“The telegraph line from California to Portland was completed yesterday.” Will sounded more animated with that news. “First telegram to arrive from California said the Union is winning in Richmond. We’ll get more current war news in Oregon now.”
“News from the East to San Francisco, then all the way north to Portland,” Cal crowed from the floor.
“I heard,” Mac said. Throughout the day, men had stopped in Mac’s office in town to discuss the telegraph connection with California. It would be an enormous help to business. The speed of communications had increased considerably since Mac arrived in Oregon sixteen years ago. Then, it took months for letters to reach Oregon or California from the East. Within a few years, travel between Oregon and California became easier, but travel and communications from Eastern cities like Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C., were still slow. The telegraph would bring the nation together.
Or it would, if not for the infernal War. For the past three years, the nation had fought state against state, brother against brother. Arguments between the North and South influenced politics in Oregon as much as in the East. There might not be battles between opposing armies in the West, but neighbors abandoned friendships when arguments over the War broke out.
Mac was a Yankee through and through. But long-time acquaintances who had emigrated from Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky favored the Secessionists. Mac was careful before he voiced his opinions outside the house, though he tried to instill his own political sentiments in his children.
When the family moved to the dining room for supper, the boys continued to chatter about the telegraph, with thirteen-year-old Maria listening intently. She was a quiet girl, the daughter Mac adopted in California in 1850 after her mother died. Jenny had gladly taken Maria in, and the two of them were now inseparable.
After supper, the children dispersed, leaving Mac and Jenny alone at the table. Mac smoked a cigar, and Jenny sipped a cup of tea.
“What would you think if I took Will and Cal to Portland next week?” Mac asked. “I know Will played hooky today. But I have business to conduct, and I could show them the telegraph.”
“There’s been a telegraph office in Oregon City for months,” she said.
“Yes, but I do need to go to Portland. And we could send a telegram to my agent in San Francisco—it would go along the entire line in Oregon.”
Jenny smiled. “You want to watch it as much as the boys would.”
Mac grinned. “Of course. It’s progress.” He hesitated. “Then you don’t think we’re being inconsistent—taking Will out of school for a day after he played hooky today?”
“It’s up to you.” She paused. “You wouldn’t take Maria or Nate?”
“Two boys are enough. There’s no telling how Will might act, whether he’ll be the personable lad he can be or whether he’ll fall into a churlish fit. And Cal has about all the exuberance I can manage.”
“I’m sure they’ll enjoy it. And they will be glad to spend time with you. Even if William will never admit it.”
Chapter 2: The Telegraph Office
The following Wednesday, Will sat at the small desk in his bedroom. Despite the burgeoning household, Will had a bedroom to himself. It was the smallest room in the house, but he relished his privacy. Cal and Nate shared a room, and the four girls slept in the largest room.
Will had to write an essay on the pros and cons of slavery for school tomorrow. He fingered the pockmarks on his cheeks as he often did when bothered. Pa was adamantly against slavery, but Mama’s family owned slaves in Louisiana and Missouri. Old Samuel Abercrombie spouted off frequently in favor of the Southern Secession, and Jonah sometimes repeated his grandfather’s opinions.
But Will remembered the Tanners, a free Negro family who’d lived in the small shack across the yard from his home with Mama while Pa was away mining gold. Otis Tanner had been Will’s first friend. That a white person could own Otis and his parents seemed monstrously wrong. Will began to write about the Tanners.
A tap sounded on his door, and Pa came in. “I thought you might like to go to Portland with me on Friday,” he said. “To see the telegraph.”
Grinning, Will turned to face his father. “Really, Pa? The telegraph?”
“You seemed interested in it last week.”
“Yes, sir. Just think—we can hear the news the same day it is written. And send word of happenings in Oregon to the East as well.”
“We’ll leave Friday morning,” Pa said. “Catch the steamboat to Portland, see the telegraph office, spend the night at the Pioneer Hotel, and return on Saturday.” He nodded at Will’s papers strewn on the desk. “Can you manage your schoolwork around the trip?”
“Yes, sir.”
After Pa left, Will returned to his essay, his words flowing quickly now.
Will woke early Friday morning, March 11, 1864. Rain splattered against his bedroom window. But wet spring weather wouldn’t bother him—he’d take the steamboat with Pa no matter if it poured.
He dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. Mrs. O’Malley, the housekeeper and cook, had bacon sizzling, while Mama stirred oatmeal on the stove. “Morning, Mama,” Will said, hugging her.
She smiled up at him. “Hand me bowls for the oatmeal, please. I’ll need three—for your father, you, and Caleb.”
“Is Cal up already?” Will asked in surprise as he reached for bowls in the cupboard. Cal liked to stay in bed in the mornings.
“Why, yes,” Mama said. “The steamboat departs at nine, and he needs breakfast before you leave for the dock.”
Will stopped with the bowls still in his hands. “Cal’s going to Portland with Pa and me?”
“Of course. Didn’t you know?”
Will shook his head. The day suddenly seemed dismal. It wouldn’t be just him and Pa at the telegraph office. Twelve-year-old Cal would be there, too. The pest. He followed Will everywhere, asking questions all the time. Cal charmed folks with his ready grin, while Will felt uncomfortable talking to strangers. Will was sure everyone liked Cal better than him.
Now he’d have to spend two days with the brat, who would monopolize conversation with Pa. Will’s plans to talk man-to-man with Pa evaporated.
The three McDougalls boarded the steamboat at the dock below the Willamette Falls, then the vessel churned downstream to Portland. Will had made the trip several times. He loved watching eddies in the water, trees along the riverbank, fields carved out of forests along the Willamette. Most farms showed little sign of spring growth yet. Only fields planted in winter wheat sprouted green shoots above the black earth.
Pa said the journey to Portland used to take two days by steamboat. Now, with faster boats, the trip from Oregon City to Portland took only four hours. It was a little slower returning upriver, but only an additional hour or so.
After they disembarked, Will followed Pa. Portland was a bustling commercial town, more populous now than Oregon City, though Oregon City had once been the dominant settlement in all of Oregon.
As they walked toward the Pioneer Hotel on Front Street to check in and leave their satchels, Pa nodded at several men they passed and stopped to introduce the boys to them. Will shook their hands and murmured a bashful greeting, while Cal had a smile and a question for everyone. Pa didn’t seem to mind Will’s shyness, but he nodded approvingly at Cal’s geniality.
The Pioneer Hotel proprietor, Mr. Arrigoni, greeted Pa by name and offered to take their bags to their room. Pa agreed, and soon he and the boys headed to the telegraph office. Will walked beside Pa, and Cal bounced ahead of them to call back questions, then lagged behind to stare in a shop window. “Cal,” Pa said. “Stay with us.”
Men crowded into the telegraph office, many watching the clerk behind the counter tap a key that sounded like “dit dah dah dit, dah dah dah, dit dah dit, dah.” Will didn’t understand Morse code, but he’d read about it. He gaped at the speed with which the operator clicked dits and dahs, tapping out messages that moved from one telegraph station to the next as fast as lightning.
Will knew there’d been a telegraph in Oregon for a couple of years, the wire going north to Portland, through Oregon City, and south to the state capital in Salem. He’d visited the telegraph office in Oregon City. But the final leg between Roseburg, Oregon, and Yreka, California, had recently been completed—the final segment connecting Portland with San Francisco, and from there to the rest of the world.
Will edged toward the counter to see the clerk better. What would it be like to be the first to get the news? Whether it be news of the War, of Indian attacks on the Plains, or of foreign catastrophes? It must be wonderful to have that knowledge and to have the duty of conveying it to all of Oregon.
Cal moved closer to Will and bumped his elbow. “Watch it, Cal,” Will complained.
“Behave, boys,” Pa said from behind them, clapping a hand on Will’s shoulder. Pa blamed every problem on Will, merely because he was the oldest. He’d been responsible for his younger siblings ever since Pa brought Maria into their home.
Will listened while Pa talked to the telegraph operator. “I’d like to send a telegram to California. To my agent in San Francisco.” Pa had business interests in San Francisco and Sacramento, in addition to his investments in Oregon. He’d made money in the gold fields—and kept most of it. Will listened to his parents’ conversations at meals and to Pa’s discussions with other men in town and after church. Will thought proudly that Pa was one of the leading citizens in Oregon City.
“You pay by the word, Mr. McDougall,” the clerk said. “Two bits a word.”
