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 Fifty years In Oregon, experiences, obse 
 
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FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
mi 
 
Frontispiece 
 
Fifty Years in Oregon 
 
 EXPERIENCES, OBSERVATIONS, AND COMMENTA- 
 RIES UPON MEN, MEASURES, AND CUSTOMS 
 IN PIONEER DAYS AND LATER TIMES 
 
 : ..'V BY 
 
 tTt. geer 
 
 Formerly Oovernor of Oregon, and one of her native sons 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 1912 
 
 B\ 
 
 (' f I; U I. 
 
 K'f\'( IU;r, y 
 
\ 
 
 'a 
 
 n.- * 
 
 /^7'f/'^-7 
 
 Copyright, 1912, by 
 THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 n - 
 
TO MY BELOVED WIFE 
 
 ISABELLE 
 
 THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Portrait of T. T. Geer Frontispiece' 
 
 Larch Trees — Average Height 200 Feet — Forests of Oregon... So 
 
 State Capitol, Salem, East Front 72 
 
 Mt. Adams, Five Miles in the Distance 120 
 
 F. X. Matthieu, George H. Himes, Secretary of the Oregon 
 State Historical Society, and the Author, May 2, 1900, 
 Locating the Site of the Famous Meeting at Champoeg 
 on May 2, 1843 188 
 
 Dedicating Champoeg Monument, May 2, 1901, F. X. Matthieu 
 
 Holding the Flag 200 
 
 Wallowa Lake as It Appeared in August, 1875 280 
 
 Farm Scene in Oregon 412 
 
 Cartoon by Homer Davenport Sent to the Author From New 
 York When He was Elected Governor in June, 1898, Never 
 
 Before Published .' 448 
 
 Crossing Crater Lake to "Wizard Island" in August, igo2.... 488 
 Scene in Hood River Valley. Mt. Hood Twenty Miles Away.. S12 
 The Author and His Wife on the Summit of Mt. Adams, July 
 
 26, 1902, 13,000 Feet Above Sea Level 518 
 
 Ascending Mt. Adams 530 
 
Fifty Years in Oregon 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Although I have selected "Fifty Years in Oregon" as 
 the title of this book, my actual residence in the Beaver 
 State — and on the planet — began sixty years ago to-day. 
 The opening sentences of this chapter are being written 
 on March 12, 191 1, the sixtieth anniversary of an event 
 which, if it had not occurred, would have materially 
 changed my plans in many respects. I am not an Oregon 
 pioneer in the sense that I pioneered myself, or was 
 pioneered by somebody else, into this great and wonder- 
 ful part of Uncle Sam's domain in the days when it 
 required a vast amount of courage, self-reliance, and a 
 certain degree of recklessness of consequences, to aban- 
 don the comforts and safeguards of civilization and 
 start on that difficult journey of over two thousand 
 miles. For those brave souls came to a country of 
 which they had little reliable information, and the way 
 led through deserts, plains and mountains yet without 
 roads, or even decent trails, and inhabited by roving and 
 in many instances savage Indians. 
 
 When my parents crossed the plains in 1847, yet single 
 people — they first met while on that journey — the only 
 settlement of men and women who really intended to 
 become permanent inhabitants of the Oregon country 
 had been established here but four or five years. When 
 F. X. Matthieu, an honored pioneer who is still living, 
 arrived in Oregon in September, 1842, he found very 
 few others here except the Methodist missionaries and 
 members and employees of the Hudson Bay Company. 
 The former were dominated by the single purpose of 
 
lo FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 haps as far as Dr. Cook traveled toward the North Pole, 
 and to the west until one's vision was lost in the shadows 
 of the coast mountains which border the ocean. This 
 great extinct volcano was resting in a solitude unbroken, 
 so far as we know, since ages before Moses received his 
 mysterious messages direct from heaven; the Columbia 
 River, 
 
 "Sired by the eternal hills. 
 And wedded to the sea," 
 
 was emptying its enormous contributions, drawn from 
 the Rocky Mountains, into the waiting ocean through a 
 foaming mouth measuring eight miles in width. 
 
 It was a dream like this which lured Joseph Holman 
 from his Eastern home, and the winter of 1841 found 
 him located in Salem, then a wilderness without a legal 
 existence or name, an Indian camp, not yet abandoned, 
 called Chemekete Prairie. Here the boy George first 
 saw the light of day, as has been stated, and here he 
 lived until his middle manhood. 
 
 In 1870 he served his native county of Marion in the 
 lower house of the State Legislature, removing a few 
 years afterward to Salt Lake, where his residence has 
 since been. He makes regular pilgrimages to his old 
 home, however, usually every two years, sometimes 
 oftener, and his coming is a treat not only to himself 
 but to his old associates. The last time he was home he 
 told me this experience which he encountered a few years 
 ago: 
 
 He had been sojourning for a week in New York City 
 when one day, as he was killing time in the lobby of his 
 hotel, he heard a young man say in a rather pompous 
 manner to his companion, who had asked him where he 
 was from: 
 
 "I am from the West, sir." 
 
 In a little while Holman, hearing the same declaration, 
 or rather boast, made to another man with whom the 
 stranger was talking, made it a point to engage in con- 
 versation with the Westerner. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON ii 
 
 "I understand you are from the West," he said, after 
 a few commonplace remarks had been made. 
 
 "Yes," repHed the traveler. 
 
 "What part of the West are you from?" inquired 
 Holman. 
 
 "My home is in Pittsburg, sir," answered the West- 
 erner. 
 
 "Well," said Holman, "as we go here and there we 
 find people from every section, don't we?" 
 
 "Yes," said the other, "it's a big country — ^mighty 
 big. May I ask where you are from?" 
 
 "Me? Oh, I am from the East." 
 
 "The East?" said the Pittsburgher. "What part of 
 the East?" 
 
 "Well," said Holman, "I was born in Salem, Oregon, 
 out on the Pacific Coast, but about twenty years ago I 
 went East and settled down in Utah. My home is in 
 Salt Lake." 
 
 The point of which is that whether in this day and 
 generation the East is west of you or the West is east 
 of you depends altogether upon where you are when 
 making the inquiry. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A truthful account of the early settlement of the 
 "Oregon Country" reads more like the creation of a 
 vivid imagination, the work of a trained writer of fiction, 
 than a straightforward narrative of bare facts. No- 
 where does the history of mankind reveal a similar 
 "hegira" with apparently nothing to justify it other than 
 mere restlessness and an irresistible desire to move on. 
 The fact was, there was such a limitless area of country 
 — almost measureless in comparison with the number of 
 people who came to claim it — that the average man 
 could not content himself long in one place lest there 
 might be a better one farther on toward the setting sun. 
 The true pioneer spirit had a lodging place in the com- 
 posite Western bosom. The man who had been born 
 in Pennsylvania, for instance, and had gone to Ohio or 
 Illinois in 1840, acquired a quarter section of good land, 
 built a comfortable log cabin and had broken up most 
 of his "prairie," saw visions of a better country 'way 
 out on the Pacific Coast, and, through fear that some 
 other man should get there first, sold out "for a song" 
 and joined the great caravan which moved on to the 
 land of promise. 
 
 In truth, there was much more room than it was pos- 
 sible for the pioneers to occupy. The very immensity of 
 the opportunity created a veritable sense of intoxication 
 and a condition of instability which interfered with the 
 development of any one region. The roving disposition 
 of the pioneers of the last century reminds me of scenes 
 I have frequently witnessed on the farm among the ani- 
 mals — for be it remembered that I never had a home 
 save on a farm until thirty days before I moved into 
 the executive offices in Salem in January, 1899, and my 
 love of animals, inborn, has been strengthened by my 
 prolonged association with them. Observation of their 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 13 
 
 habits has often brought out the most astonishing exhi- 
 bitions of what some people call instinct, but which is 
 often far above occasional displays of what in many 
 people is termed by courtesy intelligence. It must have 
 been this same sort of observation which constrained 
 "Bab" — a very versatile and spicy syndicate woman 
 writer of two decades ago — to close a remarkably clever 
 treatise on Man and his characteristics with this con- 
 fession: "The fact is, the more I have been thrown in 
 contact with men and the greater my opportunity for 
 studying their traits and tendencies, the deeper has 
 become my respect and admiration for dogs." 
 
 With this little digression, which is pardonable I hope, 
 let us return to a consideration of the pioneers, who 
 abandoned a comfortable competency, already assured, 
 for what appeared to have as little of tangibility as the 
 "baseless fabric of a dream." With a boundless field in 
 every direction there was far less of contentment than 
 where opportunities were restricted. 
 
 Frequently on the farm I have fenced ofif a portion of 
 a pasture intended for the use of sheep, keeping it sepa- 
 rate, in order that the grass might attain a growth that 
 would afford real nourishment, when needed, to the 
 flock. After the older portion of the pasture had been 
 literally "eaten into the ground," after the manner of 
 sheep, upon turning them into the fresh, luxuriant grass, 
 the really hungry animals, instead of feasting near the 
 entrance, would at once begin an exploration of the 
 whole area of the new-found bonanza in vegetable wealth 
 ■mating as they ran and bleating as they ate. 
 
 And I have, just at the beginning of harvest, fenced 
 off an acre of splendid wheat, yielding thirty bushels, 
 for the benefit of a dozen hoes which needed thus to be 
 tided over during the particularly scant part of the season. 
 Within an hour of their admittance there would be no 
 square rod of that acre that had not been trampled down 
 and sampled by the hogs, whose appetites could have 
 been satisfied to the full without going more than twenty 
 feet from the gap. 
 
14 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 So the pioneers of the first half of the last century 
 were dissatisfied with the conditions prevailing in Illinois, 
 Iowa and Missouri, as well as in other "Western" States, 
 and gathered their limited substance together for the 
 journey across the plains. The great and fertile prairies 
 of Kansas and Nebraska presented no attraction to them. 
 Indeed, Illinois and Indiana, as well as Iowa and Mis- 
 souri, were but half settled. The rosy representations of 
 the possibilities of the Pacific Coast, with its salubrious 
 climate, were irresistible. And then, besides, it was 
 farther West — which constituted one of its strongest 
 appeals. 
 
 There were two marked differences between the great 
 immigration to Oregon in the '40's and other movements 
 leading to the subjugation of new countries. One was 
 the remarkable distance — more than two thousand miles 
 — and the other the innumerable hardships which were 
 certain to be encountered and the danger of being at- 
 tacked by the savage tribes of Indians found everywhere. 
 But, far from discouraging the hardy settlers, in most 
 cases these features appeared to be an actual incentive 
 to make the journey "or bust." With a degree of courage 
 almost beyond classification, even the women accepted the 
 situation with as much enthusiasm as the men, and often 
 furnished the nerve which was necessary to carry to a 
 successful issue the gigantic undertaking. 
 
 A man is but a weak brother, at best. He was always 
 so. Even Adam fell the very first time he was tempted, 
 as we are informed in his only biography, and when ques- 
 tioned as to the origin and development of the little affair 
 out in the Garden, sought to defend himself by saying 
 his wife was entirely to blame; and for this instance of 
 ungallant cowardice I desire to say that he is the only 
 one of my ancestors — at least those of whom I have any 
 definite knowledge — that I am not extremely proud of. 
 From his day to the present, woman has been the burden- 
 bearer of the race, the center of the home, the mainstay 
 of civilization, the foundation of society, the mainspring 
 of every commendable undertaking of man, and per- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 15 
 
 forms her never-ending duties with a patience and all- 
 abounding love which entitle her to a crown not yet 
 accorded her and a universal homage which thoughtless 
 and selfish man should yield her with his every breath 
 and pulsing heart-beat. 
 
 At a Fourth of July celebration in Salem, a few years 
 ago, the orator of the occasion dwelt at one point quite 
 eloquently upon the virtues of the Pilgrim Fathers, pay- 
 ing them a red-hot tribute for their many privations in 
 the interest of human liberty, ecclesiastical freedom, etc. 
 No band of men since the great Exodus had done so 
 much for the race as had the Pilgrim Fathers, etc. After 
 he had closed, the presiding officer invited several others, 
 as was the custom, to make a few "spontaneous remarks." 
 Among them was a well-known pioneer lawyer, who 
 said, among other things : 
 
 "Mr. President, I was very much interested in the 
 eulogy the orator of the day paid to the Pilgrim Fathers, 
 all of which was no doubt deserved ; but I want to say a 
 word for the Pilgrim Mothers. All my life, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, I have heard speakers sing the praises of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers for the great hardships they underwent. It has 
 always been the Pilgrim Fathers this and the Pilgrim 
 Fathers that, and I think the time has come when we 
 should give due credit to the Pilgrim Mothers, for they 
 not only endured all the hardships of the Pilgrim Fathers, 
 but, in addition, endured the Pilgrim Fathers besides!" 
 
 Taking the privilege of indulging a few words of per- 
 sonal reference, I may say that I belong to a family of 
 pioneers whose wanderings began in 1636, when two 
 brothers, Thomas and George Geer, came to America 
 from Devonshire, England, and settled in what is now 
 Windham County, Connecticut. These young men, fif- 
 teen and seventeen years of age respectively, soon after 
 landing in Boston found their way to the interior where 
 each acquired a tract of land. The archives of Windham 
 County contain at this time descriptions of their holdings 
 by "metes and bounds," copies of which I have in my 
 possession. 
 
16 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 The father of these two young pilgrims who had the 
 grit and ambition to seek the New World was a farmer 
 in Devon County, England, Jonathan by name, but he 
 never left the "old country." On February 17, 1658, 
 George Geer married Sarah Allyn. They had eleven 
 children, the second of whom was a son, Jonathan, born 
 
 May 26, 1662. Jonathan married Mary , date of 
 
 marriage not known ; to them seven children were born, 
 the first being Jonathan, Jr., who married Elizabeth Her- 
 rick June 17, 172 1. Of this union, five children were 
 born. Losing his wife in 1743, Jonathan married Han- 
 nah Putnam in 1745, by whom he had two children. His 
 first child by his first wife was named Aaron, born on 
 May 7, 1722. 
 
 Aaron Geer married Mercy Fisher, of Preston, Con- 
 necticut, on January 20, 1742, by whom he had four 
 children. By a second wife Isaiah was born in 1765. 
 This son was married in about 1790, his wife's maiden 
 name being Carey; to them several children were born, 
 among them Aaron, Joseph Carey and Irene, Joseph 
 Carey first seeing the light of day on February 5, I79S- 
 His sixth child was a son named Heman Johnson, born 
 September 23, 1828, who was the father of this writer. 
 
 Joseph Carey Geer, my grandfather, was the first of 
 his name to "come West," all his ancestors having re- 
 mained in Connecticut or the States immediately adjoin- 
 ing. In 1 81 3 he enlisted as a private in the war then 
 being waged between the United States and England, 
 and in 181 5, at the age of twenty years, married Mary 
 Johnson, a native daughter of Rhode Island. Three 
 years later, having accumulated some property, consist- 
 ing of two horses, a wagon, a bolt of cloth woven by his 
 wife on a hand-loom, two children, Ralph C, aged two 
 years, and Fred W., an infant, and one hundred dollars 
 in money, he bade a long farewell to Connecticut, the 
 home of his ancestors for nearly two hundred years, 
 and started for the Northwest territory. Crossing the 
 Alleghany Mountains, he settled in Union County, Ohio, 
 where for two winters he taught school, working in the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 17 
 
 summers for neighboring farmers for the princely sum 
 of eight dollars a month. I heard him say in his latter 
 years, when recalling his early experiences in Ohio, that 
 he could always get work on the farms, but could not 
 succeed in having his remuneration increased. In 1821 
 he leased for six years a small tract of land near where 
 the town of Woodstock now stands, but sold it the next 
 year and leased a larger place on the same terms on the 
 Big Darby Plains. Here he built a house and raised two 
 crops, but being driven out by malaria, so prevalent from 
 July to November each year, he moved in 1824 to Madi- 
 son County. Here he bought a splendid farm and pros- 
 pered, giving special attention to the raising of fine stock. 
 When after twenty-two years of persistent effort in Ohio 
 he decided to go West again, he was a thriving farmer 
 surrounded by a family of five sons and five daughters, 
 the two older sons having in the meantime surrendered 
 to the world-wide reign of Dan Cupid and taken unto 
 themselves wives from among the fair damsels of the 
 immediate neighborhood. 
 
 Speaking once of his early married experiences in Con- 
 necticut, Grandfather Geer said: "I found, after work- 
 ing from daylight until dark for three years, that I could 
 never make anything on that poor, worn-out land. So I 
 concluded to go to the 'Far West,' as Ohio was then 
 called, and on September 10, 1818, with my wife and 
 two little tow-headed boys, less than one hundred dollars 
 in money and a light team, I bade farewell to the old 
 Geer farm and joined a company of about forty — Burn- 
 hams, Hathaways and Howards — -and crossed into the 
 Mississippi Valley, being the first Geer to venture West, 
 as far as I can learn." 
 
 In the winter of 1839-40, however, after having be- 
 come well provided with this world's goods as the result 
 of twenty-two years of hard labor, with a good farm 
 improved with houses, barns, orchards and all that would 
 insure a great degree of comfort for the remainder of 
 his davs. my grandfather aeain surrendered to the curi- 
 osity to know from personal observation what there was 
 
i8 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 of a desirable nature farther west, disposed of his farm, 
 and with all his children, accompanied by his sister, Mrs. 
 Irene Eagan, and her large family, chartered a steam- 
 boat at Cincinnati and started down the Ohio River. 
 Their destination was Knox County, Illinois, where it 
 was rumored there was better ( ?) land. No doubt a still 
 further incentive to make what seemed, or would now 
 seem, a great sacrifice was found in the fact that it was 
 several hundred miles farther west. As to this fact they 
 were taking no risk. 
 
