Young's Cauldron Redux

In January 2011, I posted "Young's Cauldron." These brief two paragraphs were written in a few minutes during lunch a couple of months earlier, and then a few errors were corrected in the coming weeks. Sometime later, I began documenting the claims in those two paragraphs, and then yesterday corrected an error in the final sentence, adding a new final sentence.

Here, now, is the current version with documentation.

In early 1836, Ewing Young purchased a large iron cauldron from Courtney Walker. Walker had the job of disposing of the goods left behind by Nathaniel Wyeth's abandoned Columbia River enterprise.¹ A successful ice merchant in New England, Wyeth had come west with dreams of making a fortune packing and shipping Pacific salmon for consumption outside the region. Along the way, Wyeth also sought profits from trapping for furs, brokering timber sales, and importing goods to Oregon from Hawaii and the east coast.² Wyeth's Oregon enterprise failed to turn a profit so he liquidated his assets in the region and returned to the ice business.³ Meanwhile, Young had carried on successful trade between New Mexico and Missouri for more than a decade before working his way west to California, and from California driving a herd of horses into Oregon. Wyeth's cauldron had been shipped to Oregon for pickling salmon.⁴ Young originated from Tennessee and saw in the kettle potential for preparing sour mash that he could then distill into whiskey.⁵

Oregon was not a wholly lawless frontier, but with joint occupation by the United States and by England, and with a small non-Indian population, enforcement authorities were far from prominent. United States law banned sale of liquor in Indian Country. The Hudson's Bay Company, England's presence in the region, understood that liquor sales to Indians had a deleterious effect on the fur trade—their business in the region. Young's plan to build a distillery provoked cooperation between HBC employees, American settlers, and missionaries who had recently arrived from the United States with the professed purpose of bringing Christian civilization to Oregon's Native population. The Oregon Temperance Society started a petition drive to dissuade Young from manufacturing spirits, and sent him a letter in early 1837.⁶ Some secondary sources claim that the Oregon Temperance Society formed in response to Young's plans, but the Oregon Mission Record Book contains entries showing that it had formed earlier, 11 February 1836.⁷


Notes

1 “Wyeth claimed to be the first successful colonizer of Oregon. He maintained that he had 'established the nucleus of the present American settlements in these regions.' In substantiation of this claim he pointed out that when he arrived in Oregon in 1832 there were no American settlers in the region. Three members of his first expedition remained in the country until his return in 1834, and nineteen of his second expedition, including the missionaries, settled permanently in Oregon. Wyeth is in truth entitled to a prominent place among the colonizers of Oregon, although the missionaries were more responsible for bringing settlers into the country than he. Wyeth also deserves recognition for the encouragement and opportunities he gave to Thomas Nuttall to study the plant life of the West, the results of which were published in The NorthAmerican Sylva (1842-1849).” W. Clement Eaton, “Nathaniel Wyeth's Oregon Expeditions,” Pacific Historical Review 4, No. 2 (June 1935), 101-113, at 113. Eaton's article offers a good narrative overview of Wyeth's enterprise and is drawn chiefly from letters by Wyeth and his associates. "Twice, in 1832 and 1834, a New England merchant, Nathaniel Wyeth, had attempted unsuccessfully to establish an American trading post on the Columbia in competition with HBC. When he returned to Massachusetts, he left Courtney Walker to dispose of the goods and equipment left at his ill-fated trading post on Sauvie Island. Among the equipment abandoned was a large iron caldron. Young obtained this kettle from Walker and packed it over the Tualatin Mountains to the lower Chehalem Valley. As a youth growing up in the mountains of eastern Tennessee, Young had become acquainted with methods of distilling alcohol from sour mash. With the help of Lawrence Carmichael, he started building a distillery to make whiskey to sell to the local residents and Indians." Kenneth Munford, and Charlotte L. Wirfs. “The Ewing Young Trail,” Benton County Historical Society and Museum, http://www.bentoncountymuseum.org/research/EwingYoungTrail.cf, accessed 2 January 2011. Originally published in the Horner Museum Tour Guide Series, 1981.

