Doc Hay of John Day, Oregon
June 19, 2007.
We are staying at Mountain View Travel Park in Baker
City. $24.79 FHU, shade and a nice enough RV-Park. It must
be a former KOA since they charge extra for everything, $2 extra for
wifi, $2 extra for larger sites, you get the picture.
This was a slow day for us and we got a late start. At first we were
undecided about what we wanted to do but finally settled on heading
out to John Day since we had not been out that way. So John
Day it was. By the way John
Day is the name of a small east Oregon town.
The building served as the office
of Doc Hay. He was the most famous Herbalist between San Francisco
and Seattle in his day. He was a master of pulse diagnosis. Doc Hay
could tell his patients what was wrong with them just by feeling the
pulse in their arm. Then he would prepare an herbal mixture from local
plants and herbs from China. Doc Hay was blind. When he shut the building
up in 1948 to go to the nursing home, Doc Hay left behind over 500
different herbs, many that have never been identified.
This is what the building looks like from the back side.
When we saw that sign saying the museum was closed we thought we
had missed everything but on our way out of the parking lot we spotted
a state park building on the other side of the street that was housing
most of the information ----that saved the day for us since we have
driven 90-miles.
In the State Park building we were able to read and see many displays
that helped us understand about the Chinese population in the northwest
in the 1800 and into the 1900s. Chinese of this era did all manner
of work even owning stores. In 1904, Jim Low opened a general merchandise
store in McDermitt, Nevada. While Jim traveled the High Desert country
selling supplies to isolated ranches, his wife Chew Fong ran the store.
Customers ranged from buckaroos and miners to Paiute Indians. The
Paiutes called Chew Fong, "Bee Duh," meaning "auntie,"
as a token of their regard.
The migration of Chinese to the American West was driven by the lure
of opportunity. Initially, it was hoped-for quick riches of the gold
rush, later the opportunity for steady wages working on the region's
railroads, and in the agricultural, manufacturing and fishing industries.
However, after arrival and initial employment in these low paying
jobs, many enterprising individuals began to go into business for
themselves, providing goods and services within Chinatown, as well
as to the community at large.
Typically, the businesses operated by Chinese entrepreneurs included
stores selling Chinese goods and supplies, restaurants, laundries,
small farms, and woodcutting enterprises. "China bosses,"
individuals who spoke English and had a sharp business sense, often
accumulated considerable wealth contracting with western industries
to provide Chinese labor. Chinese medical practitioners, such as Ing
Hay of John Day, Wing Luke of Seattle, and ah Fong of Boise,
often made the transition from treating only Chinese laborers to being
successful and respected within the entire community.
Some Chinese became fishermen. By 1857, Humboldt Bay, California
had a Chinese fishing village. In the 1880s, Chinese shrimpers exported
more than a million pounds of shrimp meat and shells to China and
Japan, making California the most productive of America's shrimp-producing
states.
Because of immigration laws, there were very few Chinese women allowed
into America. Many Chinese males lived and died as bachelors. Any
Chinese marriage was a major cause for celebration.
I wonder what kind of laws we had that only allowed men into the
country? Do these laws still exist? It would seem that thousands of
men with no women would be a problem that could be seen by those making
the laws. What am I missing? Was this no women law applied to all
nationalities applying to enter America? Questions, Questions, so
many questions. There are so many things you do not learn in history
classes formulated to teach "jaded" history.
The values that the Chinese immigrants brought with them to the new
world facilitated the passage of their descendants into mainstream
America. Although small numbers of tenacious, elderly Chinese men
continued to reach their goal of returning to China after years of
labor in the West, younger generations began to look upon the region
as their home. Children of first generation immigrants were American
educated, upwardly mobile, and assimilated rapidly into western communities.
Initially, Chinese who died were buried for a brief period, then
their bones were shipped to ancestral burial grounds in China. However,
as more Chinese chose to remain in the West, their permanent resting
place was often the corner of a community cemetery equipped with a
brick altar for burning funeral offerings.
The Pacific Coast was the entry point for most of the Chinese immigrating
to the American West. The first Chinese to labor on the Pacific Coast
arrived in 1788. By the mid-1800s, significant numbers of Chinese
had entered ports in California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.
Many Chinese immediately followed the rivers inland to the mining
regions. Other Chinese stayed on the coast and plied familiar maritime
trades. Chinese-style "junks" fished off California shores
for abalone in the 1850s. By 1870, there were Chinese fishing villages
scattered along the entire length of the the Pacific Coast from British
Columbia to Baja, California.
Chinese laborers were in high demand in the coastal industries. They
were prevalent in canneries in British Columbia. Oregon and Washington,
shingle mills and coal mines in British Columbia, and cigar factories
in San Francisco. Until anti-Chinese labor unrest forced time from
their jobs in the 1800s, they labored in the logging camps and lumber
mills throughout the Puget Sound region. Almost no industry and no
part of the economy on the Pacific Coast was left untouched by the
resourceful Chinese laborers.
