Fort Victoria Oct. 14th/55

​

Dear Father,

​

Some time ago I received a letter from you and a few days since one from mother and you both seem to think me negligent in writing and sure enough appearances are altogether against me for it is a long time since I wrote home. The reason is this. The United States Gov. has seen fit to require the postage on letters to be prepaid and therefore I might have written a thousand and one letters and dispatched them to some American post office and that would have been the last of them as I’ve had no means to procure stamps or other ways to prepay my letters. The Hudsons Bay Company has a post office here by means of which I could send letters home at least once a month only there is no regulation made by which it will answer to pay postage on letters posted here. The post Master however told me a few days ago he had a few stamps he had ordered up from Cal. and will spare me enough for to mail a few letters so I will endeavour in future to write often enough so you may not think me altogether out of the world. I’m rejoiced to learn by your letters that you are enjoying the good health of a vigorous old age and that the whole of you are well. As for myself I’m still a resider of British America and enjoy general good health but am altogether deprived of society and many things besides which would be considered at home as pertaining to the comforts of life. I have been carrying on business the past season to some extent. Since Feb. I have done labour to the amount of three thousand dollars out of which I hope to realize to myself one hundred dollars per month. The length of time I remain here is altogether uncertain depending entirely on circumstances. As long as business is good so I think I can earn more here than elsewhere I shall remain but as soon as it becomes dull I must go elsewhere. I intend eventually to return to the States but I wish first if possible to earn money enough to set myself up in such a manner as to live comfortably when I do return. In fact there is nothing I desire less than to spend my days here. Had I known the exact facts in the case I probably should never have crossed the Rocky Mountains but since I’m here I think the best thing I can do is to stop a spell as I can earn two or three times as much as I can at home. 

Lucius has not written to me in a long time. He wrote last tis true but he must not wait for me for I’m so situated at present it is impossible. Not long since, I got a letter from Barlow and I have some from the girls quite lately but it seems they have not got near all the letters I have writ. There is something wrong in the way the Post Office deportment is carried out I think and in fact the Government is rotten in all its ramifications as well as its head.

I get occasionally a paper from the States by which I keep myself posted up as to the progress of public affairs at home. The way the Pro-Slavery men and the ultra Abolitionists are making a noise appears ridiculous. I wish to hear from you soon. Tell me about your crops and your cattle and sheep and horse and farm and about the seasons and neighbours etc., and as often as I can I in my turn will write home. The rainy season has commenced here now - we shall have plenty of rain and cold and wet till Christmas and then a little snow perhaps till after New Years and so on - wet and disagreeable until the middle of Feb. and then good weather again I hope. 

Some good deal of stir has been made of late about new gold digging not far away from here which have lately been discovered just East of the Cascade mountains on some of the tributaries of the Columbia. Whether they prove good or not is not yet known to any certainty. It is hoped they will however, for it will reverse the times and make business more brisk and better for us all. And now for the present I must stop. 

Your affectionate son

Whit. Chase

 

I expect we are about to have a great Indian war in our very neighbourhood. Sometime the past summer there was a report raised that gold had been discovered at or near a Fort Colville, just East of the Cascade Mountains some three hundred miles from Puget Sound and about the same distance North of the Dalles of the Columbia. Many Oregonians and Washington Territory men and some from here went thither on the strength of this rumor in search of a fortune and it seems that the Indians in that quarter cut off some and frightened others. They have also killed some soldiers that were sent against them and we hear that some soldiers on the emigrant road leading from Fort WallaWalla to the Puget Sound have been murdered and it seems that all the tribes almost between the Missouri and Oregon are uniting against the White and an exterminatory war must be the onset hence. Volunteers are called for and enlisting in Washington T. Soldiers are also hastening to the scene of action from Oregon, California and Salt Lake and when the spring opens, if not before, there must be fighting.

Whit.