 This journey was made in September, 1840, and my 
 father was then a boy of twelve. I have often listened 
 to his description of the intense excitement which was 
 encountered everywhere by reason of the famous presi- 
 dential campaign, then at its height, between William H. 
 Harrison, "Tippecanoe," and Martin Van Buren. Log 
 cabins and coonskins were universally in evidence, and 
 the extravagance of the partisan demonstration was a 
 revelation to the boy, not yet in his teens, who had never 
 before been five miles from the little town of Summer- 
 ford in Madison County. 
 
 Arriving in Illinois after a very tedious voyage up the 
 Mississippi River, my grandfather purchased a farm 
 near Galesburg, in Knox County, and went through the 
 same general experience which had been his in Ohio. 
 Within seven years, however, being exposed to the 
 Oregon fever, he contracted such a serious case that in 
 the spring of 1847 ^^ disposed of all his property, except 
 the necessary teams for the journey, and started for the 
 Pacific Coast, arriving at Oregon City in October of 
 that year. Two years before that his son, Joseph Carey, 
 Jr., had come to Oregon, and his son Fred, with his young 
 wife and two children, one year before, had joined the 
 great westward movement in 1846. 
 
 This, in outline, is the experience of a tj^jical pioneer, 
 who in the course of the first fifty years of his life, after 
 coming to maturity in a New England State, made two 
 farms in the Central Mississippi Vallev, where he 
 wrought for twenty-nine years in the subduing of such 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 19 
 
 adverse conditions as are always to be found on the 
 frontier, drove an ox team two thousand miles across 
 deserts, uninhabited plains and frowning mountains to a 
 country practically unknown and began making a new 
 farm on the west bank of the Willamette River, opposite 
 where Butteville now stands. 
 
 Grandfather Geer lived thirty- four years after his 
 arrival in Oregon, passing into the other life August 27, 
 1 88 1, aged eighty-six years and six months. I am per- 
 fectly jtistified in saying that he lived an upright life in 
 all respects and died without an enemy. He was a re- 
 markably industrious man and was endowed by nature 
 with a sunny disposition which endeared him to all. In 
 clearing land on his farm in 1856 he became overheated 
 while burning brush and stumps, and as a consequence 
 cataracts formed on each eye, which, because of ineffi- 
 cient treatment, resulted in total blindness. During the 
 following twenty-five years he saw no ray of light, but 
 notwithstanding this great affliction his cheerfulness 
 never deserted him. He was blind the first time I ever 
 saw him — I was then a chunk of a boy. I remember 
 how he had me stand by his side, in order that he might 
 get a line on my stature, physiognomy and phrenological 
 development to date, and he insisted that I read for him, 
 that he might determine how far I had advanced in that 
 direction. There was a wire stretched between two 
 posts, about fifty feet apart, and by means of an attached 
 ring he would walk from one post to the other for hours 
 every day in pleasant weather for the purpose of exercise, 
 using the ring as a guide. I used to watch him as he 
 walked along his well-beaten path, and I am sure that 
 the first sentiment of pity I ever felt was excited by 
 the sight. He was the first blind man I had ever seen, 
 and I am certain that until then I had never understood 
 that people ever lost their eyesight. 
 
 We lived thirty miles from Butteville, a distance so 
 great in pioneer times that it was not often covered for 
 the sake of a mere pleasure trip. A few times we had 
 been to Butteville, however, and I understood that we 
 
20 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 went there to visit my grandfather. I thought much 
 more of him than if he had not been my grandfather. I 
 didn't know why, except that in a general way your 
 grandfather is a better man than his neighbors, and, 
 besides, he makes more over you. And that helped some. 
 But one of my earliest and greatest surprises came when, 
 after returning from one of these visits, I learned through 
 listening to the conversation at the fireside that my grand- 
 father was my father's father! Somehow this phase 
 of the situation had never presented itself to my mind, 
 if I had any — ^which seems doubtful, as I look back and 
 recall the circumstances— but the astounding revelation 
 served to impress upon me the fact that the men who 
 are the fathers of the children we know, themselves at 
 one time had fathers, and that some of them were still 
 living. I had never delved any further into these myste- 
 ries than a cursory examination of the first strata of 
 cause and eflFect. 
 
 The last time I saw Grandfather Geer was during the 
 summer of 1880 — a few months after he had passed his 
 eighty-fifth birthday — and he was the same cheerful man 
 as in his younger days, though he had then been totally 
 blind for twenty-five years. It was on that occasion that 
 he told this story at the dinner table, illustrating the great 
 devotion and faith some people have in the Divine Being, 
 even to the smallest details. He said: 
 
 "Where I lived in Connecticut there was a man who 
 had the habit of thanking the Lord for every favor he 
 enjoyed or whatever success of any kind he achieved. 
 He would also ask the Lord for assistance when he was 
 about to undertake an3rthing, no matter how trivial it 
 was. One day, when he had been plowing his corn since 
 early in the morning, the noon hour arrived, and as he 
 was very tired he concluded to ride his horse to the bam. 
 He was a verv tall horse and it was no easy thing to 
 mount him without stirrups. So, placing his hands on 
 his back, he looked into the sky and asked the Lord to 
 help him in his difficult undertaking. Having attended 
 to this necessary preliminary, he summoned all his 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 21 
 
 strength and with a superhuman effort made the leap, 
 but the result proved that he had overdone the affair. 
 He not only got on top of the horse, but, since there was 
 nothing stationary to hold on to, he went on over, bur- 
 rowing his head into the plowed ground. After he had 
 pulled himself together, dug the dirt out of his ears and 
 secured his hat, he put his hands on the back of the horse 
 again, lifted his face to the skies, and with meekness as 
 well as devotion written all over his face, said : 
 "O Lord, when Thou art good Thou art too good !" 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Ever since Oregon was admitted into the Union, more 
 than fifty-two years ago — the date being February 14, 
 1859 — its people have been noted for their conservatism, 
 for their tendency to accept existing conditions until 
 some gilt-edged testimony has been presented that a 
 change will not only be safe and accompanied by a guar- 
 anteed improvement, but that there will be a rock-ribbed 
 assurance that its cost shall be restricted within reason- 
 able bounds. The pioneers found a new country here, 
 practically as the hands of its Maker had left it some mil- 
 lions of years before — though most of them held tena- 
 ciously to the literal construction of the Genesis account. 
 They had taken possession of it, had made it what it 
 was; it was good enough for them, and, therefore, for 
 anybody else. They were isolated from all the rest of 
 the world, had few or no wants that could not be sup- 
 plied by a requisition upon their own resources, and, in 
 short, were living the simple life in its most approved 
 form. 
 
 For these reasons the people of Oregon, as contrasted 
 with those of California, for instance, have been re- 
 garded as being "slow," and, largely for the same reason, 
 the State has been in a measure retarded in its develop- 
 ment from every point of view. Rut this has been neither 
 a discredit nor a distinct loss. The pioneers of Oregon, 
 those who came here during the first ten years of its 
 settlement, were not in any sense adventurers. Largely 
 drawn from the Mississippi Valley States, mostly farmers, 
 they had in view the acquisition of lands, and intended 
 to pursue their former vocations in their new homes. 
 They were people of some material substance or they 
 could not have afforded the expense of such a journey, 
 
 22 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 23 
 
 and they were men and women of stamina or they would 
 not have attempted, and succeeded, in overcoming the 
 unparalleled difficulties which beset them upon every 
 hand. 
 
 As contrasted witii this fact, the earliest settlers of 
 California were drawn thither by the discovery of gold 
 in the fall of 1848 and, as was natural, the footloose, 
 those without marital or other ties, the reckless and dar- 
 ing, went there by the thousands and every nation under 
 heaven was represented. There was nothing that bound 
 them to the country ; they were not and did not intend to 
 become landholders, and since an overwhelming majority 
 of them failed to find gold in such quantities as they had 
 expected — as is the history of mining camps the world 
 over — a large number of them became turbulent, careless 
 of consequences, and created a condition which in many 
 cases called for the short-cut to justice and the inaugura- 
 tion of law and order by way of the Vigilance Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 There was never anything of this character to mar the 
 early history of Oregon, for the reason which I have 
 outlined. Our people settled down to the cultivation of 
 the soil at once and to the erection of homes. Indeed, 
 it has been said that thousands went to California during 
 the first years of its occupancy bv Americans and "settled 
 down there because thev couldn't settle up where they 
 came from." But while all this had its objections and 
 presented many difficult problems for solution, it had its 
 compensations in the fact that the more serious minded 
 men were driven to seek other vocations than minine. and 
 the development of California's wonderful natural re- 
 sources followed "as night the day." The verv activity 
 of the disappointed men who flocked to the mines in that 
 section in '49 and 'qo turned them into business channels, 
 and the result is seen in the great accomplishments of 
 to-day, agriculturally, horticulturally and commercially. 
 The heteroeeneousness of its earlv population provided 
 it with the material for merchants, bankers, sailors, 
 steamboat men, miners, farmers, stock-raisers, etc., and 
 
24 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 as a consequence its development has been so marvelous 
 as to win, deservedly, the admiration of the world. 
 
 All this was not to be a part of the early history of 
 Oregon, however, notwithstanding its boundless natural 
 resources. It has come since, and the dawn of its second 
 birth is just breaking in this good year of 191 1. The 
 retarding of its development has in a sense been a bless- 
 ing for the generations yet to come, since its future looms 
 large before it. Its pioneers were farmers who upon 
 arriving here resumed their former vocation — partly, of 
 course, for the reason that there was nothing else to do. 
 It is not far from the fact — perhaps it is the fact — to 
 say that fully nine-tenths of the people who came here 
 during the first ten years of the migration to the "Oregon 
 Country" came directlv from the four States of Missouri, 
 Iowa, Illinois and Indiana, and it is likely that three- 
 fourths of these were from the first two named. 
 
 It is extremely interesting to note the general course 
 of westward immigration. Most of the early settlers in 
 Missouri came from either Kentucky or Tennessee and 
 the ancestors of these largely from Virginia or the Caro- 
 linas. The Ohioans came from Pennsylvania and New 
 York, a few from the New England States, while south- 
 ern Illinois and Indiana in their early settlement were 
 recruited from Kentucky. My grandfather on my 
 mother's side, John Leonard EoflF, typifies in his career 
 the average Southerner of the last century who was domi- 
 nated by the human instinct to continue to the westward. 
 He was born in Pulaski County, Kentucky, July 2, 181 2. 
 His father, John Eoflf, was born near Wheeling, Vir- 
 ginia, in 1777. He was brought to Point Lick, Kentucky, 
 by his parents in 1780, and in 1801 moved to Pulaski 
 County, where he lived until his death, January 24, 1867, 
 aged ninety years. 
 
 That part of Kentucky where he chose to spend his 
 life is one of the poorest regions to be found in Uncle 
 Sam's domain, no matter where you might search, if you 
 except a Western desert. Of course at that time much 
 of the beautiful and fertile hill land, now known as the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 25 
 
 Blue Grass section, was unoccupied, but it afforded little 
 attraction to the first adventurers west of the Blue Ridge 
 and Cumberland ranges, since they were mountaineers 
 and cared little for homes where deer were not easily 
 found and bear could not be had by the mere setting of 
 traps. 
 
 It was in a country such as this that my grandfather 
 was born and in which he remained until he was twenty 
 years of age. Hundreds of times when a child I have 
 sat by his fireside and listened to his narration of boy- 
 hood experiences — ^how until he was grown he never 
 owned a pair of "store shoes" to be worn except on Sun- 
 days, and how his only daytime raiment, until he was 
 big enough to go "sparking," was a tow shirt made by 
 his mother. By dint of hard work, early and late, the 
 stingy soil was persuaded to yield sufficient corn for 
 "dodgers," which supplied the family with bread, and 
 meat was derived from the slaying of deer, bear and wild 
 hogs. Tame hogs were not known, and if they had been 
 there was nothing to feed them on. The "razor backs" 
 could live on the "mast" which fell in liberal quantities 
 from the abounding oaks, chestnuts and hickory trees. 
 
 Amid these surroundings my grandfather lived and 
 grew to manhood without the advantages of even a dis- 
 trict school. There were no schools in that part of Ken- 
 tucky in those days, either public or private. With his 
 four brothers he hoed corn and tobacco, made rails and 
 took an active part in the simple neighborhood gather- 
 ings, husking-bees and singing schools. Even then the 
 Kentucky girls were beautiful to look upon, and the 
 young man who could carry off the laurels at the wrestl- 
 ing bouts was likely to be the "catch" in, the community 
 — and in the contest for this distinction my grandfather 
 was near the head of the race. 
 
 He would probably have remained a resident of his 
 native State during the whole of his long life if it had 
 not been for the attraction of a neighbor's daughter, 
 Mary Ann Routen, who, with the aid of Cupid, carried 
 him off his feet at the age of twenty years. While in 
 
26 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 that state of mind there could be no peace or happiness 
 or rest or delay, especially the latter, until the two souls 
 with but a single thought should be merged into two 
 hearts that beat as one. But an obstacle at once arose, 
 and, as some philosopher has remarked, the main objec- 
 tion one has to an obstacle is that it is always in the way. 
 The girl's parents were opposed to the marriage,^ as 
 parents are prone to be at times; but this interposition, 
 like many another of its kind, proved to be no barrier at 
 all. Neither of them was of age and the laws of Ken- 
 tucky sternly forbade the marriage of mere children. 
 Other young people before them, meeting with the same 
 absurd hindrance to the realization of love's young 
 dream, had found balm through a trip to Indiana, which 
 had a code of matrimonial laws with whose terms com- 
 pliance was easy. 
 
 So, one dark night in January, 1833, my grandfather's 
 brother George, five years his senior, appeared at the 
 home of neighbor Routen soon after bedtime with a 
 good Kentucky saddle horse, equipped with a side-saddle, 
 and, as luck would have it. Miss Mary Ann was at the 
 front gate suitably garbed for a long journey. Without 
 any unnecessary commotion the two were soon galloping 
 across the woods; and, as strange things so often happen 
 in groups, they had not gone more than a mile when they 
 came across my grandfather at the forks of the road, 
 astride a four-year-old charger, apparently in a listening 
 attitude. Seeing things had turned out that way, the 
 three of them rode toward the North Star as rapidly as 
 their steeds could travel and within a few days crossed 
 the Ohio River into Indiana. Here circumstances were 
 favorable to a matrimonial alliance and John Leonard 
 EoflF was married to Mary Ann Routen. And they lived 
 together ever afterwards happily, until my grandmother 
 died in 1890 at the age of seventy-six. My grandfather 
 passed away in January, 1899, at the age of eighty-six 
 years and six months. 
 
 My grandparents lived the first two years of their 
 married life in Indiana, moved to McCoupin County, 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 27 
 
 Illinois, in 1835, and in March, 1841, moved to Burling- 
 ton, Iowa, crossing the Mississippi River at that point, 
 as I have heard my grandfather describe hundreds of 
 times, on the first day of March on the ice with his team 
 and wagon. Here he worked at teaming for two years, 
 after which, in 1843, he removed to Davis County, near 
 the Missouri line, and acquired a piece of land. By this 
 time there were five children in the family and the making 
 of a home as well as a living on the wild prairie was a task 
 which, with the limited means at hand in those days, was 
 calculated to bring dismay to the stoutest hearts. But 
 my grandfather was an unusually industrious man, and by 
 persistent application and the strictest economy on the 
 part of the family he had within three years a little farm 
 in cultivation and a comfortable log house plentifully fur- 
 nished with the real necessaries of life. 
 
 But, when absent at church one Sunday in the spring 
 of 1846, his house caught fire and before the arrival of 
 the nearest neighbor everything was consumed. Nothing 
 was left but a pile of smouldering ashes of all his per- 
 sonal effects. He had only his team, his land and his 
 family. 
 
 It was at this time that the talk about the Oregon 
 country was spreading ever3rwhere and this disaster left 
 my grandfather in the mood to "move on." Devoting 
 the remainder of the year to the preparation for another 
 westward journey, in the spring of 1847 ^^ joined the 
 great caravan which assembled at Independence, Mis- 
 souri, and arrived in Oregon in October of that year. 
 In Iowa he had been a near neighbor of Captain L. N. 
 English, who had come to Oregon in 1845 and had located 
 on the beautiful Howell's prairie, in Marion County, 
 where he erected a grist- and saw-mill — among the first in 
 the territory of Oregon. In January, 1841, George Eoff, 
 brother of my grandfather, had married Nancy English, 
 a niece of Captain English, and they were a part of the 
 company of which my grandparents were members. 
 Knowing they were en route, Captain English met them 
 at the western foot of the Cascade Mountains with fresh 
 
28 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 provisions and piloted them to his home. Uncle George 
 Eofif secured a section of land in the fall of 1848, situated 
 on the first upland slope south of Howell's prairie in the 
 Waldo Hills, while my grandfather at the same time 
 bought the squatter's right to a section of land which 
 comprised the extreme southern end of that prairie. To 
 this he afterward added a quarter section and here he 
 lived until his death. It was his home for more than 
 fifty-one years. 
 