As the inland valleys of the West developed, Chinese labor became
critical. Chinese laborers were recruited and managed through a "China
boss," who had to speak passable English, in addition to several
Chinese dialects, and above all, be a shrewd businessman. It was his
job to provide Chinese labor crews to employers.
By the 1800s, 75% of the seasonal labor in California agriculture
was Chinese. In the Sacramento Valley, Chinese laborers built levees
and cleared the tule swamps to create one of the West's richest agricultural
regions. They cleared land and planted the vineyards and orchards
that established the California wine and fruit industries. Both the
Oregon and Washington hop fields depended on Chinese labor.
Inland cities and towns relied upon enterprising Chinese farmers
who marketed vegetables to local households, restaurants and groceries.
In the Willamette and Rogue River valleys of Oregon, Chinese laborers
cut dense brush and hauled stone from the fields to create productive
farmland. The many existing, neatly stacked stone walls in these regions
are ever-present reminders of their work.
One temporary Chinese community complete with tents and outdoor kitchen
equipment followed the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad
as it progressed through California's Sierra Nevada Mountains and
eastward across the deserts of Nevada and Utah.
While the Chinese labored in America, cut off from the comfort of
marriage and family by immigrations laws, most Chinese lived in anticipation
of their eventual return home. During their sojourn, they did their
best to reconstruct the familiar elements of their traditional society
in this new land.
Their exclusion from western communities fostered the development
of both urban and rural Chinatowns. Within these "Chinatowns,"
there developed a communal spirit that assisted them in maintaining
their cultural identity.
A critical element of any culture, and particularly of Chinese society,
is its foods. Therefore, it was natural for the Chinese to raise or
import traditional vegetables, fruits, fish, and poultry. Wherever
they went, the Chinese took with them their stir-fry utensils, woks,
and ceramic jars of sauces and spices.
The Chinese adapted their lifestyles to the varied climates and terrain
of America. In the gold fields, they often lived communally in dugouts
or tents. In the Snake River Canyon of Idaho, they lived in crude
stonewalled huts dug into the ground along the river banks and roofed
with canvas. However, they continued to favor traditional clothing
and personal items of daily life, holding fast to these remnants of
their distant homeland while working in the most remote corners of
the American West.
In many western communities the Chinese laundry was a familiar and,
no doubt, welcomed sight in the West.
A few Chinese families existed. Those were the extremely fortunate
ones. Many sizable Chinatowns grew and died without ever having a
Chinese child born in them. I still wonder about the emigration laws
that created this situation. I hope someone can explain this to me.
Some Chinese became cooks. At the turn of the century, the ZX was
one of eastern Oregon's largest ranches. Throughout the era, a number
of Chinese cooks presided over this cookhouse and the outfit's chuck
wagon on roundups and trail drives.
The Chinese and Indians had disagreements just as did the Americans
and Indians. In 1864, over fifty were massacred by Paiutes while on
their way to the Owyhee mines on Jordan Creek, near Jordan Valley,
Oregon. The place is known as the Chinese massacre site.
While some Chinese worked as Chuck wagon cooks occasionally, they
also worked as cowboys on ranches, such as "Buckaroo Sam"
who worked on the Sproul Ranch in eastern Oregon.
Chinese laborers operated "hydraulic giants," high pressure
water hoses for washing away earth to expose gold-bearing rock. The
devices were cheap to operate and moved a great deal of soil, but
were inefficient. Other Chinese often picked over the "leavings"
and recovered much more gold than was recovered in the initial process.
We all know about the Chinese laborers contribution to constructing
the transcontinental railroad. After more than two years of labor
the Central Pacific Rail Road reached the community of Winnemucca,
Nevada. Then, on April 28, 1869, a Chinese track crew with the Central
Pacific laid ten miles of track in twelve hours, beating the old Union
Pacific record by two miles.
In Astoria Chinese worked in a Salmon cannery. Chinese were introduced
to the Oregon salmon canning industry in 1871, and turned it into
a major industry. Salmon canning in Washington state was second only
to wheat as a moneymaking industry.
As we might expect some Chinese worked as household servants. A Chinese
servant, especially a cook, was a valued and prestigious part of many
upper-class urban American households.
From the earliest days of western exploration and settlement, the
Chinese labored with skill and energy in a wide variety of occupations.
In 1788, sea trader John Mears brought 30 Chinese to Nookia Sound,
in British Columbia, to construct the sloop (Northwest America,) the
first sizable ship built on the Pacific Coast. Individual Chinese
were present in Spanish California in the early 1800s. However, it
was the discovery of gold in 1848 that attracted the first large migration
of Chinese to America.
In the early days of the gold rush, Chinese miners worked the streams
alongside forty-niners from throughout the world, but hostile discrimination
soon forced them from their claims. Soon large gangs of Chinese were
working as contract labor construction untold miles of ditches to
bring water to dry diggings and working hydraulic mining operations.