2“Nathaniel J. Wyeth to Perry Wyeth,” 2 December 1832, in F. G. Young, ed. The Correspondence and Journals of Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth 1831-6, vol 1 in Sources of the History of Oregon (Eugene: Oregon Historical Society, 1899), 89-90; “Wyeth to Henry Hall, Tucker, and Williams,” 8 Nov. 1833, in Young, 73-78.

3“From the commercial and economic standpoint, Wyeth's enterprise was a failure; from the historian's point of view, it was eminently successful.” Reuben Gold Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, vol 21 (Cleveland, OH: Arthur H. Clark and Company, 1905), 15-16.

4I failed to find references to a cauldron or cauldrons among the supplies shipped on the brig May Dacre. Wyeth's letters do not list the details of such cargo. There is a reference to pickling salmon in “Wyeth to Robert H. Gardner,” 31 January 1832, in Young, 29. “What I wish to know is how salmon are pickled and how smoked and how taken.” Wyeth makes reference to salmon selling in Boston for $16 per barrel, but not in good condition. He claims to have acquired some critical information while on the Columbia during his first journey, viz., “their having been caught too long before they were salted.” “Wyeth to Hall, Tucker, and Williams,” Young, 76. He is referring to the enterprise of Captain John Dominis who arrived on the Columbia with the brig Owyhee in 1829 and returned to Boston with salted salmon later that year. See Jim Lichatowich, Salmon Without Rivers: A History of the Pacific Salmon Crisis (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1999), 82; Joseph E. Taylor, Making Salmon: An Environmental History of the Northwest Fisheries Crisis (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), 60.

5Kenneth L. Holmes, Ewing Young: Master Trapper (Portland: Binfords and Mort, 1967) presents a narrative that covers the principal known features of Young's life. Holmes' Turnerian interpretation is of interest in its own right.

6Gustavus Hines, A Voyage Round the World: with a History of the Oregon Mission (Buffalo: George H. Derby, 1850) has an account of the formation of the Oregon Temperance Society. Although the bulk of Hines' book is grounded in his personal experiences, the first chapter, which concerns the early history of the Oregon Mission is a secondary work, “drawn from the most reliable sources, and, principally from the short notes of the late Rev. Jason Lee, and the Journal of the late Cyrus Shepherd, the first missionary teacher in Oregon” (xi). Hines reproduces a letter from the temperance society to Ewing Young and Lawrence Carmichael, as well as the reply of these gentlemen. It should be expected that these reproductions are not devoid of errors inasmuch as there is a clear inconsistency several pages later. Hines reproduces a letter from Captain William A. Slacum to the missionaries that states it contains a donation of $50; while introducing this letter, Hines indicates the donation to have been $15.

Despite this caveat, reproduction of the letters presents a glimpse into key primary sources:

MESSRS. YOUNG & CARMICAEL:
Gentlemen,– Whereas we, the members of the Oregon Temperance Society, have learned with no common interest, and with feelings of deep regret, that you are now preparing a distillery for the purpose of manufacturing ardent spirits, to be sold in this vicinity; and whereas, we are most fully convinced that the vending of spiritous liquors will more effectually paralyze our efforts for the promotion of temperance, than any other, or all other obstacles that can be thrown in our way; and, as we do feel a lively and intense interest in the success of the temperance cause, believing as we do, that the prosperity and interests of this infant and rising settlement will be materially affected by it, both as it respects its temporal and spiritual welfare, and that the poor Indians, whose case is even now indescribably wretched, will be made far more so by the use of ardent spirits; and whereas, gentlemen, you are not ignorant that the laws of the United States prohibit American citizens from selling ardent spirits to Indians under the penalty of a heavy fine; and as you do not pretend to justify yourselves, but urge pecuniary interest as the reason of your procedure; and as we do not, cannot think it will be of pecuniary interest to you to prosecute this business; and as we are not enemies, but friends, and do not wish, under existing circumstances, that you should sacrifice one penny of the money you have already expended; we, therefore, for the above, and various other reasons which we could urge,
1st. Resolved, That we do most earnestly and feelingly request you, gentlemen, forever to abandon your enterprise.