 I have thus traced somewhat in detail the careers of 
 both my grandfathers, one purpose being to leave in 
 permanent form a record of their lives and another being 
 to illustrate in their wanderings the general tendency of 
 the American people, as they began to leave the shores 
 of the Atlantic in quest of a newer region — ^the uncon- 
 quered and mysterious West. The best that was to be 
 had in the country where they lived was not good enough 
 as long as there was a probability of a better one beyond. 
 But, after all, restlessness is the mainspring which moves 
 us onward to progress, and however much a feeling of 
 content is desirable, from many points of view, it must 
 be admitted that the contented man is not likely to forge 
 ahead in an attack upon the existing order of things, 
 without which assault — though we may call such a man an 
 agitator and a crank — we would probably still be wear- 
 ing the skins of wild animals for clothing, if, indeed, we 
 should be wearing any at all, and expressing our thoughts 
 in the mysterious gibberish of the spectacular monkey. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 At this point I desire to devote a chapter or two to the 
 remarkable steps which were taken by the United States 
 in the acquisition of the western half of the continent, 
 for it is really an important part of the history of the 
 Oregon country. '"The Fathers," especially Jefferson 
 and Madison, were believers in what was known as the 
 strict construction of the Federal Constitution; that is, 
 that the States held within themselves the supreme power 
 in all cases except where the powers of the Federal Gov- 
 ernment were specifically defined. In other words, all 
 powers not expressly conferred were to be exercised by 
 the States. This doctrine was specifically promulgated 
 in the famous "Resolutions of '98-9," of which Jefferson 
 and Madison were the authors. 
 
 And according to this interpretation of the Constitu- 
 tion the United States had no right, either expressed or 
 implied, to acquire new territory. Compliance with this 
 view of Jefferson and his political associates would have 
 fixed the western boundary of the original thirteen states 
 as the permanent one for the nation. Think of it! If 
 it had been settled upon as the unalterable definition of 
 the powers and limitations of the Constitution, to-day 
 the western boundary of Pennsylvania would be the 
 eastern line of some foreign nation, perhaps of some 
 French dependency, as Canada is now subject to the 
 British Government, and Oregon might now be settled 
 by a people speaking Spanish or German ! 
 
 But many events bearing the mark of special divine 
 interposition occurred, the chief of which was the alarm- 
 ing situation in which Napoleon Bonaparte found him- 
 self in 1803 because of the probability that he would 
 soon be involved in a war with England, in which case 
 he could foresee that it would be impossible for him to 
 hold the Louisiana possessions in America. It was most 
 
 29 
 
30 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 fortunate for the future of the United States that at this 
 particular time Jefferson, then President, was anxious 
 to purchase New Orleans, as a means of insuring the 
 free navigation of the Mississippi, and the Floridas. To 
 negotiate for this purchase he sent envoys to France in 
 1803, who, upon their arrival, found that the Marquis 
 de Marbois, the French councillor representing Napo- 
 leon, had already been instructed to sell the whole of 
 Louisiana to the United States— for the reason outlined 
 above. The following extract from Napoleon's instruc- 
 tions to his representative fully discloses his motives in 
 that very surprising move on the world's political chess- 
 board. Speaking of the evident purposes of the Eng- 
 lish he said: 
 
 They shall not have the Mississippi, which they 
 covet. The conquest of Louisiana would be easy if 
 they only took the trouble to make a descent there. 
 I have not a moment to lose in putting it out of 
 their reach. I think of ceding it to the United 
 States. They ask of me one town in Louisiana, but I 
 already consider the colony as entirely lost, and it 
 appears to me that in the hands of this growing 
 power it will be more useful to the policy, and even 
 to the commerce, of France than if I should attempt 
 to keep it. 
 
 After further consideration he decided the matter 
 definitely in these words: 
 
 It is not only New Orleans that I will cede, it is 
 the whole colony without reservation. To attempt 
 to hold it would be folly. I direct you to negotiat 
 this offer with the envoys of the United States. I 
 will be moderate, in the consideration of the neces- 
 sity in which I am of making a sale, but keep this to 
 yourself. 
 
 It is not necessary to follow this most interesting story, 
 of such vital importance to the future of the United 
 States and resulting in such benefits to the human race, 
 further than to add that Livingstone and Monroe, the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 31 
 
 American representatives at Paris, were thunderstruck 
 by the stupendous possibilities which the situation opened 
 to their country. But as they had instructions to pur- 
 chase only New Orleans and the Floridas they hesitated 
 to accept Napoleon's proposition, magnificent as it was. 
 Jefferson was fearful that his representatives would not 
 be able even to succeed in arranging terms for the pur- 
 chase of New Orleans. Knowing this, they were 
 astounded to find themselves upon their arrival with 
 nearly all of the western half of the continent literally 
 thrust upon them at the nominal price of fifteen million 
 dollars! And as both were political disciples of Jeffer- 
 son in his strict construction of the Constitution, as 
 opposed to that of Washington and Hamilton, they of 
 course understood that a great obstacle would be en- 
 countered upon their return to the United States with so 
 vast an empire added unconstitutionally to the national 
 domain. 
 
 But luckily, being far-seeing statesmen, and probably 
 understanding the statesmanship of their chief in its 
 adaptability to circumstances which promised well for 
 the future, they accepted Napoleon's proposition and 
 returned to Washington with an agreement duly signed, 
 the chief clause of which read as follows : 
 
 The colony or province of Louisiana is ceded by 
 France to the United States, with all its rights and 
 appurtenances, as fully and in the same manner as 
 they have been acquired by the French Republic, by 
 virtue of the third article of the treaty concluded by 
 His Catholic Majesty at St. Ildephonso of the ist of 
 October, 1800. 
 
 Although the popular notion is that Jefiferson was 
 aggressively favorable to the acquisition of the Louisiana 
 territory, history proves that he never seriously dreamed 
 of such an accomplishment even as a remote possibility, 
 and that no man was more surprised than he when he 
 learned what his representatives had done. And he was 
 inwardly as well pleased as he was surprised, for with 
 
32 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 his great perspicacity he could readily foresee the bound- 
 less advantages which would be derived by the United 
 States in the years to come from the addition of this 
 vast region. 
 
 Jefferson's first difficulty, however, was not to disown 
 the act of his emissaries but to devise some way of jus- 
 tifying it. To do so he must revise his political doctrine 
 of a strictly interpreted Constitution, and this he at 
 once set to work to bring about. He found the situation 
 perplexing, but his resources were as boundless as those 
 of the country whose servant he was. He began imme- 
 diately to write letters to his closest friends, explaining 
 and excusing his change of doctrine. He first seriously 
 proposed the submission of an amendment to the Consti- 
 tution which would specifically legalize the purchase of 
 Louisiana, and by that means harmonize his political 
 preaching with his political practices. But his most con- 
 fidential associates advised him to remain quiet on the 
 general phase of the difficulty and to depend upon the 
 public approval of the step as a means of escaping from 
 the legal tangle which his conscience was inclined to 
 recognize and magnify. To a friend Jefferson wrote at 
 this time: 
 
 The less that is said about any constitutional diffi- 
 culty the better. ... It will be necessary for 
 Congress to do what is necessary in silence. . 
 Whatever Congress shall think it necessary to do 
 should be done with as little debate as possible, and 
 particularly so far as respects the constitutional dif- 
 ficulty. 
 
 In another letter he said : 
 
 Congress has made no provision for holding foreign 
 territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations 
 into our Union. The Executive, in seizing the fugi- 
 tive occurrence which so much advances the good of 
 their country, have done an act beyond the Constitu- 
 tion. The Legislature, in casting behind them meta- 
 physical difficulties, and risking themselves like faith- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 33 
 
 ful servants, must ratify and pay for it and throw 
 themselves on the country for doing for them un- 
 authorized what they knew they would have done for 
 themselves had they been in a situation to do it. It 
 is the case of a guardian investing the money of his 
 ward in purchasing an important adjacent territory, 
 and saying to him when of age : "I did this for your 
 good. I pretend to no right to bind you; you may 
 disavow me and I will get out of the scrape as well 
 as I can. I thought it my duty to risk myself for 
 you." But we shall not be disavowed by the nation, 
 and their act of indemnity will confirm and not 
 weaken the Constitution by more strongly marking 
 out its lines. 
 
 Jefferson was one of the most prolific letter-writers of 
 his or any other day, and these brief extracts are but 
 samples of his activity in urging his friends to believe 
 that the Constitution would survive this sudden shock. 
 His versatility is exhibited in his characterization of the 
 opportunity to violate his previous interpretation of the 
 Constitution as a "fugitive occurrence" which the 
 "Executive have seized," the latter expression, which 
 would not be considered grammatical in these days, being 
 in accordance with the custom of kings and other rulers 
 of the previous century, and not at that time discarded 
 by those so recently divorced from the forms of the Old 
 World governments. 
 
 One of the really humorous incidents of history is 
 afforded by the diplomatic somersaults of Jefferson in 
 connection with the acquisition of Louisiana. The ex- 
 pression "fugitive occurrence" was a gem in its line and 
 fitly defines the justification which all great figures in 
 governmental and religious reforms present by way of 
 vindication when they have applied the stiletto to estab- 
 lished and perhaps tyrannical customs. 
 
 But under the tactful guidance of Jefferson the little 
 tempest blew over. Congress ratified the treaty of acqui- 
 sition "with as little debate as possible," though while it 
 lasted the discussion was warm and almost furious. In 
 order to pass rapidly over this historical feature of the 
 
34 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 first movement, which resulted in the final acquisition 
 of the whole western part of the continent, including ulti- 
 mately the Oregon country, I shall quote but a smgle para- 
 graph of a single speech of the many made in Congress 
 in opposition to legalizing the action of Jefferson in the 
 Louisiana Purchase. When the question of ratification 
 was before Congress, Senator James White, of Delaware, 
 one of the most influential members of that body, said : 
 
 "But as to Louisiana, this new, immense, unbounded 
 world, if it should ever be incorporated into the Union, 
 of which I have no idea, can only be done by amending 
 the Constitution, I believe it would be the greatest 
 curse that could at present befall us. It may be pro- 
 ductive of innumerable evils, and especially of one that 
 I fear ever to look upon. Thus our citizens will be re- 
 moved to the immense distance of two or three thou- 
 sand miles from the Capital of the Union, where they 
 will scarcely ever feel the rays of the General Govern- 
 ment ; affections will become alienated ; they will grad- 
 ually begin to view us as strangers; they will form 
 other commercial connections and our interests will 
 become extinct. . . . And I do say that under 
 existing circumstances, even supposing that this extent 
 of territory was a desirable acquisition, fifteen millions 
 of dollars is a most enormous sum to give." 
 
 All of which, after a century of development of this 
 supposedly "worthless territory," appears absurdly ridicu- 
 lous. It is amazing that even then an intelligent man 
 should have entertained so immature a conception of the 
 great country which the Louisiana Purchase included. 
 To-day every heart-throb of the nation, having its incep- 
 tion at Washington, is felt as keenly and responded to as 
 quickly at any point on the Pacific Coast as at Boston or 
 Richmond. By snatching a "fugitive occurrence" and 
 abandoning his former narrow conception of the powers 
 of the General Government, JefTerson performed, or 
 accepted, an act which was second in importance in his 
 great career only to the writing of the Declaration of 
 Independence. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 But the acquisition of the Northwest was yet to be 
 accompHshed, though, strange as it may appear, until 
 little more than ten years ago the belief was quite gener- 
 ally entertained by the American public that the territory 
 embraced in the Louisiana Purchase included all that 
 lying between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Coast, 
 notwithstanding that the historical facts bearing upon the 
 case were accessible to and should have been understood 
 by everybody. Even the ofificial map issued by the Gen- 
 eral Land Office as late as 1898 so represented the matter. 
 The question coming to the notice of Hon. Binger Her- 
 mann, then the Commissioner in the Land Department, 
 and for the twelve previous years a member of Congress 
 from Oregon, that gentleman compiled from the official 
 records the exact history of the treaty with France and 
 published a correct map showing that all of Oregon, 
 Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming 
 were secured to the United States in after years by the 
 enforcement of rights obtained through discovery in 
 1792, exploration in 1804-5 by Lewis and Clark, occupa- 
 tion by American settlers, and, finally, by treaties with 
 England. Indeed, the western boundary of the Louis- 
 iana Purchase was not defined in the terms of the cession, 
 since Napoleon himself did not know where it rightfully 
 belonged. ^Vhen questioned concerning this important 
 feature of the transaction by the American representa- 
 tives, Marbois referred the matter to Napoleon and ex- 
 pressed his regret that the western boundary of Louis- 
 iana should be so "obscure." To this the Man of Destiny 
 gave a reply which was eminently characteristic, to wit, 
 that "if an obscurity does not exist already, it would, 
 perhaps, be good policy to put one there." So, with 
 this indefinite understanding as to what the United States 
 
 35 
 
36 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 was getting for its fifteen-million-dollar investment, the 
 country was accepted and the details were afterward 
 worked out as circumstances and responsibility demanded. 
 Fortunately this process required no bloodshed, and in 
 the course of time the United States came into its own 
 through the occurrence of a chain of events which those 
 not too skeptical are justified in believing were ordered 
 by the decrees of a Providence that looks after the 
 ultimate welfare of the human race. 
 
 Having satisfied his conscience as to the constitution- 
 ality of the proceeding which made the most of a "fugi- 
 tive occurrence," Jefferson at once conceived the Lewis 
 and Clark expedition and lost no time in getting the 
 movement under actual headway. 
 
 Jefferson's undoubted ability as a statesman was exem- 
 plified in his proposed organization of the Lewis and 
 Clark expedition even before the acquisition of Louis- 
 iana was accomplished — ^before he had even dreamed of 
 such a thing as a possibility. He had no knowledge of 
 the action of the American representatives at Paris until 
 their return to Washington in July, 1803, and the treaty 
 of acquisition was not ratified by Congress until the 20th 
 of the following October. In the previous January he 
 had asked Congress to provide an adequate appropriation 
 for an expedition to the mouth of the Columbia River, 
 by way of the headwaters of the Missouri, and that body 
 had generously granted his request. This is related here 
 for the purpose of showing that Jefiferson, in inaugurat- 
 ing the Lewis and Clark expedition, had no thought that 
 the great Northwestern territory belonged to the United 
 States through the purchase of Louisiana, or for any 
 other reason. Indeed, he had argued in favor of some 
 such procedure a dozen years before, while Secretary of 
 State under President Washington. 
 
 There can be no doubt, however, that his perspicacity 
 led him to see the great advantages which would ulti- 
 mately come to the United States if its territory could 
 be made co-extensive with the continent, and that it was 
 in accordance with this idea that he was anxious to have 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 37 
 
 American representatives in the field of exploration with 
 the purpose of establishing prior rights. When we con- 
 sider the great activity of Jefferson in the matter of 
 acquiring new territory, together with the ease with 
 which he surrendered his previous contention for a strict 
 construction of the Federal Constitution that the country 
 might expand in landed area, one may well believe that 
 if he had been actively in the flesh during the past 
 twenty years he would have aligned himself with the 
 pronounced "expansionists." The history of his time 
 fairly bristles with evidence of his anxiety to acquire Cuba 
 as a part of our domain, and in 1807 (August 10), during 
 his second term as President, he wrote to Madison, his 
 Secretary of State, discussing the possibility of war with 
 England, as follows: 
 
 I would rather have war with Spain than not, if 
 we are to go to war against England. Our southern 
 defenses can take care of the Floridas, volunteers 
 from the Mexican army will flock to our standard 
 and rich pabulum will be offered to our privateers in 
 the plunder of their commerce and coasts ; probably 
 Cuba would add itself to our confederation. 
 
 Two years later he again wrote to Madison, who was 
 then President, as follows : 
 
 That Napoleon would give us the Floridas to with- 
 hold intercourse with the residue of these colonies 
 cannot be doubted, but that is no price, for they are 
 ours the first moment of the first war; but, although 
 with difficulty, he will consent to our receiving Cuba 
 into our Union to prevent our aid to Mexico and other 
 provinces. That will be a price, and I would immedi- 
 ately erect a column on the southernmost limits of 
 Cuba and inscribe on it a ne plus ultra as to us in 
 that direction. We should then only have to include 
 the North in our confederacy, which would be, of 
 course, in the first war, and we should have such an 
 empire for liberty as she has never surveyed since 
 the creation, and I am convinced that no Constitution 
 
38 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 was ever before so well calculated as ours for exten- 
 sive empire and self-government. 
 
 All of which is worth knowing and remembering as 
 very important features of the great movements which, 
 in the aggregate, resulted in the acquisition of territory 
 which gives us practically three times the area that we 
 claimed at the close of the Revolution. And it is also 
 interesting to note the opposition which has always been 
 made to such expansion, even by men who, in the phrase 
 of the day, should have known better. The acquisition 
 of the "Oregon Country" — by which term was known 
 almost all that region north of California and New 
 Mexico and west of the Rocky Mountains — was not to 
 be merely a "fugitive occurrence," since the first serious 
 consideration of the matter was taken by Congress in 
 1825, President Monroe having recommended that a 
 military post be established "at or near the mouth of the 
 Columbia River," the purpose of which was not to declare 
 our title to the country but to protect "our increased and 
 increasing fisheries on the Pacific." A bill was introduced 
 at once in the House complying with the President's 
 request and, in addition to the main purpose of it, pro- 
 vision was made for granting each settler one mile square 
 of land, a forerunner by a full quarter of a century of 
 the Donation Land Act, which became a law in 1850. 
 
 This bill evoked such a curious debate, manifesting 
 the crude conception which many of our statesmen had 
 of this Western country at that time, that I quote a few 
 samples which will illustrate what we have had to "come 
 up through" in the exploitation of what is really one of 
 the finest sections of the globe for the development of 
 that which is best in men and women. 
 