Outside the mining regions, they built levees, drained swamps and
cleaned fields to create the region's prosperous agricultural industry.
They labored in shoe factories, iron foundries, lumber mills and the
garment industry.
For over half a century, they worked in fish canneries of California
to Alaska. They constructed the western half of the first transcontinental
railroad through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the deserts of Nevada
as well as the subsequent rail routes and roads that created the region's
transportation network.
Other Chinese worked as garment workers. The first Chinese garment
worker was hired in San Francisco in 1859. by the 1870s, 70% to 80%
of the garment workers were Chinese. In 1876, there were two thousand
Chinese in the "sewing trades" in San Francisco.
Until Chinese labor diked the river and drained the tule swamps beginning
in 1850, the Sacramento Delta, now one of the world's richest agricultural
areas, was an uninhabitable marsh. By the late 1860s, thousands of
Chinese agricultural workers labored in the area.
Gold had been discovered in California in 1848. By 1870, many of
the miners in California and the majority of those in Oregon and Idaho
were Chinese. As we all know the discovery of gold throughout the
West spurred economic development. Chinese labor was in demand in
the growing, lumber, fishing and construction industries. Soon Chinese
labor was building the great transcontinental railroad which tied
together the North American West. As this project ended, Chinese railroad
workers migrated deeper into America, building smaller rail lines
throughout the region. They went into other industries, ranging from
garment making, cigar manufacturing, lumber milling, borax and quicksilver
mining to salmon canning and glass blowing, as well as into agriculture
on farms and ranches throughout the West.
Between 1876 and 1890, steamships brought an estimated 200,00 Chinese
to American west coast ports. Most immigrants were poor and had to
borrow the money for their voyage through the "Credit Ticket
System."
Passage one-way to America was around $50, but with the high rate
of interest, it cost the immigrant about $120. One estimate suggests
that American and British steamship companies made $11 million in
steerage fees paid by Chinese laborers. The immigrants, like many
newcomers, were often swindled. The money they had borrowed for their
journey created a form of virtual slavery to the firms which advanced
their passages. In 1852, Chinese aboard the ship Robert Brown bound
from Amoy discovered that they had been brought aboard under false
pretenses, killed the ship's officers and returned to China. By 1862,
American law forbade American ships from engaging in the infamous
coolie trade because of the many abuses.
Upon their arrival at Pacific Coast ports, the Chinese found local
employment, or began a second journey to the railroad camps, mining
regions and industries in the inland valleys, mountains and deserts
of the West.
Initially welcomed for their labor, the Chinese soon began to meet
prejudice and discrimination. Between 1852 and 1880, an increasing
number of laws and local restrictions had limited the civil rights
and job opportunities for Chinese in the West. Between 1885 and 1965,
a series of laws restricted Chinese immigration. During this period
the journey to America was limited to a privileged few. However, in
recent years, more equitable treatment during immigration has tempered
the experience of Chinese newcomers, who have come to America in search
of opportunities in the West.
Chinatowns were established in San Francisco by 1850, Portland by
1851, Seattle by 1860, and Vancouver by 1870. Soon Chinatowns could
be found throughout the West.
By 1880, as the Western development era slowed, the demand for Chinese
laborers waned. The smaller remote Chinatowns slowly died out as many
Chinese withdrew to the urban Chinatowns in fear of anti-Chinese violence.
In addition to greater security, the Chinatowns offered many obvious
advantages to the Chinese: familiar supporting institutions, a hope
of marriage and family life, and opportunities to pursue familiar
pastimes. These communities were generally dominated by successful
China bosses and merchant families.
Chinatowns often provided services for the surrounding communities.
Chinese gardens produced fine vegetables for local housewives. Gambling
halls contributed such familiar American pastimes as keno, which began
as the Chinese game, "white pigeon ticket." Restaurants
were popular destinations for visitors. Chinatowns, because of their
exotic nature, held a special allure for outsiders.
In the Western deserts Chinese worked at many occupations from mining
to building railroads to farming. Signs of their presence remain throughout
the West in numerous place names like the ubiquitous China Creek found
in most states of the region.
Traditional Chinese agricultural techniques proved useful in this
hostile and intractable environment. In the desert outside Winnemucca,
Nevada, is a fold in the low hills called "China Gardens"
where Chinese took advantage of run-off waters to grow vegetables
to sell in the local settlements.
The desert also had unique industries related to surface mining which
came to depend on the familiar Chinese labor gangs. They were also
employed by many of the ranches in the High Desert, cooking for the
buckaroos both at the ranch and from the back of a chuck wagon.
By the closing years of the 19th century, the Chinese population
centers in the desert began migrating to the large urban Chinatowns,
changing the rural communities significantly. What had been lively
centers of Chinese miners, railway workers, and laborers became isolated
pockets of aging bachelors.
Mike & Joyce Hendrix
Mike
& Joyce Hendrix who we are
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