2nd. Resolved, That we will and do hereby agree to pay you the sum that you have expended, if you will give us the avails of your expenditures, or deduct from them the bill of expenses.

3d. Resolved, That a committee of one be appointed to make known the views of this society, and present our request to Messrs. Young & Carmichael.

4th. Resolved, That the undersigned will pay the sums severally affixed to our names, to Messrs. Young & Carmichael, on or before the thirty-first day of March next, the better to enable them to give up their project.

[Then followed the names of nine Americans, and fifteen Frenchmen, which then embraced a majority of the white men of the country, excluding the Hudson's Bay Company, with a subscription of sixty-three dollars, and a note appended as follows:] (Hines' own words, presumably, although indented as part of the letter)

We, the undersigned, jointly promise to pay the balance, be the same more or less.

JASON LEE

DANIEL LEE

CYRUS SHEPHERD

P. L. EDWARDS

Hines does not give the date of the letter, although the purposes set out in the letter were agreed to at a meeting of the temperance society on 2 January 1837, so perhaps that is the date of the letter. Hines reproduces the reply.

WALLAMETTE, 13th Jan., 1837

TO THE OREGON TEMPERANCE SOCIETY:

Gentlemen,– Having taken into consideration your request to relinquish our enterprise in manufacturing ardent spirits, we therefore do agree to stop our proceeding for the present. But, gentlemen, the reasons for first beginning such an undertaking were the innumerable difficulties placed in our way by, and the tyranising oppression of the Hudson's Bay Company, here under the absolute authority of Dr. McLaughlin, who has treated us with more disdain than any American citizen's feelings could support. But as there have been some favorable circumstances occurred to enable us to get along without making spiritous liquors, we resolve to stop the manufacture of it for the present; but, gentlemen, it is not consistent with our feelings to receive any recompense whatever for our expenditures, but we are thankful to the Society for their offer.

We remain, yours, &c.,

YOUNG & CARNICHAEL. (pp. 19-21).

7Charles Henry Carey, ed., “The Mission Record Book of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Willamette Station, Oregon Territory, North America, Commenced 1834,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 23 (1922), 242.

Oregon Temperance Society: Beginnings

Read this entry in a primary source that was reprinted in the Oregon Historical Quarterly many years ago:

11 February 1836

[I]n compliance with a previous invitation all the neighbors visited us at the Mission house P. M. at which time a temperance society was formed the first existing west of the Rocky mountains O[regon] T[erritory]--Three of our neighbors readily signed the temperance pledge, others made frivolous excuses for not signing and others wanted time to consider of the subject. The following day three of them came and signed--The following week J. Lee obtained nine more subscribers there are in all Eighteen members,--O Lord save this rising settlement from the curse of intemperance.

Mission Record Book of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Willamette Station, Oregon Territory, North America, Commenced 1834, ed. Charles Henry Clay, Oregon Historical Quarterly 23 (1922): 242.

Oregon Temperance Society

Oregon in the 1830s was not a wholly lawless frontier, but with joint occupation by the United States and by England, and with a small non-Indian population, enforcement authorities were far from prominent. United States law banned sale of liquor in Indian Country. The Hudson's Bay Company, England's presence in the region, understood that liquor sales to Indians had a deleterious effect on the fur trade--their business in the region. Young's plan to build a distillery provoked cooperation between HBC employees, American settlers, and missionaries that had recently arrived from the United States with the professed purpose of bringing Christian civilization to Oregon's Native population. The Oregon Temperance Society formed and started a drive to dissuade Young from manufacturing spirits. There was an exchange of letters in January 1837.