 Among the most prominent and sagacious men who 
 took an active part in the debate on the Oregon bill in the 
 session of 1824-5 was James Barbour, a Senator from 
 Virginia, who, after insisting that England had no claim 
 nor title to the Northwestern country, devoted himself to 
 answering the statement that it was worthless anjrway, 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 39 
 
 and that so vast a country annexed to the United States 
 would not only make our government unwieldy, but 
 would present a real menace to its perpetuity. Concern- 
 ing this phase of the matter, he said : 
 
 Fifty years ago and the valley of the Mississippi 
 was like the present condition of the country of the 
 Oregon. It is now teeming with a mighty popula- 
 tion — a free and happy people. Their march onward 
 to the country of the setting sun is irresistible. I will 
 not disguise that I look with deepest anxiety on this 
 vast extension of our empire and to its possible effect 
 on our political institutions. Whatever they may be, 
 however, our forefathers decided that the experiment 
 should be made. Our advance in political science has 
 already cancelled the dogmas of theory. We have 
 already ascertained, that by the happy combination 
 of national and state governments, but above all by 
 a wise arrangement of the representatives system, 
 republics are not necessarily limited to a small terri- 
 tory, and that a government thus arranged not only 
 produces more happiness, but more stability and more 
 energy than those most arbitrary. Whether it is 
 capable of indefinite extent must be left to posterity 
 to decide. But, in the most unfavorable result, 
 a division, by necessity, from its unwieldy extent — 
 an event, I would devoutly hope afar off — we even 
 then can console ourselves with the reflection that all 
 parts of the great whole will have been peopled by 
 our kindred, carrying with them the same language, 
 habits and inextinguishable devotion to liberty and 
 republican institutions. 
 
 This was the language of a statesman, of a man who 
 had studied governments and people, and who was suffi- 
 ciently free from prejudice to take a higher view of a 
 great opportunity. 
 
 Senator Dickerson of New Jersey was the leader of 
 the opposition to the effort to provide for a military post 
 at the mouth of the Columbia. He was certain that, since 
 England and the United States had signed a treaty in 
 1 81 8, according to the terms of which both countries 
 
40 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 should occupy the Oregon country without claiming title 
 thereto, the proposed bill, if passed, would be considered 
 as a hostile act by Great Britain and would probably 
 result in war. Senator Dickerson then turned his shafts 
 of ridicule upon the proposition to acquire Oregon in any 
 manner, and closed his speech with a remarkable exhibi- 
 tion of misinformation regarding a section of our com- 
 mon country which is bound in the course of events to 
 become one of its most attractive and valuable sub- 
 divisions. Fully twenty years after the wonderful jour- 
 ney of Lewis and Clark and fourteen years after the 
 settlement of Astoria, Senator Dickerson displayed his 
 lack of foresight as to the character of the Pacific Coast 
 and of the genius of the American people by the follow- 
 ing amusing calculations and side-splitting predictions. 
 Estimating the distance from Washington to Oregon 
 to be four thousand six hundred and fifty miles, he said : 
 
 But is this Territory of Oregon ever to become a 
 State? Never! The distance that a member of 
 Congress from this State of Oregon will be obliged 
 to travel in coming to the seat of government, and re- 
 turning, will be nine thousand three hundred miles. 
 This, at the rate of eight dollars for every twenty 
 miles would make his traveling expenses amount to 
 three thousand seven hundred and twenty dollars. 
 Every member of Congress ought to see his con- 
 stituents at least once a year. This is already very 
 difficult for those in the remote parts of the Union. 
 At the rate which members of Congress travel accord- 
 ing to law, that is, twenty miles per day, it would re- 
 quire to come to the seat of government and return 
 four hundred and sixty-five days. But if he should 
 travel at the rate of thirty miles a day, it would re- 
 quire three hundred and six days. Allowing for Sun- 
 days, forty-four days, it would require three hundred 
 and six days. This would allow the member a fort- 
 night to rest himself at Washington before commenc- 
 ing his journey home. This rate of traveling would 
 be a hard duty, as the greater part of the way is 
 exceedingly bad and a portion of it over the rugged 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 41 
 
 mountains, where Lewis and Clark found several 
 feet of snow in the latter part of June. Yet, a young, 
 able-bodied Senator might travel from Oregon to 
 Washington and back once a year, but he could do 
 nothing else. It would be more expeditious, however. 
 to come by water around Cape Horn, or through 
 Behring's Strait, around the north coast of the conti- 
 nent to Baffin's Bay, through Davis Strait to the 
 Atlantic Ocean, and thus on to Washington. It is 
 true that this passage is not yet discovered, except on 
 the maps, but it will be as soon as Oregon will be a 
 State. 
 
 The fallibility of the human judgment is well illus- 
 trated by a glance at the industrial condition now pre- 
 vailing in all parts of the Oregon Country, in connection 
 with this prediction of Senator Dickerson. Of course 
 that speech was made eighty-six years ago, and that is a 
 long way to look into the future with any degree of cer- 
 tainty, yet there were those at that time who had the most 
 exalted opinion of the possibilities and value of the region 
 in controversy. Among these was Jefferson himself, who 
 soon after the close of the Revolution began to cast his 
 eye west of the Mississippi and to covet all the country 
 lying between that stream and the Pacific Ocean. But 
 the man who was one of the earliest champions of Oregon 
 and who accomplished more than any other when it came 
 before the public as a matter to be disposed of one way 
 or the other, was Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri. But 
 for his unceasing championship of the right of the United 
 States to the whole of the Northwest, and his faith in its 
 great industrial and commercial value after it should be 
 settled by the American people, it is quite among the 
 possibilities that England finally might have succeeded in 
 obtaining title to it. 
 
 The State of Oregon contains only about one-fourth 
 of the area of the original Oregon Country (the re- 
 mainder being composed of the States of Washington and 
 Idaho and parts of Montana and Wyoming) yet Oregon 
 alone now produces not far from two millions of dollars 
 
42 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 in gold each year; its annual wool clip amounts to four 
 millions of dollars, its wheat fifteen millions and its sal- 
 mon one million. Its other industries already developed 
 cover perhaps a greater variety, owing to its wonderful 
 climate and soil, than any other State in the Union. It has 
 more standing timber of the best quality than any other 
 State, and Portland, with over two hundred thousand 
 population, stands at the head of the list of cities in the 
 United States as an exporter of wheat. 
 
 In view of this condition, while the exploitation of its 
 natural resources is yet in its infancy, the extract from 
 the speech of Senator Dickerson in 1825 makes good 
 reading and is well worth a place in this rapid review of 
 events which preceded the final legislation that established 
 a territorial form of government for Oregon. After a 
 protracted debate, a bill for this purpose was passed on 
 Sunday morning, August 13, 1848. The treaty of 1818, 
 providing for joint occupancy, was terminated by the 
 mutual consent of Great Britain and the United States 
 in 1846, after a life of eighteen years, and as the result 
 of satisfactory concessions the whole of the Oregon 
 Country became American territory. 
 
 It is interesting to note, in passing, that one of the 
 greatest forensic efforts of John C. Calhoun was made 
 in the Senate in opposition to the bill admitting Oregon 
 as a territory, for the reason that it did not specifically 
 provide for the introduction of slavery within its boun- 
 daries. In the course of this speech he bitterly assailed 
 the Declaration of Independence, and among other things, 
 said: 
 
 The proposition that "all men are created free and 
 equal" is a hypothetical truism. Men are not born 
 free. Infants are born. They grow to be men. They 
 are not born free. While infants, they are incapable 
 of freedom; they are subject to their parents. All 
 men are not created. Only two, a man and a woman, 
 were created, and one of these was pronounced sub- 
 ordinate to the other. All others have come into the 
 world by being born, and in no sense, as I have shown. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 43 
 
 either free or equal. Instead of liberty and equality 
 being bom with men, and instead of all men and classes 
 being entitled to them, they are high prizes to be 
 won — rewards bestowed on moral and mental develop- 
 ment. 
 
 But in spite of Mr. Calhoun's false philosophy and 
 Mr. Dickerson's skepticism, Oregon became a Territory. 
 Ten years afterward she became a State — the final result 
 of a contest that occupied the attention of our greatest 
 statesmen for more than thirty years, which in many of 
 its characteristics was without historic parallel, and which 
 was illuminated by a series of unusually dramatic and 
 romantic features. These will be noticed briefly in suc- 
 ceeding chapters while considering the wonderful west- 
 ward movement of the Oregon pioneer — a movement 
 which has no counterpart in history as a peaceful subju- 
 gation of a beautiful wilderness, peopled by savages and 
 under the protection of no nation ! 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 In order that the readers of this book may be able to 
 familiarize themselves with the principal facts relating to 
 the early settlement of Oregon without wading through 
 the unimportant details, it is well to say, briefly, that the 
 first earnest and practical effort in that direction was 
 made by Hall J. Kelley, a school-teacher of Boston, who 
 as early as 1817 began to agitate the matter in the 
 periodicals of his day and by degrees developed some 
 interest in the scheme among certain people of Massachu- 
 setts. But in 181 7 Oregon was almost as inaccessible as 
 the North Pole is to-day, for the value of pemmican as 
 a concentrated life sustainer was not then known, and Dr. 
 Cook had not yet begun taking photographs of "the top 
 of the continent." 
 
 But Kelley was an enthusiast on the subject of the 
 Oregon Country, and persistently continued his agitation 
 until, in 1829, as the result of his work, Massachusetts 
 authorized the incorporation of "The American Society 
 for the Settlement of the Oregon Territory." And that 
 was a long time ago. Amid the swirl and whirl of these 
 days, when the Oregon River so weirdly referred to in 
 Bryant's "Thanatopsis," instead of gliding to the sea 
 undisturbed save by the "sound of its own dashings," is 
 continually vexed by the thunderous and ponderous trains 
 of two transcontinental railroads, one on either bank, 
 answering the tremendous demands of national and inter- 
 national trade, one can with difficulty realize the tempera- 
 ment of a man who, while the whole of the Pacific Coast 
 was yet a wilderness unsubdued, would unceasingly 
 devote all his energies to the accomplishment of what to 
 most people seemed a mere dream, a hope without a foun- 
 dation. 
 
 Many of the men, more or less prominent in the afifairs 
 of the Oregon country in the early days, have received 
 
 44 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 45 
 
 extended mention in its history whose part in its acquisi- 
 tion and development was incomparably less helpful than 
 was that of Hall J. Kelley. For he was the Pioneer of 
 the pioneers. He was the John the Baptist who could 
 foresee an historical coming event, devoting his life-work 
 to its exploitation; and, like the great prophet of old, 
 upon finally entering the land of promise he saw so 
 gloriously portrayed in his visions, he was misused, mis- 
 treated and misunderstood. He started to Oregon in 
 1832, coming by way of New Orleans across Mexico and 
 to California, where he offered to survey the Sacramento 
 valley for the Mexican Governor. Being refused, he 
 did some work in that line upon his own responsibility 
 and finally joined an overland expedition to Oregon, 
 arriving at Vancouver in October, 1834, two years after 
 his departure from Boston. 
 
 Kelley made the trip from California with Ewing 
 Young, a man who afterward figured prominently in the 
 progress of our embryonic government. Their arrival un- 
 fortunately was attended by a cloud which cast a shadow 
 over Kelley's connection with the country and, in a way, 
 embittered the remainder of his life. In company with 
 Kelley and Young, who brought a large drove of horses, 
 were some reckless individuals who in some way "ac- 
 quired" several head not catalogued in the original list. The 
 result of this maneuver was that the Governor-General of 
 California sent word to Governor McLoughlin — ^head of 
 the Hudson Bay Company and virtual ruler of the Oregon 
 Country in those days — of the alleged depredations, and 
 that the "thieves" were bound for the Columbia River. 
 The message of the California Governor, Figueroa, hav- 
 ing been received by McLoughlin before the arrival of 
 Young and Kelley, they were met by the old white- 
 headed, amiable, but eminently just Doctor with a cold- 
 ness which was a genuine surprise to them, perfectly 
 guiltless as they were of any wrongdoing. Coming as 
 enthusiastic explorers of a great region, they were met 
 upon its threshold with a charge of horse-stealing, with 
 having arrived richer than they were upon their de- 
 
46 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 parture, which reminds one of the declaration of Mark 
 Twain to a friend that his family, as far back as he had 
 any "inside information," was noted for the abnormally 
 developed bump of "acquisitiveness." As an instance, 
 he said that when his grandparents, several generations 
 back, crossed the Atlantic en route to America, they were 
 able to put all their earthly belongings in an old carpet- 
 sack satchel, but when they disembarked three weeks 
 later at New York it required three large trunks to hold 
 them all. 
 
 There has never been any proof that either Young or 
 Kelley knew of the alleged stealing, but the slander was 
 uttered, and like many other accusations made through 
 ignorance or malice, its effects were diflficult if not impos- 
 sible to counteract. Of this affair Dr. McLoughlin said 
 in after years : 
 
 "I refused to have communication with any of the 
 party. Young maintained he had stolen no horses, but 
 admitted that others had. I told him that might be the 
 case, but, as the charge had been made, I could have no 
 dealings with him until he cleared it up. But he main- 
 tained to his countrymen, and they believed, that, as he 
 was a leader among them, I acted as I did from a desire 
 to oppose American interests." But Dr. McLoughlin, the 
 Grand Old Man of early Oregon, lived to know what it 
 was to feel the shafts of injustice and ingratitude as the 
 reward for continued substantial assistance rendered to 
 American immigrants, whose coming was the first step 
 toward the ultimate dissolution of the Hudson Bay Com- 
 pany, of which he was the head for quite twenty years. 
 It goes without saying that both Kelley and Young 
 were indignant at the injustice of the accusation made 
 against them. Young, however, settled down, acquired 
 a tract of land and died here in February, 1841. In a 
 paper read before the Oregon Pioneer Association a few 
 years ago by Courtney M. Walker, he said, after declar- 
 ing that Ewing Young was "a very candid and scrupu- 
 lously honest man, thoroughgoing, brave and daring," 
 that "being in want of supplies and having a few beaver 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 47 
 
 skins, he sent them to Fort Vancouver to exchange for 
 supplies. But Dr. McLoughlin, having been apprised by 
 a no less authority than the Governor-General of Cali- 
 fornia that Young was the head of banditti, refused to 
 purchase the beaver, but sent Mr. Young the articles 
 which he had wished to purchase, besides sending him 
 several articles of refreshment for his table. But when 
 the articles came Young indignantly refused to accept 
 the goods or refreshments, and went in person to Van- 
 couver. The Doctor satisfied Mr. Young that he could 
 not, being at the head of a company trading directly 
 with California, have acted otherwise than to give 
 credence to the charge by the Governor of- California. 
 On the return of the Cadboro to California Dr. McLough- 
 lin wrote to the Governor of California, as also did Mr. 
 Young. The ensuing fall the Governor wrote to Dr. 
 McLoughlin, withdrawing the charges against Young 
 and regretting the occurrence." 
 
 Hall Kelley, after spending practically twenty years in 
 enthusiastically advertising the Oregon Country, re- 
 mained here but a few months, owing to his unfortunate 
 reception, and returned to Massachusetts where he died 
 in 1873. In his later days, when his mind had become 
 partially clouded, he imagined the Hudson Bay Company 
 was pursuing him in a cruel effort to punish him for his 
 exertions in colonizing the Oregon Country and thus 
 destroying the fur industry, which was not only the 
 source of its entire income but its only excuse for exist- 
 ence. Kelley died at an advanced age, a hermit, and 
 embittered against mankind in general. 
 
 In reading about the career of Hall Jackson Kelley, 
 I have always felt regret that so little is known of him 
 by the people who occupy the great country in whose 
 future he had such faith. There is something appealingly 
 pathetic about his high and unquenchable purpose when 
 considered in connection with the disappointment which 
 accompanied his first and last visit to the great region of 
 which he had dreamed so long. And so little is known 
 of his efforts by the people who have profited by his sac- 
 
48 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 rifices and persistent labors ! Ask the average graduate 
 of any of our colleges or universities who Hall J. Kelley 
 was and he will be astonished beyond measure. He does 
 not know that such a man ever lived. And there are 
 thousands of our most successful business men who can 
 "at the drop of the hat" tell you who has the best score 
 among the crack baseball teams of the country, but who 
 have never heard even the name of Hall Kelley. Scores 
 of men who have had their little day in the State Legis- 
 lature and have won State-wide attention by their log- 
 rolling maneuvers are well known to the public generally, 
 but the man who perhaps did more to make Oregon than 
 any other, or at least who had as clear a conception of 
 its value as any other, has no place in our school histories 
 and is less generally known than is Pocahontas or William 
 Tell. 
 
