Umatilla

Cut-Mouth John

I happened to know a Umatilla scout who bore the English name of Cut-Mouth John. The Umatilla tribe of Indians to which John belonged lived along the upper waters of the great Columbia River. This country, called the “up-river country,” is used also by the Cayuses, Walla Walla, and other Columbia River Indians. There were many of them on the lands called reservations, and many others roaming about everywhere, far and near, like herds of wild horses on the great prairies of the West where there were no fences to stop them. I was then living in Portland, Oregon, and … Read more

Chief Egan of the Malheurs

The Indians pronounced the name of Egan, Ehegante; but the soldiers and the white men living near the Indians’ reservation, situated in eastern Oregon, called him Egan. Egan was born a Umatilla. His father and mother were both from the Cayuse tribe who lived in the valley of the beautiful Umatilla River. That river flows from the springs and creeks of the lofty Blue Hills of Oregon, and with a length of about forty miles coursing westward, enters the Columbia River, not far south of the old Fort Walla Walla, where is now the little village of Wallula. When very … Read more

Treaty of June 9, 1855

Articles of agreement and convention made and concluded at the treaty-ground, Camp Stevens, in the Wall-Walla Valley, this ninth day of June, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, by and between Isaac I. Stevens, governor and superintendent of Indian affairs for the Territory of Washington, and Joel Palmer, superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon Territory, on the part of the United States, and the undersigned chiefs, head-men, and delegates of the Walla-Wallas, Cayuses, and Umatilla tribes and bands of Indians, occupying lands partly in Washington and partly in Oregon Territories, and who, for the purposes of this … Read more

Umatilla Tribe

Umatilla Indians. A Shahaptian tribe formerly lining on Umatilla Reservation and the adjacent banks of the Columbia in Oregon.  They were included under the Walla Walla by Lewis and Clark in 1805, though their language is distinct. In 1855 they joined in a treaty with the United States and settled on the Umatilla Reservation in eastern Oregon.  They are said to number 250, but this figure is doubtful, owing to a mixture of tribes on the reservation.

Biographical Sketch of Justus Wade

JUSTUS WADE. – This gentleman, the brother of Phares E. Wade, mentioned in these pages, was born in Virginia in 1843. He remained with his parents on the farm in Iowa, receiving a common-school education, and in 1864 crossed the plains to join his brothers in the Grande Ronde valley, arriving among them with but a five-dollar greenback, which was then worth but two dollars in these parts. He farmed three years with his brothers, and returned to Iowa with eighteen hundred dollars, thinking to remain there. But the beauties of the land of which we write could not be … Read more