Gustavus Hines, A Voyage Round the World: with a History of the Oregon Mission (Buffalo: George H. Derby and Company, 1850) has an account of the formation of the Oregon Temperance Society. Although the bulk of Hines' book is grounded in his personal experiences, the first chapter, which concerns the early history of the Oregon Mission is a secondary work, “drawn from the most reliable sources, and, principally from the short notes of the late Rev. Jason Lee, and the Journal of the late Cyrus Shepherd, the first missionary teacher in Oregon” (xi). Hines reproduces the letters from the temperance society to Ewing Young and Lawrence Carmichael, as well as the reply of these men.

Simple inconsistencies elsewhere in this chapter reduce one's confidence that these letters are error free reproductions, but in the main they are probably faithful. I have conformed to the spelling in Hines, and the italics are his (or in the originals from which he rendered copies).

MESSRS. YOUNG & CARMICAEL:
Gentlemen, – Whereas we, the members of the Oregon Temperance Society, have learned with no common interest, and with feelings of deep regret, that you are now preparing a distillery for the purpose of manufacturing ardent spirits, to be sold in this vicinity; and whereas, we are most fully convinced that the vending of spiritous liquors will more effectually paralyze our efforts for the promotion of temperance, than any other, or all other obstacles that can be thrown in our way; and, as we do feel a lively and intense interest in the success of the temperance cause, believing as we do, that the prosperity and interests of this infant and rising settlement will be materially affected by it, both as it respects its temporal and spiritual welfare, and that the poor Indians, whose case is even now indescribably wretched, will be made far more so by the use of ardent spirits; and whereas, gentlemen, you are not ignorant that the laws of the United States prohibit American citizens from selling ardent spirits to Indians under the penalty of a heavy fine; and as you do not pretend to justify yourselves, but urge pecuniary interest as the reason of your procedure; and as we do not, cannot think it will be of pecuniary interest to you to prosecute this business; and as we are not enemies, but friends, and do not wish, under existing circumstances, that you should sacrifice one penny of the money you have already expended; we, therefore, for the above, and various other reasons which we could urge,
1st. Resolved, That we do most earnestly and feelingly request you, gentlemen, forever to abandon your enterprise.
2nd. Resolved, That we will and do hereby agree to pay you the sum that you have expended, if you will give us the avails of your expenditures, or deduct from them the bill of expenses.
3d. Resolved, That a committee of one be appointed to make known the views of this society, and present our request to Messrs. Young & Carmichael.
4th. Resolved, That the undersigned will pay the sums severally affixed to our names, to Messrs. Young & Carmichael, on or before the thirty-first day of March next, the better to enable them to give up their project.

[Then followed the names of nine Americans, and fifteen Frenchmen, which then embraced a majority of the white men of the country, excluding the Hudson's Bay Company, with a subscription of sixty-three dollars, and a note appended as follows:] (Hines' own words, presumably, although indented as part of the letter)

We, the undersigned, jointly promise to pay the balance, be the same more or less.
JASON LEE
DANIEL LEE
CYRUS SHEPHERD
P. L. EDWARDS

Hines, 19-20

Hines does not give the date of the letter, although the purposes set out in the letter were agreed to at a meeting of the temperance society on 2 January 1837, so perhaps that is the date of the letter. Hines reproduces the reply.

WALLAMETTE, 13th Jan., 1837
TO THE OREGON TEMPERANCE SOCIETY:
Gentlemen, – Having taken into consideration your request to relinquish our enterprise in manufacturing ardent spirits, we therefore do agree to stop our proceeding for the present. But, gentlemen, the reasons for first beginning such an undertaking were the innumerable difficulties placed in our way by, and the tyranising oppression of the Hudson's Bay Company, here under the absolute authority of Dr. McLaughlin, who has treated us with more disdain than any American citizen's feelings could support. But as there have been some favorable circumstances occurred to enable us to get along without making spiritous liquors, we resolve to stop the manufacture of it for the present; but, gentlemen, it is not consistent with our feelings to receive any recompense whatever for our expenditures, but we are thankful to the Society for their offer.
We remain, yours, &c.,
YOUNG & CARNICHAEL.