 Kelley was impressed with the commercial opportu- 
 nities he found in Oregon. He foresaw the upbuilding 
 of a great city on the Columbia River. After studying 
 the situation, he chose what is now known as the "Penin- 
 sula," that section between the Columbia and Willamette 
 rivers, as the most promising location for the metropolis 
 to come, and actually surveyed a town site near the pres- 
 ent dividing line between Portland and St. John. To-day 
 the cars of the Portland Railway, Light and Power Com- 
 pany carry thousands of busy people every day across 
 Kelley's town site; automobile joy-riders make the night 
 hideous with their carousals as they violate the "speed" 
 laws while driving over the very ground which he trod 
 as he wended his way through the heavy underbrush 
 skirting the banks of the Willamette, which even then 
 was answering the soft call of the sea; lovesick young 
 people stroll in the moonlit groves where Kelley heard 
 no sound except the occasional drum of the pheasant or 
 the call of the astonished red man; magnificent ocean 
 steamers gracefully glide on the bosom of the rivers 
 which then knew only the rude canoe ; the bustling town 
 of St. John has its annual, semi-annual, quarterly and 
 perennial scraps over important and unimportant matters 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 49 
 
 where Kelley sat on a fallen log while ruminating on the 
 ingratitude, not only of republics, but of Tillicums in the 
 individual state — ^but Kelley himself is practically un- 
 known to the people of the land which was his day- 
 dream and his song during his younger manhood, where 
 he resided but a few months of his eighty-five years of 
 life, and where, during his brief residence he was com- 
 pelled to establish his innocence of the charge of being a 
 horse-thief ! 
 
 And of such is fame ! 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 I do not now and never did belong to the Methodist 
 Church, but certainly no loyal Oregonian breathes with 
 soul so dead as to deny for a moment the great obliga- 
 tion his State owes to that organization for its great 
 work during the decade between 1830 and 1840 in mak- 
 ing the initial occupancy of the Oregon Country. To be 
 sure, the early Methodist missionaries were governed 
 first by a desire to convert the Indians to Christianity — 
 vain effort, in the main — but they were Americans, 
 imbued with an unswerving attachment to their country's 
 institutions, and as a counter influence to the Hudson Bay 
 Company wrought mightily in the great conflict which 
 finally brought victory to American sovereignty. 
 
 No matter whether you believe in the perseverance of 
 the saints, the administration of baptism by sprinkling 
 or whether you stand for conlplete immersion ; no differ- 
 ence if you are a supporter of the doctrine of original 
 sin, foreordination and election — even if you are con- 
 firmed in your opinion that shouting during the culmi- 
 nating proceedings of a revival meeting is not only inde- 
 corous but bordering on the absurdly emotional, you have 
 no business to set up your claim to any degree of sincere 
 love for Oregon's early history if you fail to take off 
 your hat to a Methodist when you meet him, if not for 
 his sake, then, at least, for the sake of the great religious 
 organization he represents. 
 
 And among those early Methodist missionaries, head 
 and shoulders above all others stands Jason Lee. This 
 distinction will be unhesitatingly accorded him by all his 
 church fellows. In effective work along lines which bore 
 immediate fruit, and which not only required great per- 
 sonal sacrifices but finally snapped the thread of his 
 strenuous life, he stands pre-eminent. He was so wholly 
 
 50 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 51 
 
 in earnest and so persistently zealous in his chosen work 
 that one might almost term him a fanatic, but this would 
 be very unfair. He was rather a man wrapped up in his 
 chosen work, and being nervously active and full of rest- 
 less ambition to accomplish his great purpose, he aban- 
 doned all the comforts of civilization and insisted upon 
 being sent to the wilds of distant and practically unknown 
 Oregon. To be sure, Hall Kelley had devoted nearly 
 twenty years of his life to promoting emigration to 
 Oregon before he finally came here, but he remained 
 scarcely six months; Lee on the other hand founded a 
 mission, started a school (which ultimately became the 
 present Willamette University) at Salem, opened several 
 farms, made the first move toward the agricultural devel- 
 opment of the new country, and employed every hour of 
 his time until his unfortunate death in spreading the 
 gospel not only of religion, but of those earthly activities 
 which make for the uplift of men and women. 
 
 In all these things it is impossible to go beyond Jason 
 Lee in Oregon history. Back of him there is a void — 
 no schools, no churches, no agriculture, no homes. 
 Indeed, there was no civilization. There were trappers, 
 fur-traders, a few white men with native wives, adven- 
 turers without purpose in life. But Lee, with his com- 
 panions, P. L. Edwards, Cyrus Shepherd, and his nephew, 
 Daniel Lee, joined the expedition guided by Nathaniel 
 Wyeth of Massachusetts, left their homes in New Eng- 
 land in March, 1834, plunged into the wilderness on 
 the western borders of Missouri April 24, and arrived 
 in Oregon October i. On the sixth day of that month 
 they pitched their tents on the banks of the Willamette 
 River, ten miles below where Salem now is, and pro- 
 ceeded to found the Methodist Mission, from whence at 
 once began to radiate the influences of Christianity for 
 the first time in all the Oregon Country! 
 
 In paying this brief but deserved tribute to Jason Lee 
 as the first potent factor in the development of my be- 
 loved native State, I am reminded of a story related by 
 Dr. Whitcomb Brougher, until recently the popular pastor 
 
52 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 of the White Temple Baptist Church of Portland. He 
 had preached a sermon one Sunday in which he referred 
 to the primitive Jews in a way that called forth innumer- 
 able protests from local people of that persuasion, and 
 the daily papers were printing many communications 
 combating his interpretation of Jewish characteristics, as 
 portrayed in ancient times. The Jewish paper in Fort- 
 land lent a hand in the attack, with the result that Dr. 
 Brougher replied in a letter in the Oregonian which 
 bristled with a vigorous defense ; but this only invited a 
 renewal of the discussion. Finally, he announced that on 
 the following Sunday he would preach a sermon, the 
 text of which would be the Jewish race, cordially inviting 
 all the Hebrews in Portland to attend. The invitation 
 was responded to quite generally, many of the most 
 prominent Jews in the city occupying seats here and 
 there throughout the congregation. 
 
 Dr. Brougher welcomed them in his introductory re- 
 marks in that hospitable manner for which he is justly 
 noted, and in the course of his sermon highly eulogized 
 the excellent qualities of Jews who have figured promi- 
 nently in the world's progress in politics, literature, 
 science and religion. "And when it comes to the matter 
 of well-established remote ancestry," said the Doctor, 
 "the Jews have us all beaten out of sight. Most of us 
 are inclined to be vain if we can trace our ancestry back 
 as much as three generations on both sides of the house; 
 and if one of us can name his grandfathers and grand- 
 mothers in a direct line for a century he is quite likely to 
 boast of the fact in an insufiferably egotistical manner. 
 But, no matter what you can do in that direction, don't 
 mention it when in the presence of a Jew, for he has you 
 skinned a mile in the matter of ancestry. He will at once 
 refer you to Abraham or Moses — and then where are 
 you? You would be like the man who was drowned in 
 the Johnstown flood, after fighting the fierce waves suc- 
 cessfully for nearly an hour. After a most heroic effort 
 he nearly escaped, but was again overtaken by the surging 
 waters. After three victories over the angry torrent he 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 53 
 
 was finally drawn under and lost his life. Upon entering 
 the pearly gates he was quite a hero and a crowd gath- 
 ered around him to listen to his narration of his thrilling 
 experiences. When he had finished describing how he 
 escaped the first time, his listeners with one voice said: 
 'What a remarkable escape ! What an awful experience !' 
 
 "But an old man who stood apart from the others 
 merely said : 'Oh, pshaw !' 
 
 "Again the man gave the details of his second success 
 over the rising current, and the crowd repeated its excla- 
 mations, but the old man only said : 'Oh, pshaw !' 
 
 "When the man had finished the account of his third 
 triumph over the swift-running torrent, and had used all 
 the adjectives at his command in his portrayal of the 
 awful event, the audience again expressed its astonish- 
 ment that any man could have fought against such odds 
 for so long a time, but the old man merely voiced his 
 increasing disgust by repeating for the third time : 'Oh, 
 pshaw !' 
 
 "At this juncture a man who had stood by and taken in 
 the entire scene turned to St. Peter and said: 'Who is 
 that old fellow over there who says "Oh, pshaw" every 
 time the man tells about how he fought the waves in the 
 Johnstown flood for so long a time ?' 
 
 " 'Whom do you mean ?' inquired St. Peter. 'That fel- 
 low over there with the long beard ?' 
 
 " 'Yes,' said the man. 
 
 "'And you don't know him?' returned the keeper of 
 the keys. 'Why, that's Noah !' " 
 
 Of course it may seem somewhat irreverent to couple 
 this story with anything relating to a man so very sedate 
 and serious as Jason Lee, but it aptly illustrates the utter 
 tameness of the undertakings of those who came to 
 Oregon after him, when we recall that when he and 
 his four companions made their way up the Willamette 
 valley on that day in October, 1834, there was not a 
 civilized American settlement anywhere west of the 
 Rocky Mountains. All was wilderness and savagery — 
 solitude and barbarism. Those who came after them 
 
54 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 had at least "The Mission" to give them a welcome and 
 a temporary home until they were able to find a perma- 
 nent location. 
 
 Surely the man who would make the journey to such a 
 country under such conditions as then prevailed, led by 
 the motive which governed Jason Lee, had the zeal and 
 inflexible purpose which should have given him a pass- 
 port into that mysterious realm where the perseverance 
 of the saints is a sufficient warrant for unquestioned 
 admission ! 
 
 I have been where the old Mission house stood scores 
 of times, as the spot is but fifteen miles from my birth- 
 place and the farm which was my home for thirty years. 
 It was a beautiful location, about a half a mile from the 
 Willamette River, and that section has ever since been 
 known as "Mission Bottom." At present it consists of 
 several large farms noted for their wonderful fertility. 
 But how different the scene then and now — in 1834 and 
 in 1 911! To-day there are several extensive peach 
 orchards on Mission Bottom, one of them being thirty 
 years old. During this time it has had but two failures — 
 from late frosts. Some ten years ago the State Agricul- 
 tural Society offered a handsome premium for the great- 
 est variety of products of the best quality to be raised 
 on any one farm in Oregon, to be exhibited at the State 
 Fair. The result was one of the most attractive features 
 at the Fair that fall. Many farmers entered the contest, 
 but the blue ribbon went to Alex Lafollette, one of the 
 best farmers in Oregon, whose land covers a part of the 
 Old Mission where Jason Lee located in October, 1834, 
 and where he built his log cabin as the first step toward 
 converting the noble red man from ways that are dark to 
 a semblance of Christianity. Lafollette's exhibit included 
 almost every variety of vegetable, fruit, grain and grass 
 known to any portion of the United States. His premium, 
 a new Studebaker wagon, was so gorgeously finished and 
 varnished that he was ashamed to ride in it or to use it in 
 any manner. 
 
 When Jason Lee pitched his tent in the little grove of 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 55 
 
 fir trees beside which he afterward built his cabin, the 
 present site of Portland, with its population of more than 
 two hundred thousand people, was an unknown forest, 
 and where is located the beautiful city of Salem, the 
 capital of the State, with its magnificent State buildings, 
 there was a small prairie called by the Indians Chemekete, 
 which was a favorite camping-place for such tribes as 
 were on friendly terms. At other times and under dif- 
 ferent conditions it afforded every facility for a con- 
 venient battlefield. Where the State Hospital for the 
 Insane now shelters a thousand unfortunates, savage 
 tribes had for thousands of years, no doubt, made their 
 history, which was handed down in tradition, while the 
 site of the State House, in the midst of the prairie, was 
 in those days used for the propagation of another kind 
 of incoherency which made those most interested sit up 
 and take notice — as now. But between these two modern 
 cities electric cars now spin across a splendidly improved 
 agricultural country every hour, passing within two miles 
 of the Old Mission. 
 
 Lee and his associates at once entered upon their labors 
 and soon had a handful of native children attending their 
 school, but in the long run — though it was a compara- 
 tively short run, after all — the effort was a failure so far 
 as any improvement in the moral or spiritual condition 
 of the Indians was concerned. Lee himself was to a 
 certain extent discredited through the disappointment 
 felt by the Missionary Board of New York that greater 
 progress had not been made in uplifting the heathen. 
 When on his way to "the States" in February, 1844, 
 while stopping for a few days at Honolulu, he learned 
 that Bishop Hedding had appointed Rev. George Gary, 
 of New York, his successor. Nevertheless he continued 
 his journey, which was undertaken largely for the pur- 
 pose of explaining to the Missionary Board the many 
 difficulties under which his work had proceeded. 
 
 Lee never returned to Oregon, the field of his greatest 
 efforts, though it was his intention to do so. Going to 
 his birthplace in Stanstead, Canada, for a much-needed 
 
56 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 rest, he contracted a severe cold from which he never 
 recovered, and on March 12, 1845, he passed into the 
 Great Beyond with the hope of receiving the reward of 
 a faithful servant of God. 
 
 The life of Jason Lee was a singularly sorrowful one. 
 In June, 1837, the Mission was blessed with the arrival 
 of twelve new members from the East, seven of whom 
 were women. To one of these, Miss Anna Maria Pit- 
 man, Lee was married within four weeks, and on the 
 same day and with the same ceremony Miss Susan Down- 
 ing, another of the new arrivals, was united to Cyrus 
 Shepherd. And although the joyous occasion was not cele- 
 brated amid the accompanying strains of Mendelssohn's 
 "Wedding March," nor in a gilded parlor adorned with 
 smilax and imported ferns, yet in the grove of firs, God's 
 own temple, these Christian people probably pledged their 
 fidelity to each other with as full a measure of bliss as 
 ever filled the hearts of the "idle rich" in the centers of 
 civilization. 
 
 In March of the next year, 1838, Lee began the jour- 
 ney overland to New York for the purpose of presenting 
 the needs of the Mission to the Board. On the first day 
 of the following September, while at the town of West- 
 port, Missouri, he was overtaken by a messenger sent 
 from the Mission to inform him of the death of his wife 
 and infant son on July 26. Burdened with this great 
 affliction he went his way, devoting himself during the 
 next twelve months to organizing a new expedition to 
 the Oregon Country, composed of those who were closely 
 identified with the Methodist Church. These people, 
 fifty-one in number, sailed from New York on October 
 9, 1839, bidding adieu to former friends and associations 
 and casting their lot with the much-talked-of region on the 
 Pacific Coast. 
 
 There is something intensely fascinating about this 
 great movement to all Oregonians, but especially to those 
 who, like myself, can remember most of those grand 
 pioneers who so industriously and patriotically set about 
 creating a State from the raw materials by which they 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 57 
 
 were so lavishly surrounded. This addition to the Mis- 
 sion, and incidentally to the forces which so soon after- 
 ward began to shape affairs toward American ownership 
 of the country, was called the "Great Reenforcement" 
 and to this day if you should speak of the "Great Re- 
 enforcement" to an active Methodist his eye will kindle 
 with enthusiasm and, if he is not tongue-tied (and I have 
 never yet seen a Methodist so afflicted), he will begin a 
 deserved eulogy upon the many virtues of that band of 
 men and women. Numbered among them were Rev. 
 J. L. Parrish and wife. Rev. Gustavus Hines and wife, 
 Rev. A. F. Waller and wife, George Abernethy, who 
 became the first Governor of Oregon under the pro- 
 visional government, Dr. I. L. Babcock, L. H. Judson 
 and others who won conspicuous places in the subsequent 
 development of the country. 
 
 With these people on the good ship "Lausanne," re- 
 turning to the scene of his labors, was Jason Lee, who, 
 just before starting had married Miss Lucy Thomson, 
 of Barre, Vermont. The ship arrived in the Columbia 
 River on May 21, 1840, and within a few days those 
 who were destined to locate at the Mission reached that 
 point and took up their appointed tasks. At the Mission 
 on March 20, 1842, Lee's second wife, like his first, died 
 in child-birth, leaving an infant daughter who grew to 
 womanhood. 
 
 Jason Lee's first wife was buried on a beautiful knoll 
 overlooking the Chemekete prairie — where Salem now 
 stands — and it has ever since been known as Lee Mission 
 Cemetery. It is just outside the city limits of Salem, 
 and while its lots are at the service of the general public 
 it is distinguished as the last resting-place of many of 
 the State's most prominent Methodists and is owned by 
 that religious organization. When I was a boy in my 
 early teens, attending the Willamette University, the Lee 
 Mission Cemetery was "way out in the country." Many 
 a time I have gone in company with boys of my age 
 "prowling" through the scattered woods that intervened 
 between the city and the cemetery. Sometimes we ven- 
 
58 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 tured inside the fence of the "graveyard" where, under 
 the spreading branches of a giant oak tree which had 
 been there — ^and almost its present size — when Columbus 
 landed on the eastern shores of America, we stood in 
 awe, mingled with a quite well-defined sense of fear, 
 and read this inscription upon a huge slab of marble in 
 letters even then dingy wilii age : 
 
 Beneath this sod, 
 
 The first ever broken in Oregon 
 
 for the reception of 
 
 White mother and child, 
 
 Lie the remains 
 
 of 
 
 ANNA MARIA PITMAN, 
 
 wife of 
 
 REV. JASON LEE, 
 
 and infant son. 
 
 She sailed from New York, July, 1836, 
 
 Landed in Oregon, June, 1837, 
 
 Was married July 16, 
 
 and died 
 
 July 26th, 1838, 
 
 Aged 36 years. 
 
 By the side of Anna Pitman Lee and her little son lie 
 the remains of Mrs. Lucy Thomson Lee, Jason Lee's 
 second wife. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The history of Oregon will be searched in vain for a 
 more pathetic story of individual experience than that 
 which clusters around the career of Jason Lee. Imbued 
 with a fervent religious zeal, he desired to consecrate 
 his life to the service of Christianity, and his special 
 ambition, even before the proposition to come to Oregon 
 was presented to him, was to work among the Indians. 
 Making the long journey across the continent as early as 
 1834, he found conditions here even more difficult and 
 unpromising than he had supposed. After working 
 under these dispiriting circumstances for three years he 
 returned to New York overland in 1838, the sad news 
 of his wife's death overtaking him when his journey was 
 but little more than half over. He returned to Oregon 
 in 1840 and two years later lost his second wife. He 
 W3-S virtually discharged from his superintendency in 
 1844, through misrepresentation and the fact that the 
 undertaking, because of impossible conditions, had not 
 met with a great measure of success. The same year 
 he made his second journey to the Mother Church in 
 New York in the interest of the Mission, was seized with 
 a severe cold, and on March 12, 1845, ^-t his home in 
 Canada, yielded up his life. 
 
