts. Hedden was from New Jersey. Of those who lost their lives, Patrick Murphy was from New York; A. S. Doherty from Texas; John P. Holland from New Hampshire; Jeremiah Ryland from Maryland; J. F. Pepper from New York.
Frances Fuller Victor, "A Province of California," Overland Monthly, July, 1893, pages 100-102


    "Cyrus Hedden was one of the little group of men who were left at the prospective town of Port Orford by Captain Tichenor to form the nucleus of the settlement there. They were attacked by the Indians and took refuge on a high rock near Port Orford, and their bloody battle there gave Battle Rock its name. A few months later he was one of the men who, with W. G. T'Vault, made the perilous and disastrous surveying trip for Captain Tichenor. When the nine men, of whom Mr. Hedden was one, had escaped from the Indians after the fight of Battle Rock, Captain William Tichenor enlisted a number of adventurous miners at San Francisco to establish the town of Port Orford. Landing his second and larger party at the site of his proposed city, Captain Tichenor went on to Portland, where he hired W. G. T'Vault to survey a road from Port Orford to the Southern Oregon mines near Jacksonville.
    "Of the party who were hired to go with Captain T'Vault only one or two knew anything about woodcraft. L. L. Williams, Cyrus Hedden and Captain T'Vault had some experience, but none of them were thorough woodsmen.
    "When Captain T'Vault left Port Orford in the middle of August, 1851, there were 23 in the party. Their plan was to strike eastward and make connections with the Oregon and California trail. The men soon discovered T'Vault knew nothing about the country. They held a meeting and decided to return to Port Orford. By promising them $50 a month, Captain T'Vault induced nine of the party to stay with him. The other 13 men went back to Port Orford.
    "Of the smaller party who decided to press on most were newcomers to the country. They were recent arrivals from eastern cities, who would become lost if out of sight of camp. The party soon lost their bearings, game became scarce, their food supply ran out and at last two of the men, Ryan and Murphy, played out and refused to go any farther. Williams and one of the other men went out to secure some game. Williams did not return, but the other man shot a wood rat, which they divided among the party. Some time later Williams came into camp and told them he had killed an elk. They moved their camp to where the elk was and stayed up nearly all night cooking and eating the meat.
    "Next morning the men decided to make their way to the coast. They ran across an Indian who guided them to the Coquille River, where they came upon three Indians in their canoes. This was at noon on September 13, 1851. The Indians were hired to take the men in their canoes to the coast. Not far from the mouth of the Coquille they came upon an Indian camp. T'Vault wanted to go ashore and buy some salmon from the Indians. Mr. Hedden, L. L. Williams, Gilbert Brush and Pepper protested against going ashore on account of the danger of trouble with the Indians. T'Vault had hardly landed till they were attacked. Ryan, Murphy, Pepper and Holland were knocked down by the Indians' war clubs. T'Vault jumped into the river and was helped across the river by one of the Indian boatmen and escaped. Williams was shot with seven or eight arrows, so was Doherty. The Indians overtook Doherty as he ran with Williams and shot over 40 arrows in his back as he lay on the ground, then beat his head in with a club. Williams killed two Indians who were pursuing him and crawled into the brush and hid. Mr. Hedden had been left for dead, but had crawled into the brush and came upon Mr. Williams. Mr. Hedden pulled the arrows out of Mr. Williams' back and arms. He got them all out but one that had gone in and broken off in his groin. For the next eight days Mr. Hedden dragged and carried Mr. Williams, who begged him to kill him and put him out of his misery. He would neither kill him nor leave him and at last, after living on bugs and snails for more than a week, they met some friendly Indians, who took them to Gardiner.
    "For the next eight years L. L. Williams was helpless and Mr. Hedden and others helped support him. Finally the arrowhead and the broken wood worked out and Mr. Williams recovered. Mr. Williams was made county treasurer of Umpqua County, serving two terms, and later served two terms as county clerk of Umpqua County. When Umpqua County was absorbed by Douglas County he served for five terms as county clerk of the consolidated counties.
    "When Mr. Williams died he left over $50,000. Here is a copy of his will. Listen to this paragraph: 'To my friend, Cyrus Hedden of Scottsburg, for kind care and attendance while suffering from wounds received from the Indians, I give and bequeath the sum of $5000. To my friend, Mary Emily Test, daughter of Daniel and Mary Test of Junction City, all the residue of my property after the other bequests are paid.' After Grandfather Hedden had received his $5000 and the other bequests had been paid, Mary Test, who was a teacher in the public school at Portland, received the rest, amounting to something over $20,000."
Mrs. John Hedden, quoted by Fred Lockley, "Oregon: In Earlier Days," Oregon Journal, Portland, August 7, 1914, page 6


    SUTHERLIN, Or., May 3.--(Special.)--Cyrus Hedden, who died at Scottsburg, Or., March 29, 1911, at the age of 91, performed one of the most heroic exploits in the history of the Indian wars of early Southern Oregon.
    In June, 1851, Mr. Hedden, with eight companions, landed at the present site of Port Orford and were attacked by a large force of Indians and driven on a small island, since named Battle Rock, where they were besieged for 16 days. After exhausting their supply of ammunition, the party, including a number of wounded, made their escape at night and after eight days of hardship reached the mouth of the Umpqua, 65 miles north.
    Hedden returned to Port Orford and joined 10 adventurers who were intent upon discovering a pass at the head of the Coquille or Coos rivers. The party became lost. In a famished condition they reached an arm of the Coquille and dropped down the stream in canoes taken from the Indians. [The natives paddled them downstream.] Near the mouth of the river more than 100 savages rushed upon the explorers and four of them were killed. Two of the party escaped by swimming to an overturned canoe.
    Mr. Hedden engaged two savages, killed one with his knife, broke away from the other and escaped into the woods.
    One of his companions, a powerful young woodsman named L. L. Williams, by clubbing his rifle, succeeded in wading through the ranks of savages. Williams raced for the timber, pursued by two warriors keeping up a rapid fire with their arrows. One arrow pierced Williams' abdomen. He jerked the arrow out, breaking off the barb and about three inches of the shaft in his body.
    Infuriated with pain, he crushed the skull of the savage with his rifle barrel and, seizing his gun, he shot and killed his remaining tormentor.
    Williams was soon joined by Hedden. The two struggled through the rough country. The wounded man suffered more acute agony each day and repeatedly begged Hedden to leave him to die and to save his own life.
    The distance from the Coquille to the Umpqua is more than 40 miles, and for the last half of the journey Hedden carried his wounded companion, who was practically helpless. Seven days after the encounter, September 21, 1851, they reached the settlement at the Umpqua. Williams remained an invalid for four years after his rescue, when the arrowhead and shaft were removed from his body.
    L. L. Williams died in 1881 at the age of 53 and he left a fortune of $40,000 to Cyrus Hedden and others of his benefactors.
    A son of Cyrus Hedden, John N. Hedden, still lives at the old pioneer town of Scottsburg.
Oregonian, Portland, June 4, 1916, page 10