Hines, 20-21

Johnny Appleseed

Long, long after,
When settlers put up beam and rafter,
They asked of the birds: "Who gave this fruit?
Who watched this fence till the seeds took root?
Who gave these boughs?" They asked the sky,
And there was no reply.
But the robin might have said,
"To the farthest West he has followed the sun,
His life and his empire just begun."
Vachel Lindsey, "In Praise of Johnny Appleseed" (1923)

In my pre-teen and early teen years, I read every book presenting American folktales and legends that was available in our little Air Force base library. Some of my favorites included stories of deforestation (Paul Bunyan), the futile battle against mechanization (John Henry), and the introduction of alien plant species (Johnny Appleseed). The books that pulled me into these stories were fanciful and aimed at young readers. The stories were uprooted from their origins as descriptions of actual lives, exaggerated the known facts, and worked into the realm of myth.

The real Johnny Appleseed died in Indiana in 1845, according to an obituary printed in the Fort Wayne Sentinel (22 March 1845). He was tall, a preacher taken with Emanuel Swedenborg's writings, and planted nurseries rather than spreading seeds willy-nilly. A recent book delves into the myth and known history, making a strong effort to separate the two. Howard Means, Johnny Appleseed: The Man, the Myth, the American Story (2011) offers a detailed biography of the life, activities, and beliefs of John Chapman, the real Johnny Appleseed.

As I remember the stories, I was free to imagine that his seed sowing enterprise took him further west, and that he might have ended his days near present-day Wenatchee. My memory is almost certainly faulty and found its freedom in confusion between the Northwest of early American history--the Ohio Country--and the far Northwest, or Pacific Northwest--a term created by railroad publicists in the late nineteenth century. Even the Disney short, Johnny Appleseed (1948), which I almost certainly watched sometime in the 1960s or early 1970s, places Johnny Appleseed in the Ohio country.

The heart of the Disney film pits cultivation of orchards and promotion of religion against a vast wilderness of dangerous animals. Indians appear on the margins, part of the crowd singing and dancing during the harvest festival. The wary animals first believed the human who moved into a clearing and began to plant seeds was a curious intruder who needed to leave. But, none could tell him so. Finally a skunk went out to investigate and was on the verge of attacking, when Johnny began to stroke its fur. The hero of the story wins over the animals. The narrator emphasizes that he is the first human they had seen without knife or gun. Johnny Appleseed thus fits into the mythic structure of humanity's shift from hunting to cultivation, a reflection of the Neolithic revolution and the rise of civilization. The human story of the beginnings of civilization as long ago as ten millennia ago gets repeated in the New Eden, the American wilderness. See "Neolithic Revolution and American Indians" for another episode in this mythic story.


Apples and Cherries in the Pacific Northwest

Today, Washington state leads the United States in apple production. New York City might be the "big apple," but the apple is more a symbol of the far Northwest than of anywhere else. The apple has become as much a symbol of Pacific Northwest regional culture as the salmon and the seemingly endless evergreen forests. But, while salmon have all but disappeared from every region outside Alaska (and even there the proposed Pebble Mine threatens the last watersheds in full health), and while timber jobs in Washington have become scarce, the apple thrives.

John Chapman never made it this far west. The origins of apples in the Pacific Northwest begin in the Willamette Valley and just over the Columbia River at Fort Vancouver. In the 1820s, the Hudson's Bay Company cultivated many food growing plants from seeds. From these plants, Joseph Garvais cultivated the first substantial apple orchards. Contemporaneous with John Chapman in the Ohio Country, Garvais and other retired Hudson Bay Company employees developed agriculture in Oregon Country.