 I have never read of a sadder career than this — ^have 
 you? And yet it bore fruit of the rarest character, and 
 the results of Lee's efforts are felt in all Oregon to this 
 day. Not only those who came here in the earlier days 
 recognize his great sacrifices made in laying a great 
 State's foundation, but our newer citizens, as they fami- 
 liarize themselves with the pioneer history of their 
 adopted State, will read with growing admiration of the 
 man who gave his life for the promotion of a great 
 cause. 
 
 59 
 
6o FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 For sixty-one years the body of Jason Lee lay in the 
 cemetery of his native town in Canada. Frequently the 
 proposal to bring it to Oregon and place it by the side of 
 his wives in Lee Mission Cemetery was made by appre- 
 ciative citizens of Oregon, and the General Conferences 
 of the Methodist Church often seriously considered^ it, 
 but the pressing demands for money in matters calling 
 for immediate action caused delay after delay. Finally, 
 however, in the summer of 1905 the movement inaugu- 
 rated by the Conference and a few outside individuals 
 was successful. On a beautiful June afternoon in 1906, 
 when the sun was approaching the western horizon and 
 all nature was in an exceptionally happy mood, — ^just 
 such a day as is known in all its perfection no place on 
 earth outside the Willamette valley, — the body of Jason 
 Lee was deposited by the side of his loved and faithful 
 wives and infant son, after a separation of nearly sixty- 
 five years! 
 
 Standing under the shade of the majestic oaks which 
 had all these years stood as sentinels over the graves of 
 the partners of his successes and disappointments, chiefly 
 the latter, a thousand people witnessed the solemn cere- 
 mony. Many of the oldest Methodists in the Northwest 
 were there, but, singularly enough, no one who had ever 
 seen Jason Lee. At the graveside, after the casket had 
 been lowered, President Coleman, of the Willamette 
 University, invited several prominent men who were 
 present to make short addresses. I recall that among 
 these was Rev. John Flinn, then eighty-eight years of 
 age and one of the oldest ministers in point of service aS 
 well as age on the Pacific Coast. He is of Irish extrac- 
 tion, of an unusually sunny disposition, and as devout a; 
 man as may be found anywhere. His remarks on this 
 occasion were very impressive. With quivering voice he 
 referred to the reverence he felt while in this city of the 
 dead, which held the remains of so many of the pioneer 
 Methodists — Bishop Haven, William Roberts, Father 
 Wilbur, J. L. Parrish, Gustavus Hines, Harvey K. Hines 
 and others who had wrought with such good effect in 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 6i 
 
 the old days. "But our ranks are thinning," said he, 
 "and within a few days at most. Dr. Driver, you and I 
 will be with them, singing praises to the Lamb. Bless 
 the dear Lord !" And as he said it he made his way to 
 where Dr. Driver stood and embraced him fervently, 
 while the tears streamed down the cheeks of the distin- 
 guished Methodist patriarchs who had carried the banner 
 of the Cross in Oregon for more than fifty years. 
 
 And there were other eyes, many hundreds of them, 
 similarly affected by this exhibition of pardonable 
 emotion aroused by the recollection of days and experi- 
 ences long gone by. 
 
 At this point Father Flinn gave way to a reminiscent 
 vein and, forgetting for the moment where he was and 
 the seriousness of the occasion, said: 
 
 "Brother Driver, do you remember the time of your 
 conversion down in Umpqua valley? I was there and I 
 will never forget," etc. He then related a humorous 
 incident connected with Brother Driver's conversion and 
 finished with a chuckle, the entire audience joining in the 
 laugh which the anecdote forced. Driver replied with a 
 sally, recounting the first time he ever saw Flinn, and 
 the predicament he was in, — the entire incident at the 
 graveside, although out of harmony with a solemn occa- 
 sion, presenting a humorously pathetic feature which 
 was enjoyed and appreciated by those present, but which 
 would have been sheer irreverence if indulged by younger 
 men. On the whole, it well illustrated how indistinct, 
 after all, is the dividing line between life and death, and 
 was a demonstration born of religious enthusiasm which 
 would have pleased Lee himself if he could have wit- 
 nessed it — and who is prepared to say that he did not ? 
 
 It was very fitting that this burial ceremony should 
 have been under the management of Dr. John Coleman, 
 the then president of Willamette University, for it was 
 Jason Lee who made the preliminary move toward the 
 establishment of that institution when, at a meeting at 
 his house in Chemekete, now North Salem, on January 
 17, 1842, a committee was appointed to look into the 
 
62 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 feasibility of founding an institution of learning. This 
 committee consisted of Dr. J. L. Babcock, David Leslie 
 and Gustavus Hines. It took up the matter promptly 
 and called a meeting to be held on February i, two 
 weeks later, at the Mission. It was on motion of Gus- 
 tavus Hines that the new school was to be called the 
 "Oregon Institute." This meeting chose the first Board 
 of Trustees of the proposed school, consisting of Jason 
 Lee, David Leslie, Gustavus Hines, J. L. Parrish, L. H. 
 Judson, all preachers, and Messrs. George Abernethy, 
 Alanson Beers, Hamilton Campbell and Dr. J. L. Bab- 
 cock — all characterized by force of character and inten- 
 sity of purpose — such men as it is seldom possible to 
 find in any community, young or old. 
 
 Jason Lee, the president of the Board of Trustees, 
 was empowered "as agent to labor for the interests of 
 the school in the United States, whither he was going 
 soon to promote further the civil and religious welfare 
 of Oregon," as is recorded in a contemporaneous account 
 of the movement. The United States was at that time 
 regarded as a foreign country, which, indeed, it was. 
 The construction of the institute was well under way 
 when Mr. Lee was superseded in the missionary field in 
 Oregon by Rev. George Gary, who upon his arrival here, 
 finding the conditions of the Mission Manual School 
 very unsatisfactory, soon afterwards sold it to the 
 trustees of the institute for four thousand dollars. The 
 Indians did not take to the matter with any degree of 
 interest. Many of the children died, others had been 
 taken by their parents to their tepees in their forest homes 
 and the great effort of Jason Lee to "convert" the red 
 men ended in failure, so far as immediate restilts were 
 concerned. But he had laid broad and deep the founda- 
 tions for a great university, had blazed the way for a 
 substantial civilization, and had sacrificed his life at the 
 age of forty-one in support of a glorious cause. 
 
 The Oregon Institute was opened in September, 1844, 
 with Mrs. Chloe Willson as its only teacher. She was 
 the wife of Dr. W. H. Willson, the clerk of the Board 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 63 
 
 of Trustees, and, as Miss Clark, was one of the young 
 women who had come here for the purpose of teaching 
 the children of the missionaries. She continued in this 
 service until 1850. Soon after the opening of the school 
 Rev. F. S. Hoyt was elected a teacher and continued at 
 the head of the school until 1854, during which time it 
 had so prospered that several instructors were employed. 
 In 1853 the Board of Trustees applied to the Legislature 
 for the passage of an "Act to establish the Willamette 
 University," and its charter was enacted during that 
 session. 
 
 Thus came into existence an institution of learning 
 which has had a wider influence in furthering the educa- 
 tional interests of the Northwest than all others. Many 
 of the most prominent men and women on the Pacific 
 Coast, in all walks of life, have been students within its 
 walls. For nearly seventy years it has been striving to 
 advance the material as well as the spiritual welfare of 
 all this region roundabout, and while, like all institu- 
 tions of similar character, it has had its seasons of adver- 
 sity as well as prosperity, its immediate directors and sup- 
 porters have been intensely loyal, and to-day it is enjoy- 
 ing a measure of success not before known' in its long 
 and useful career. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Nowhere in the various experiences of the people in 
 "the old Bible times," graphically told, to be sure, is 
 there a story so fraught with self-sacrifice and daring 
 purpose as that truthfully narrated by the early Oregon 
 pioneers. In those old days of Moses and Aaron, Joshua 
 and Noah, David and Solomon, the entire world, as it 
 was known to them, was little larger than the territory 
 which one now covers in going to a country fair in the 
 United States. When they left behind them the very 
 best they had they did not deprive themselves of a great 
 deal. There is not much difiference between the highest 
 and the lowest estate when all men live in caves, or even 
 when a man will labor for a farmer seven years for his 
 daughter and, finding a mistake has been made, will 
 repeat the service for any other old girl in the same 
 household who is disengaged. In such times it is not 
 possible to get very far from home under any circum- 
 stances. But when the missionaries in Jason Lee's time 
 left New York for Oregon — the voyage always neces- 
 sitating a stop at the Sandwich Islands — it meant a real, 
 live trip. In the old times a journey from Jerusalem to 
 Bethlehem was merely a little hike of ten miles, and to 
 Beersheba but fifty. The Plains of Sharon are but ten 
 miles across — about half as far as from Portland to 
 Hillsboro — and from Damascus to the mountains of 
 Lebanon is but fifty miles. I remember hearing Hon. 
 D. P. Thompson, an Oregon pioneer who for several 
 years was the United States Minister to Turkey, say that 
 owing to the little distance between points of interest in 
 Palestine, the attractiveness of the country is noticeably 
 diminished. He said he found the River Jordan espec- 
 ially disappointing — that it reminded him particularly of 
 the Long Tom, in Lane County, Oregon, which as all 
 
 64 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 65 
 
 old settlers know is sluggish in the extreme and utterly 
 without native beauty. 
 
 But it was all the world there was at that time and 
 the old pilgrims went as far as they knew the road — 
 and stopped, of course. They knew of no other place 
 to go. The situation at that time reminds me of a 
 remark made by Colonel Roosevelt during his recent 
 visit to Portland. In addressing the Grand Army men, 
 after warmly complimenting them for their part in sub- 
 duing the Rebellion, he referred, in passing, to the 
 services of his comrades and himself in the Spanish War, 
 saying : "By comparison it was not to be mentioned in 
 the same breath with the affair of '61, but it was all the 
 war there was!" 
 
 While comparisons may be "odious" at times, they 
 are often very instructive, as well as interesting. The 
 trip of Anna Maria Pitman made to Oregon in 1836 
 not only meant leaving home and friends behind, never 
 to be seen again, but a voyage of some ten thousand 
 miles into an unconquered wilderness. Neither can the 
 motive which prompted her to make the sacrifice be 
 deemed much less commendable than that which guided 
 many of the movements recorded in early Jewish history. 
 When the end of the long journey was in sight, and 
 while the ship was anchored at Honolulu, preparatory 
 to making the run to the Columbia River, Miss Pitman 
 wrote to her sister in New York the following letter, 
 which gives a thrilling insight into the motives which 
 controlled those early missionaries, as well as the forti- 
 tude with which they accepted their cheerless surround- 
 ings. 
 
 Honolulu, Island of Oahu, Dec. 28, 1836. 
 My Dear Sister: 
 
 I have taken up my pen to address you, 
 far from the land of my birth, the home of my 
 childhood and of my riper years, not with painful 
 but with pleasing and grateful emotions. Truly pros- 
 perous breezes have wafted us onward, until by the 
 goodness of my heavenly Father I am once more on 
 firm footing. Oh, my dear sister, you cannot enter 
 
66 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 into my feelings, neither can I describe them. When 
 I first stepped on the ship at Boston, the first thought 
 that entered my mind was : "Perhaps I shall never be 
 permitted to place my feet on land again." However, I 
 soon succeeded in banishing the thought by giving 
 myself to the Lord, in whose hands I felt perfectly 
 safe. If He saw fit to give me a grave in the ocean, 
 I could say, "The will of the Lord be done." I have 
 been somewhat afflicted during the voyage, but I have 
 found it good to be chastised. I have been happy and 
 enabled most of the time to rejoice in the Lord. 
 
 The passage has been good. We have had much 
 pleasant weather; saw land but once, and that at a 
 distance. When we came in sight of these islands I 
 was much animated. The first island was Owyhee, 
 some miles from this. We did not get near enough to 
 distinguish anything like land — it seemed like one pile 
 of mountains whose tops were covered with eternal 
 snow — but with the help of the spy-glass we could see 
 the waves dash upon the shore. On that island there 
 is a burning volcano, but the island is very fruitful. 
 The natives on all these islands use the same tongue. 
 We came in port Friday evening, seven o'clock, Decem- 
 ber 22,. Some of our men went ashore that night, re- 
 turning the next morning, bringing eggs, milk, cucum- 
 bers, bananas and watermelons. After we had break- 
 fast some of our Presbyterian brethren came aboard 
 and greeted us with a hearty welcome. We soon left 
 our floating home and were glad once more to walk on 
 land. Blessed be the name of the Lord for His pre- 
 serving care. We were received in the families of this 
 mission with pleasure. I cannot speak too highly in 
 their praise ; really they are examples worthy of imita- 
 tion. I feel as though I were among my own people. 
 Oh, when will names be forgotten, party spirit be re- 
 moved and all Christians dwell together in unity of 
 spirit and bonds of peace! Heaven hasten the day 
 when we shall be bound together as with a three-fold 
 cord that cannot be easily broken. 
 
 This extract from Miss Pitman's letter, written while 
 en route to her mission of teaching the savage the sav- 
 ing grace of humility, penitence, brotherly kindness and 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 67 
 
 the "oneness of the human race in God," reveals the 
 true spirit of the zealous missionary who is dominated 
 more by a disposition to do good than by a perception of 
 actually impossible conditions, such as this poor woman 
 and the man who was so soon to become her husband 
 afterward discovered. But it is very interesting as a 
 part of the complete history of Oregon, tending to illus- 
 trate the only kind of temperament which could with- 
 stand the discouraging environment of those days. 
 
 In the same letter Miss Pitman abandoned her senti- 
 mental and religious reflections and dealt in actual facts. 
 These are of decided historical interest as portraying 
 conditions then existing and the early life of some men 
 and women who afterward figured prominently in public 
 afifairs in the new country. Along this line she said : 
 
 The day before we arrived letters were received 
 from Daniel Lee. He states that they had received 
 intelligence (through missionaries who had crossed the 
 Rocky Mountains) that a re-enforcement was on the 
 way to join them. He writes in fine spirits, being quite 
 recovered from disease. They have had good crops 
 from their farm this year, have four hundred bushels 
 of wheat, eight hundred of potatoes, all kinds of vege- 
 tables and fish, pork, fowls, etc. They have all had 
 the fever and ague. J. Lee has just recovered from an 
 attack which left him in a weak state. They are each, 
 in turn, farmer, blacksmith, cook, teacher, preacher 
 and housekeeper. In their family they have eighteen 
 children, whom they teach and provide for. We are 
 anxious to proceed immediately, but we expect we 
 shall be obliged to wait until March before we can 
 obtain passage. Dr. White and Brother Beer's family 
 live together; they have taken a house and we single 
 ones are in different families of the Mission. Such a 
 congregation of natives as I beheld on Sabbath I never 
 expected to see. Truly the Lord has prospered this Mis- 
 sion. I cannot express my feelings on witnessing such 
 a scene! One thousand or more decently dressed, 
 assembled together in the Mission chapel, made in 
 native style, seated in order to hear the Word of Life 
 in their own tongue, was a sight that affected my 
 
68 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 heart, not with grief but with joy. After the services 
 several of the natives shook our hands heartily. 
 
 I attended the Sabbath-school — it was interesting — 
 they sing sweetly. It is quite rare for them to see 
 strangers; we excited considerable notice from them. 
 I realize a good deal of what I have frequently read, 
 but I know nothing of the trials and difficulties of a 
 missionary life until I engage in our own field of labor. 
 But the Lord will be our helper. 
 
 How little did this brave woman dream of the tragic 
 experiences which awaited her in "our own field of labor." 
 The date of this letter was December 28, 1836. She 
 arrived at her destination the following June, was 
 married to "J. Lee" of whom she speaks, within less than 
 thirty days, and twelve months later yielded up her 
 life at the birth of a son, who himself lived but a brief 
 hour. Certainly no woman who has been mentioned 
 in Oregon history has had a career at once so romantic 
 and pathetic. Her experience will never be duplicated, 
 for the reason that no other woman will ever make the 
 journey to Oregon and live, even for the brief space 
 of one year, amid such an environment as surrounded 
 Anna Maria Pitman. 
 
 I have never been able to find any record which would 
 indicate that Jason Lee and his bride had ever met until 
 that far-off day in beautiful June, 1837, when she ar- 
 rived at the Mission, ten miles below Salem, thoroughly 
 imbued with that self-sacrificing spirit which character- 
 ized the missionaries of that day. That under these cir- 
 cumstances there should have been a wedding, and a 
 double wedding at that — for Cyrus Shepherd married 
 Susan Downing at the same time, by the same ceremony, 
 evidently before there was any assurance that a single 
 Indian had been converted — again shows how irre- 
 sistible is the dart which Dan Cupid hurls with so little 
 regard for race, color or previous condition of servitude 
 — or the absence of it. Jason Lee twice gave tangible 
 proof that he thoroughly accepted the doctrine that it 
 is not good for man to live alone. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 69 
 
 The closing paragraph of this historic letter of Miss 
 Pitman's will be found of interest, as reflecting the im- 
 pressions which the half -savage surroundings made upon 
 her: 
 
 I witnessed one death on our voyage — our cook, a 
 colored man, died of consumption. Though he was 
 anxious about his soul, we had but a faint hope in 
 his death ; he died delirious. His funeral was attended 
 with solemn respect. His body was sewed up in a 
 hammock, with bullets tied to his feet. The Ameri- 
 can flag was thrown over him as a pall as he lay on the 
 deck. The ship's company was assembled while Dr. 
 White read the burial service. He was then launched 
 into the ocean. A few days after we had reason to 
 hope for the steward's conversion ; the change in him 
 was great. I trust our prayers for the crew have not 
 been in vain. 
 