But it was the introduction of grafted fruit trees that caused the region's agriculture to blossom. These first arrived via wagon along the Oregon Trail courtesy of an Iowa farmer who headed west. In 1847, Henderson Lewelling crossed the country with his family and three wagons. Two of the wagons transported some seven hundred small trees. Once in Oregon, Lewelling went into the nursery business with William Meek. When the gold rush lured Lewelling and Meek to California, where they saw opportunity for more profits developing agriculture, they sold their nursery in Milwaukie, Oregon to Henderson's younger brother, Seth. According to Ronald Irvine, The Wine Project (1997), Meek won an award for wine at the California State Fair in 1859.

Seth Lewelling thrived in the nursery business. His foreman for the orchards, Ah Bing, has been immortalized in the name of a popular fruit that he helped originate. Today, Washington state not only leads the nation in sweet cherry production, but accounts for more than half of the nation's total production.

In the world of legend and myth, everyone knows of Johnny Appleseed. The story of agriculture in the far Northwest, however, offers many less well-known, but every bit as compelling stories of such men as Joseph Garvais, Henderson Lewelling, and Ah Bing.

Indian Names: Nez Perce

Tribal names, as the names Native, Native American, Indian, American Indian, Native American Indian, are inventions more often than not. Some of these inventions stem from simple confusion, as when Captain James Cook heard the Nuu-chah-nulth offering instructions on where to anchor his ship, he heard "Nootka" and gave them that name. Some names are corruptions of what their enemies call them, as is the case with Sioux. Some names remain shrouded in the mists of time.

Already by 1835, the reasons for calling the Salish people in Montana, Flathead, and for calling the Ni-Mii-Puu, Nez Perce, had been forgotten. At least Samuel Parker could not discern the reasons during his travels.

I was disappointed to see nothing peculiar in the shape of the Flathead Indians, to give them their name. Who gave them this name, or for what reason, is not known. Some suppose it was given them in derision for not flattening their heads, as the Chenooks and some other nations do, near the shores of the Pacific. It may be so, but how will those, who indulge this imagination, account for the Nez Perces being so called, since they do not pierce their noses. That those names are given by white men, without any known reason, is evident from the fact, that they do not call each other by the names which signify either flat head or pierced nose.
Samuel Parker, Journal of an Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Mountains (1838), 76.

Many years ago, when I was a graduate student, my friend Otis Halfmoon told a class that I was teaching that the name Nez Perce probably stems from the Ni-Mii-Puu sign language term for themselves in which they pointed from right to left across their face to indicate that they had crossed over between those mountains. He speculated that someone thought they were piercing their noses with the gesture, adding that he is glad they did not think it was an act of cleaning their noses.

Young's Cauldron

In early 1836, Ewing Young purchased a large iron cauldron from Courtney Walker. Walker had the job of disposing of the goods left behind by Nathaniel Wyeth's abandoned Columbia River enterprise. A successful ice merchant in New England, Wyeth had come west with dreams of making a fortune packing and shipping Pacific salmon for consumption outside the region. Along the way, Wyeth also sought profits from trapping for furs, brokering timber sales, and importing goods to Oregon from Hawaii and the east coast. Wyeth's Oregon enterprise failed to turn a profit so he liquidated his assets in the region and returned to the ice business. Meanwhile, Young had carried on successful trade between New Mexico and Missouri for more than a decade before working his way west to California, and from California driving a herd of horses into Oregon. Wyeth's cauldron had been shipped to Oregon for pickling salmon. Young originated from Tennessee and saw in the kettle potential for preparing sour mash that he could then distill into whiskey.

Oregon was not a wholly lawless frontier, but with joint occupation by the United States and by England, and with a small non-Indian population, enforcement authorities were far from prominent. United States law banned sale of liquor in Indian Country. The Hudson's Bay Company, England's presence in the region, understood that liquor sales to Indians had a deleterious effect on the fur trade--their business in the region. Young's plan to build a distillery provoked cooperation between HBC employees, American settlers, and missionaries that had recently arrived from the United States with the professed purpose of bringing Christian civilization to Oregon's Native population. The Oregon Temperance Society formed and started a petition drive to dissuade Young from manufacturing spirits.

Polk: The Diary of a President

As is true for perhaps ten percent of my books, I know neither when nor how I acquired Polk: The Diary of a President, 1845-1849 (1968 [1929]), edited by Allan Nevins. It has been on my shelf for quite a few years, perhaps since graduate school. Aside from providing an index that I glanced at once or twice to confirm some fact, its purpose on my shelf has served principally as an abode for the congregation of dust.

Earlier this week I pulled it down with intent of reading it through. It begins with a report of a meeting that took place 26 August 1845.

The President again called up the Oregon question. He remarked that he had at different times communicated to the several members of the Cabinet, the settled decision to which his mind had come. He proceeded briefly to repeat his decision, in substance as follows, viz., that Mr. Bucanan's note in reply to Mr. Pakenham should assert and enforce our right to the whole Oregon territory from 42° to 54° 40’ North Latitude; that he should distinctly state that the proposition which had been made to compromise on the 49th paralel of North Latitude had been made, first in deference to what had been done by our predecessors, and second with anxious desire to preserve peace between the two countries.
Polk, 1-2

Before I get to the questions that drew me towards this diary--questions concerned, in part, with Pacific Northwest history, including the oft-repeated error that "Fifty-four Forty or Fight" was Polk's campaign slogan,*--I stumble upon the voice. Why is Polk writing in the third person? Did he write the meeting summary, or did he have a secretary keep notes of the meeting that he later transcribed into his diary?

Allan Nevins' notes to the text do not address these questions.

This text was published in 1929 as an abridgment of the four volume edition edited by Milo Milton Quaife (1910). My copy is a 1968 paperback reprint. Google has digitized Stanford University library's copy of volume I of Quaife's edition. The editor's preface offers some help in the first sentence: "The considerations which induced Polk to keep a diary are sufficiently set forth by the President himself in the entry for August 26, 1846" (vii). The entry for that date is in volume II, but Nevins reproduced it.

Twelve months ago this day, a very important conversation took place in Cabinet between myself and Mr. Buchanan on the Oregon question. This conversation was of so important a character, that I deemed it proper on the same evening to reduce the substance of it to writing for the purpose of retaining it more distinctly in my memory. This I did on separate sheets. It was this circumstance which first suggested to me the idea, if not the necessity, of keeping a journal or diary of events and transactions which might occur during my Presidency.
Polk, 141.

Polk at least claims to have done the writing.

Citations

Nevins, Allan, ed. Polk: The Diary of a President, 1845-1849. New York: Capricorn Books, 1968 [1929]. Cited as Polk.

Quaife, Milo Milton, ed. The Diary of James K. Polk During his Presidency, 1845 to 1849, Volume I. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co, 1910.


Notes

*The phrase, "Fifty-four Forty or Fight," originated with Senator William Allen (Ohio), who later served as that state's governor. I have yet to see primary evidence indicating that the slogan was deployed in the campaign of 1844, although it clearly was prominent in the newspapers by 1846. In the mid-1980s, when I taught Washington State History in my student teaching, I checked several secondary sources to contest the claim in the students' textbook that the phrase was Polk's campaign slogan. I observed then that secondary sources more closely grounded in primary sources did not put forth this notion, but that tertiary sources rooted in secondary works often did. Thirty years of occasional examination of the issue has not altered that initial assessment. The most trustworthy secondary sources claim that Polk's campaign slogan was "reoccupation of Oregon and re-annexation of Texas," which is the language found in the Democratic Party Platform of 1844.

Resolved, That our title to the whole of the Territory of Oregon is clear and unquestionable; that no portion of the same ought to be ceded to England or any other power, and that the reoccupation of Oregon and the re-annexation of Texas at the earliest practicable period are great American measures, which this Convention recommends to the cordial support of the Democracy of the Union.
Democratic Party Platform of 1844, The American Presidency Project