 We have had our class-meetings (on the ship), 
 prayer-meetings, and as often as we could, on Sab- 
 bath on deck, have had worship with the seamen. But 
 some of the sailors are a wicked set of men. Still, 
 my heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord, and though He 
 slay me yet will I trust in Him. Surely, goodness and 
 mercy have followed me all my life. I often look back 
 on the past with pleasure. I often meet with you in 
 spirit around your family altar and in my class. I have 
 enjoyed seasons there long to be remembered. I am 
 striving to press my way onward. Oh, pray for me 
 that I may endure hardness as a good soldier of the 
 cross of Christ. I feel as though you had not ceased 
 to pray for me. Oh, continue so to do. 
 
 I remain yours in the best of bonds, 
 
 A. M. Pitman. 
 
 Mrs. H. Martin. 
 
 All these manifestations of the goodness and sin- 
 cerity of this pioneer white woman of the Oregon 
 Country, so directly connected with the early missionary 
 work — which, however, accomplished more for the ulti- 
 mate settlement of the Northwest by patriotic Americans 
 than it did for the "conversion" of the Indians — find an 
 appropriate place here; furthermore, it should not only 
 
70 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 be a part of the every-day knowledge of our grown 
 people, but should be included in the curriculum of our 
 schools. The man or woman who would be assured 
 of the solidity of a structure, either material or govern- 
 mental, should take a deep interest in the manner in 
 which the workmen proceeded with the construction of 
 its foundation. And Jason Lee, with his wife and other 
 associates, wrought mightily in the laying of the corner- 
 stone of our present State government and advanced 
 industrial development. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 On the fifth of September, 1863, 1 entered the primary 
 department of the Willamette University, then known 
 as the "Institute." It was the name of the institution 
 established and erected by Jason Lee and his associates 
 and was, indeed, the same building. It was rechristened 
 by the Legislature the "Willamette University," but in 
 1863 nearly all the pioneer missionaries were yet living 
 and many of them were to be seen on the streets of 
 Salem every day. I easily recall the faces of "Father" 
 Waller, David Leslie, Gustavus Hines and his brother 
 Harvey, William Roberts, J. L. Parrish and others as 
 prominent men in those days. The University was called 
 the "Institute" until it was removed to the new brick 
 structure, a hundred yards distant, on October 21, 1867, 
 the corner-stone of which had been laid with fitting 
 ceremonies on July 24, 1864. I remember with what 
 pride the students, some two hundred in number, 
 marched on that occasion across the campus to view the 
 rare collection of souvenirs deposited in the corner-stone, 
 and to listen to the addresses of the men who had been 
 instrumental in securing the money which enabled the 
 trustees to begin the structure. It was more than three 
 years before it was actually occupied, so difficult did it 
 prove for even Father Waller and his persistent asso- 
 ciates to raise sufficient funds to proceed with the work. 
 
 The Institute had been changed to the Willamette 
 University by the territorial Legislature on January 12, 
 1853, the preamble of which act read as follows : 
 
 Whereas, the happiness and prosperity of every com- 
 munity, under the direction and government of Divine 
 Providence, depend in an eminent degree on the right 
 education of the youth who must succeed the aged in 
 
 71 
 
72 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 the important offices of society, and the principles of 
 virtue and the elements of liberal knowledge fostered 
 and imparted in the higher institutions of learning tend 
 to develop a people in those qualifications most essen- 
 tial to their welfare and future advancement; and, 
 
 Whereas, it appears that the establishment of a uni- 
 versity in the town of Salem, Marion County, with a 
 suitable preparatory department for the instruction of 
 youth in the arts and sciences, is likely to subserve the 
 intellectual development and enlightening of the youth 
 of this Territory, 
 
 Therefore, Be it enacted, etc. 
 
 Section i of the charter of this, the oldest uni- 
 versity in the United States west of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, has been deemed of sufficient interest to warrant 
 reproduction here because of the unusual array of prom- 
 inent men who constituted its first Board of Trustees : 
 
 Section i. That there shall be established in the 
 town of Salem, in the County of Marion, a university 
 to be called the Willamette University, and that David 
 Leslie, William Roberts, George Abernethy, W. H. 
 Willson, Alanson Beers, Thomas H. Peame, Francis 
 S. Hoyt, James H. Wilbur, Calvin S. Kingsley, John 
 Flinn, E. M. Barnum, L. F. Grover, B. F. Harding, 
 Samuel Burch, Francis Fletcher, Jeremiah Ralston, J. 
 D. Boon, Joseph Holman, James R. Robb, Cyrus Olney, 
 Asahel Bush and Samuel Parker, and their associates 
 and successors, are hereby declared to be a body cor- 
 porate and politic in law by the name and style of 
 "The Trustees of the Willamette University." 
 
 To the pioneer Oregonians, what a wealth of mem- 
 ories in law, religion, business, campaigning, backbiting, 
 scheming, vituperation, successes, failure, statesmanship 
 and genuine Christianity does this list of names recall! 
 At that time Oregon had been a territory but four years 
 and it had belonged to the United States but seven years. 
 Prior to that (1846) it had been No Man's Land — a 
 veritable wanderer upon the face of the earth, if the 
 somewhat strained figure of speech may be pardoned. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 73 
 
 But these men were here at this early date — ^many of 
 them for several years previous — and showing a re- 
 markable activity in developing the country along all 
 lines which tended toward better conditions materially, 
 socially, spiritually and intellectually. 
 
 David Leslie, the president of the Board, who had 
 joined the old Mission in September, 1837, accompanied 
 by his wife and several children, was a member of a 
 prominent New England family. One of the first men 
 to settle in Salem, he "took up" a quarter section of land 
 which now constitutes a part of the southern section of 
 Oregon's capital city. 
 
 Mr. Leslie deserves a more extended mention and a 
 larger degree of appreciation than is usually given him 
 in the accounts of the early history of Oregon. As 
 early as 1839, Senator Lewis F. Linn, of Missouri, pre- 
 sented a petition to the Senate of the United States, 
 dated March 16, 1838, setting forth the earnest desire 
 of the American settlers that Congress should take im- 
 mediate and decisive steps toward the ultimate acquisition 
 of the Oregon Country. I will quote a few paragraphs 
 which will serve to illustrate the forceful character of 
 the few men who, even at this early date, had made their 
 way to the Pacific Coast and were clamoring for national 
 recognition and protection. This great plea for help 
 from the nation's representatives began with the fol- 
 lowing clear-cut statement of conditions and possibili- 
 ties: 
 
 We are anxious when we imagine what will be, 
 what must be, the condition of so mixed a community, 
 free from all legal restraint and superior to that moral 
 influence which has hitherto been the pledge of our 
 safety. We flatter ourselves that we are the germ of a 
 great State and are anxious to give an early tone to 
 the moral and intellectual character of our citizens, 
 for the destinies of our posterity will be immediately 
 affected by the character of those who immigrate. 
 The Territory must populate — the Congress of the 
 United States must say by whom. The natural re- 
 sources of the country, with a well-judged civil code, 
 
74 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 will invite a good community, but a good community 
 will hardly emigrate to a country which promises no 
 protection to life and property. . . . Well are 
 we assured that it will cost the Government of the 
 United States more to reduce elements so discordant 
 to social order than to promote our permanent peace 
 and prosperity by a timely action of Congress. 
 
 This patriotic and dignified appeal for assistance in 
 the great work which confronted the early settlers in 
 the Northwest is worthy a place alongside the best 
 clauses in the Declaration of Independence. It was a 
 strong cry from the wilderness, from those who had 
 wandered afar in the interest of the mother government, 
 to be taken under the shadow of the Stars and Stripes. 
 
 This petition was followed by another in 1840, of 
 which David Leslie was the author. It was no less 
 patriotic and earnest, and eloquently expressed the 
 purpose of the American settlers here to remain Amer- 
 icans, and to hold the fort until the Government should 
 recognize the value of the great region which could be 
 acquired if prompt and energetic steps were but taken. 
 A part of this appeal reads as follows: 
 
 They have settled themselves in said territory 
 under the belief that it was a portion of the public 
 domain of said States, and that they might rely upon 
 the Government thereof for the blessings of free 
 institutions and the protection of its arms. But they 
 are uninformed of any acts of said Government by 
 which its institutions and protection are extended to 
 them; in consequence whereof, themselves and the 
 families are exposed to be destroyed by the savages 
 around them, and others who would do them harm. 
 
 That they have no means of protecting their own 
 and the lives of their families other than self-con- 
 stituted tribunals originated and sustained by the power 
 of an ill-instructed public opinion, and the resort to 
 force and to arms. 
 
 That these means of safety are an insufficient safe- 
 guard of life and property — ^that they are unable to 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 75 
 
 arrest the progress of crime without the aid of law 
 and the necessary tribunals to enforce it. 
 
 Thus was Father Leslie taking a prominent and effec- 
 tive part in "saving" Oregon two decades before the 
 breaking out of the Civil War and many years before 
 most of the men now prominent in national affairs were 
 born. 
 
 David Leslie was born in New Hampshire in 1797, 
 was reared in the shadow of the White Mountains, 
 and remained there, preaching from the time he was 
 twenty-five years of age until his coming to Oregon in 
 his fortieth year. He was in charge of the Oregon 
 Mission from 1838 to 1840 during the absence of Jason 
 Lee while the latter was engaged in securing the "Great 
 Reenforcement," which arrived in the latter year. 
 
 A great affliction overtook Mr. Leslie in 1842 in the 
 death of his wife. Being left with a family of five 
 daughters, he soon afterward decided to take two of 
 them to the Sandwich Islands, that they might have the 
 advantages of an education, leaving the youngest two 
 with a married daughter, Mrs. Cornelius Rodgers. Mr. 
 Rodgers and his wife were moving just then to the Falls, 
 as Oregon City was called in those days, which they 
 intended to make their future home. The journey was 
 made in a large "Chinook" canoe, manned by four 
 Indians. In the boat were Dr. White, Nathaniel 
 Crocker, W. W. Raymond, of the Mission, Mr. Rodgers 
 and his wife, with the youngest Leslie girl, the other, 
 who was in delicate health, remaining with some friends 
 in Salem. 
 
 Upon their arrival at the Falls it was necessary to 
 make a portage. They fastened a line to the canoe, as 
 was customary, and Mr. Raymond, with two Indians, 
 walked along the rocks, endeavoring to guide it to a 
 safe landing. Dr. White had also stepped ashore. At 
 this juncture a swift current struck the boat and capsized 
 it, with the result that it was immediately swept into 
 the raging waters. The men lost the line, and in a 
 
76 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 moment Mr. Rodgers, his wife and her little sister were 
 dashed over the Falls. A contemporary account of this 
 most appalling affair says: "Mrs. Rodgers, on seeing 
 her inevitable fate, clasped her baby sister to her breast 
 and the remorseless waters passed over them, hiding 
 them forever from mortal sight." Mr. Crocker also 
 lost his life in this disaster which threw a mantle of 
 gloom over the little settlement of whites. 
 
 During the three years I attended the Willamette 
 University David Leslie was the president of the Board 
 of Trustees. I remember he appeared to me as an 
 extremely old man. I do not know what his physical 
 affliction was, but it must have been some phase of 
 paralysis, as his steps were scarcely six inches in length 
 and he seemed to be so very feeble that it used to make 
 me long to render him some assistance. He always had 
 a kind word for everybody and was beloved by all. He 
 remained at the head of the Board of Trustees for 
 twenty-five years, or until a year before his death, which 
 occurred at his home in Salem on March i, 1869, when 
 a truly good man passed on, "full of years and full of 
 honors." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 So potent and far-reaching has been the influence of 
 the Willamette University in the promotion of educa- 
 tion in the Northwest — its foundation being almost 
 coincident with the first coming of the white man — 
 that a brief sketch of the careers of those who constituted 
 its first Board of Trustees will be of interest and value. 
 
 William Roberts was one of the most prominent and 
 useful members of that body. He came to Oregon in 
 1847 ^s superintendent of the missionary work of the 
 Methodist Church, and at once became known as an 
 energetic worker. Not only was he active within the 
 sphere which directly demanded his attention, but every 
 proposition which seemed to promise a development of 
 the new settlement in an educational and material way 
 found in him an enthusiastic and efficient supporter. I 
 remember him well, as Salem was his home most of the 
 time, though his territory included what is now Cali- 
 fornia, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. This he 
 covered as often as possible, of necessity making the 
 larger part of it on horseback, after the manner of the 
 early itinerant preachers, for the most part "without 
 money and without price," looking for his reward in 
 the satisfaction of doing his work well and in the 
 approval of his fellow men. Mr. Roberts was a cultured 
 man, a very able expounder of his religious faith, and 
 was regarded as one of the most effective ministers of 
 his denomination on the Pacific Coast. He continued 
 to be a trustee of the Willamette University until his 
 death, which occurred in 1888. His service covered 
 a period of forty-one years and he lived to see the 
 membership of his Church in the district over which his 
 jurisdiction extended increase from one hundred to more 
 than twenty thousand. Like several others of the early 
 
 77 
 
78 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 missionaries, he acquired a tract of land where Salem now 
 stands and one of the most valuable additions to that 
 city bears his name to-day. 
 
 George Abernethy was a native of Scotland, born in 
 1807, but his parents came to the United States when 
 he was two years of age and settled in New York State. 
 In 1840 Mr. Abernethy joined the missionaries who 
 accompanied Jason Lee on his return trip to Oregon on 
 the Lausanne, being a lay member of the missionary 
 force. In 1845 the settlers in the Willamette valley had 
 organized a provisional government, and under its au- 
 thority an election was held on June 3 for a full list 
 of officers. George Abernethy was a candidate for the 
 position of Governor, receiving a majority of ninety- 
 eight votes out of a total cast of five hundred and four. 
 His opponent was A. L. Lovejoy, a Missourian who had 
 crossed the plains in 1842 with Dr. Elijah White, and 
 who, by the way, was one of the men who afterward 
 platted the city of Portland. 
 
 In 1847 Mr. Abernethy was a candidate for re-elec- 
 tion and received five hundred and thirty-six votes out 
 of a total of eight hundred and forty-seven. Mr. Love- 
 joy was again his leading opponent and Abernethy's 
 plurality over him was but sixteen votes. At the end 
 of his second term, the territorial government of Oregon 
 had been established by Congress and Joseph Lane 
 arrived from Indiana as the appointee of President Polk 
 to act as the first territorial Governor. Governor 
 Abernethy was a man of good business qualifications but 
 did not rank high as a politician, which may or may 
 not have been a misfortune. At the end of his service 
 at the head of the provisional government he engaged 
 in the mercantile business at Oregon City and gained 
 a considerable amount of property, which was mostly 
 lost in the great flood in the Willamette River in 
 December, 1861. The last years of his life were spent 
 in Portland, where he died in 1877. 
 
 Alanson Beers was also a member of the Lausanne 
 party in 1840 and soon after his arrival settled upon a 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 79 
 
 claim which included the site of the original Mission. 
 A part of this is to-day owned by his son, Oliver Beers, 
 a resident of Salem. Alanson Beers was chosen at the 
 famous meeting at Champoeg on May 2, 1843, ^^ one 
 of the three members of the executive committee, whose 
 duties were to be the same as those of the Governor 
 of any other Territory. This was the first civil govern- 
 ment organized west of the Rocky Mountains. Mr. 
 Beers served on this committee until July, 1844, and was 
 really one-third of the first Governor of the Oregon 
 Country. 
 
 James H. Wilbur deserves more than a passing notice 
 in any history of Oregon which aspires to do justice to 
 the men who may be correctly termed its founders. 
 Born in New York State in 181 1, he came here in 1846 
 by way of Cape Horn, arriving at Portland on June 3, 
 where he found a village of three houses. He went at 
 once to Salem and began traveling over the circuit, which 
 reached to the California line. In 1848 he was trans- 
 ferred to the Portland and Oregon City circuit and built 
 the first church ever erected in the former city. He 
 raised the money by the subscription process and paid 
 the mechanics twelve dollars a day. Lumber cost one 
 hundred and twenty dollars a thousand. In 1851 he 
 built the Portland Academy and Female Seminary. He 
 performed much of the mechanical labor himself, carry- 
 ing mortar in hods and dressing like the commonest of 
 the workmen. 
 
 Twenty years of Mr. Wilbur's later life were spent 
 in conducting an Indian training school at Yakima, 
 Washington, a very practical and successful method of 
 "converting" Indians, the good results of which are 
 yet felt in that section. He died in 1887 in Walla Walla, 
 where his home had been after his retirement from his 
 long and arduous services for the public weal. 
 
 John D. Boon, a Wesleyan Methodist preacher who 
 came to Oregon in 1845, was elected treasurer of Oregon 
 Territory by the Legislature in January, 1855, and 
 served continuously for the ensuing ten years, with the 
 
8o FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 exception of the year 1856, when Nat. H. Lane was 
 chosen to that position for one year, that being the 
 length of the term in those times. Upon the organi- 
 zation of the State government in 1859 he was elected 
 the first State Treasurer, serving three years. He con- 
 ducted a large store — for that period — in North Salem 
 in the first brick building ever constructed in that part 
 of the city. He raised a large family of sons and 
 daughters, with whom I attended the University in the 
 '6o's, and died at his home, well advanced in years and 
 having the respect of all the people. 
 
 Asahel Bush, a printer by trade, came to Oregon from 
 Massachusetts in 1850 and soon after his arrival estab- 
 lished the Statesman at Oregon City, afterwards moving 
 it to Salem when the capital was changed to that loca- 
 tion. In Washington City he had previously consulted 
 Samuel R. Thurston, the first delegate to Congress from 
 Oregon Territory, as to the prospects for a young news- 
 paper man in the Far West. Thurston gave him great 
 encouragement, since he was very ambitious politically 
 and had already made a good start, and since, what was 
 more important, there was no Democratic paper in the 
 territory. As the result of this conference Mr. Bush at 
 once made all necessary arrangements to ship the 
 materials for a printing plant to Oregon and himself 
 embarked for his new home in July, 1850. He arrived 
 at Astoria in September, having made most of the 
 distance across the Isthmus on muleback. He proceeded 
 from Astoria to Portland by a small boat, and at once 
 located in Oregon City. When the Legislature met at 
 Oregon City in December, Mr. Bush was chosen terri- 
 torial printer, the assurance that his plant was on the 
 way being sufficient to secure his election. His paper 
 was first issued in March, 1851, and was a "hummer" 
 from the beginning. He was a very caustic writer, 
 using ridicule as his chief weapon and sparing no politi- 
 cal enemy. He was courageous under all circumstances, 
 and as his paper reached every part of the Territory, 
 his influence was far-reaching. He was elected official 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 8i 
 
 printer at each successive session of the Legislature, 
 which met annually, until the organization of the State 
 government in 1859, and then was chosen to succeed 
 himself in the new order of things. In 1862 Harvey 
 Gordon was chosen to succeed Mr. Bush, but died before 
 being sworn into office. As the Governor neglected to 
 appoint a successor, Mr. Bush served until the election 
 of H. L. Pittock, of the Oregonian, in 1864. 
 
 Mr. Bush sold the Statesman in 1861, and after en- 
 gaging in various business enterprises, established, in 
 1867, the banking house in Salem of which he has 
 ever since been the head and for the last thirty years the 
 sole owner — ^perhaps the only instance on record where 
 a newspaper man actually started and maintained a bank. 
 
 During its existence as a Territory and State Oregon 
 has experienced its full measure of stormy political cam- 
 paigns, prominent men being voted up, voted down and 
 voted out, combinations effected which have produced 
 the most unexpected results, agreements made over 
 night which astonished the natives, and others, but no 
 man has ever wielded so autocratic a power for so long 
 a period as did Asahel Bush. There was nothing that 
 he desired to do that he was for a moment afraid to 
 do or that he didn't do. A political foe was an obstacle 
 which should be removed. That was what foes were 
 for! Having the Statesman at his command, as well 
 as the English language, his meat and drink were found 
 in lampooning and lambasting his political enemies, and 
 the last five years of the territorial regime were luminous 
 with the lavish display of his wonderful power as a 
 writer and political dictator. 
 
 The files of the Statesman for those years furnish a 
 splendid political history of Oregon in its swaddling 
 clothes, and give a most interesting picture of the 
 methods pursued in that turbulent era by the group of 
 really able men who had drifted here, most of them 
 with the intention of engaging in the political game 
 usually offered in a new country, and which was espec- 
 ially promising and alluring in Oregon at that time. The 
 
82 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 tirades in which the Oregon editors engaged in the later 
 '50's were so pronounced and extreme in their nature 
 that "the Oregon style" was known far and near. The 
 "star" writer was Asahel Bush, — and it but added to 
 his popularity. 
 
 During the year 1904 I was the editor of the Daily 
 Statesman, and each Sunday morning I would reprint 
 extracts from the Statesman just fifty years before. It 
 proved a very interesting department, not only to the 
 old-timers, but to the newer residents, who marveled at 
 the nature of the political contests of long ago. To "dig 
 up" this stuff for the Sunday paper proved a very fasci- 
 nating pastime each Saturday afternoon. One day I 
 ran across an article which roasted General Joseph Lane 
 to a finish, the latter distinguished gentleman and Mr. 
 Bush, though both were Democrats, having broken their 
 political friendship because of their difference of opinion 
 on the slavery question, the bad feeling being ac- 
 centuated, to be sure, by the natural action of local 
 strifes and ambitions through a period of ten years' 
 scrapping. Lane had written a letter which had greatly 
 displeased Mr. Bush, and as the old General had a con- 
 firmed habit of showing his utter indifference to the rules 
 laid down by the man who had invented spelling, the 
 brilliant and ebullient editor not only applied his battery 
 of ridicule to the subject-matter of the Lane letter, but 
 printed it with its original arrangement of the alphabet 
 unchanged. It made "mighty interestin' reading," and 
 I reprinted an extract from it of such liberal dimensions 
 that its encroachment upon "valuable space" was entirely 
 ignored. 
 
 The next day I met Mr. Bush in front of his bank and 
 he accosted me with a frown which seldom accompanies 
 an inward feeling of hilarity. 
 
 "Say," he remarked, "why do you reprint those 
 extracts from the Statesman so long ago that most people 
 have forgotten the matters they tell about?" 
 
 "Why not?" I inquired. "Important history was 
 being made in those days, and people living now are 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 83 
 
 glad to know how it was made and who the chief actors 
 were." 
 
 "Yes," he repHed, "but that extract you pubHshed 
 yesterday about Jo. Lane should not have been repro- 
 duced. Lane was a pretty good man, after all, and we 
 were living in exciting times and many things were said 
 that it would have been just as well to have left 
 unuttered." 
 
 "No doubt," I said, "but the same may be said of 
 most men who have figured in the history of most coun- 
 tries. It is likely that Blaine, in after years, would haye 
 been glad to suppress the ebullition of satire he fired at 
 Conkling while they were both members of the lower 
 House of Congress, but the history of the United States 
 would be crippled in one of its most important chapters 
 if it failed to give the fullest details of that red-hot 
 verbal engagement between two of the most renowned 
 forensic gladiators America has ever known." 
 
 But this didn't satisfy Mr. Bush — he never surrenders 
 an opinion nor has he ever been known to acknowledge 
 a conversion. His reply was : 
 
 "Yes, but Lane has many descendants living now in 
 all parts of Oregon, and the publication of these things 
 will make them mad — they won't like it." 
 
 "That may be," I insisted, "but there is a bare possi- 
 bility that General Lane and his relatives didn't approve 
 of the articles at the time you first printed them, and 
 certainly they cared more about the matter and were 
 entitled to more consideration at that time than his 
 descendants are now." 
 
 To this Mr. Bush replied that they all, perhaps, went 
 too far in the excitement of the campaign, when every- 
 body was striving for the ascendency in the new terri- 
 tory, and that he was "younger then than now." The 
 fact was that in after years, when they were both old 
 men and had permanently retired from the activities 
 of public life, Bush and Lane renewed their earlier 
 friendship and often laughed at the bitterness which 
 characterized the contests in which they had engaged. 
 
84 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 General Lane, of whom more will be said in this volume 
 later, was twenty-two years older than Mr. Bush and 
 died in 1881, aged eighty years. But the veteran 
 editor and banker still lives in Salem at the advanced 
 age of eighty-eight years, attends to his office business 
 every day, maintains his cheerful disposition, takes a 
 deep interest in current events, has but little use for 
 many of the modern innovations in the forms of govern- 
 ment, and quite recently remarked that, after all, in his 
 opinion, the people of Oregon were fully as well gov- 
 erned when the "Salem Clique" was in the saddle as now. 
 Mr. Bush is a very cultured gentleman of the old 
 school. He still wears the tall standing collar of the 
 old-time gentlemen of ante-bellum days, and has worn 
 precisely the same style of hat for forty years without 
 change, — always new and becoming, totally unlike that 
 ever worn by any other man, since no other man has 
 been able to discover where it is obtained. He has the 
 respect of all the people of this region, and his name will 
 remain among the first on the remarkable list of brave 
 and ambitious men who managed the public afifairs of 
 Oregon during the formative period of its existence, in 
 the decade immediately preceding the Civil War. He 
 was a Douglas Democrat, upheld the cause of the Union 
 during the Rebellion, and was seriously considered by 
 President Cleveland, at the time of his second inaugura- 
 tion, as a proper man to appoint Secretary of the 
 Treasury. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Among the prominent men who constituted the 
 "Salem Clique" in the territorial days, and who was one 
 of the first trustees of the Willamette University, was 
 Benjamin F. Harding. As I hark back now to the time 
 when I had not yet reached my teens I recall how the 
 conversation around my father's fireside, when we lived 
 in Silverton, so often included references to "Ben" 
 Harding. My father and all his people were Douglas 
 Democrats, and my first recollection of political affairs 
 was when, in 1858, being then seven years old, people 
 who came to our house would discuss the effects of the 
 Lincoln-Douglas debate. The usual decision was that 
 the "Little Giant" had utterly vanquished the "Illinois 
 Rail-splitter." Asahel Bush, then editor of the Salem 
 Statesman, Ben Harding and James W. Nesmith were 
 the leaders of the anti-slavery, or Douglas, wing of the 
 Oregon Democracy, while Joseph Lane, Delazon Smith 
 and George K. Shiel were the foremost men in the 
 Breckinridge forces, the pronounced champions of the 
 extension of slavery into any or all the Territories. 
 
 In those days Ben Harding was in his prime, as well 
 as in his element, politically. He was a genial man, 
 a good organizer and counsellor and universally popu- 
 lar. Born in Pennsylvania in 1823, he came to Oregon 
 and at once settled in Marion County. He was a 
 lawyer, but never seriously followed his profession 
 after arriving here. He was a born politician and 
 made little claim to any other business for many years, 
 though he owned a good farm on French Prairie, 
 near Salem. He was appointed United States District 
 Attorney in 1853, and was territorial secretary from 
 1855 to 1859. In 1862 the State Legislature elected him 
 to fill the unexpired term of Colonel Edward D. Baker — 
 
 85 
 
86 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 who had been killed at the battle of Ball's Bluff on 
 October 21, 1861 — in the United States Senate. He was 
 at one time county clerk for Marion County, and while 
 holding that position built the house in which Judge 
 William Waldo now lives. Ke could secure any office 
 he wanted by merely indicating his preference, during 
 the territorial days, and for some time after the State 
 government was inaugurated, or until the Democratic 
 party lost control of its affairs, and for ten years or 
 more he was one of the most prominent and influential 
 men in Oregon Territory. He died at his home in Lane 
 County in 1899, aged seventy-six years. 
 
 John Flinn, another member of the first Board of 
 Trustees of the Willamette University, born in Ireland 
 on March 26, 181 7, is now past ninety-four years of age, 
 and in such excellent physical condition that there is 
 every prospect that he will reach the century mark. He 
 regrets that his birth did not occur eleven days sooner, 
 in order that he might have saved much time in the 
 course of a long life by celebrating two birthdays at 
 once, but he is a born philosopher and accepts these 
 little misfits with entire composure. He remained in 
 Ireland until he was twenty-three years of age, when he 
 came to America and lived some time in St. John's, New 
 Brunswick. During that time he entered the ministry 
 and began his long service in that calling in 1840, now 
 full seventy-one years ago ! 
 
 In 1850 he sailed for Oregon and arrived here in 
 the fall of that year, at the time when "Father" Wilbur 
 was completing the construction of the church where the 
 Taylor Street landmark now stands. Mr. Flinn takes 
 great pleasure in relating how Mr. Wilbur took part in 
 the manual labor, and also how he would solicit assistance 
 from the gamblers, who even at that time were prosecut- 
 ing a profitable business in the little city on the 
 Willamette. The one thing that may be said in favor 
 of gamblers, as a class, is that they are universally liberal 
 in their donations of money for almost any purpose 
 which savors of charity. From them Mr. Wilbur 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 87 
 
 received much help in footing the bills for the erection 
 of his new church building. The good old soul had not 
 learned that there is such a thing as "tainted money," 
 and had the old-fashioned idea, evidently, that no dollar 
 itself is ever "tainted," though the man who uses it 
 for a disreputable purpose may himself be contaminated. 
 
 Mr. Flinn preached his first sermon in Oregon on the 
 next day after his arrival in Portland, in September, 
 1850, and has been actively engaged in his good work 
 ever since, though, of course, in recent years he has had 
 no regular charge. Whenever he appears at any public 
 gathering, however, he is certain to be called upon for 
 a "talk," and then the humor which was born with 
 him, and which has grown with his growth, bubbles over, 
 to the great enjoyment of his audience. When he falls 
 into a reminiscent mood one never tires listening to his 
 relation of pioneer experiences. 
 
 An amusing incident, and one which he enjoys de- 
 scribing, occurred at the rude Congregational church 
 building during the morning service on his first Sunday 
 in Portland. Rev. Horace Lyman, Sr., was delivering 
 the sermon at the time. At a certain point, as he was 
 describing with much feeling the betrayal of the Savior 
 by the Apostle Judas Iscariot and the tears were appear- 
 ing in the eyes of the more emotional of the congrega- 
 tion, a disturbance suddenly began to take place, 
 evidently under the floor of the building. It did not 
 appear by degrees, but burst out in full force at once. 
 The fact was — and it became apparent without any 
 preliminaries — that a lot of hogs were sleeping under 
 the floor, which was but a foot off the ground and com- 
 posed of boards loosely put together. The room 
 appeared to be wholly inadequate for the size and 
 number of the hogs which had taken refuge there. The 
 congregation was seated on benches around the walls 
 of the building, and as the insurrection proceeded, the 
 boards in the middle of the floor were pushed out of 
 position by the "rise of pork" and the services neces- 
 sarily suspended while a few volunteers drove the 
 
88 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 intruders out into the adjoining woods — about where 
 the City Hall is now — and the story of Judas' treachery 
 was resumed. 
 
 I always love to meet Father Flinn. His good humor 
 is infectious and he keeps the brighter side of life to 
 the fore, while he minimizes the ills which are inevitable. 
 I have never had the dyspepsia, nor the "blues" very 
 often, but if I were subject to either misfortune I would 
 cultivate the company of Father Flinn and learn at his 
 feet the lesson of good cheer, good sense and sound 
 philosophy as to the duty of the average — and other — 
 man. 
 
 Lafayette Grover, another of the Willamette Univer- 
 sity trustees, who devbted much of his time to its 
 upbuilding in the days when it required a great deal of 
 careful nursing, has occupied a larger share in the 
 public life of Oregon as a Territory and State than any 
 other man. He was born in Maine in 1823 and came to 
 Oregon in 1851 in search of his fortune, as did so many 
 ambitious young men of the Eastern States at that time. 
 His first public work was to assemble, as far as possible, 
 the records of the Territory as far back as any had been 
 kept and to prepare them in a permanent form. This 
 was a difficult task, for the reason that no records of 
 any kind were kept of some of the proceedings of the 
 preliminary meetings which were held by "the settlers 
 of the Willamette valley," and others were not only 
 incomplete, but somewhat inaccurate. I have spent many 
 days in the office of the Secretary of State searching 
 these early archives collected by Mr. Grover in 1853 and 
 have always found them of great interest and value. 
 Many laws were enacted by the early territorial Legisla- 
 tures, a record of whose progress through the lawmak- 
 ing body would not for a moment stand the test of our 
 latter-day, fine-grained critics, who can frequently save 
 those unquestionably guilty of murder from the gallows 
 by proving to "the satisfaction of the court" that a 
 comma should have been in a different place in a 
 sentence. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 89 
 
 But this work of Mr. Grover is of great value and 
 he did it well. He was elected a member of the Con- 
 stitutional Convention, which in 1857 framed the organic 
 act under which Oregon was admitted to the Union in 
 1859, and proved to be one of its most active members. 
 There has been no Constitutional Convention in Oregon 
 since, in fifty-two years of statehood, but under the 
 "Oregon System," of which so much has been said in all 
 parts of the United States within the past five years, 
 the Constitution of Oregon has been amended out of all 
 recognition and can be changed with as little difficulty 
 as would be met in the passage of a law taxing dogs. 
 
 In that convention Mr. Grover served with signal 
 ability and at the election held under it for State and 
 other officers he was chosen to represent Oregon in the 
 lower House of Congress. The admission of the State 
 was not effected, however, until February 14, 1859, 
 seventeen days before the expiration of the term for 
 which he had been elected. Upon his return to Oregon 
 he resumed the practice of law at Salem, his home, and 
 was not prominent in political affairs until 1870, when 
 he was elected Governor and re-elected in 1874. At the 
 legislative session in September, 1876, in the middle of 
 his second gubernatorial term, he was chosen United 
 States Senator, his wish during that period being law 
 with his party. 
 
 It was at this time that the famous Hayes-Tilden 
 trouble arose, and it finally developed that as Oregon 
 went so would go the election. And the contest was so 
 uncomfortably close that the loss of even one of its three 
 electoral votes to Hayes would result in the election of 
 Tilden. It was what might be called a "close shave" for 
 the Republican party at a most critical time in its history. 
 
 Everybody, leading Democrats as well as leading 
 Republicans, was searching the election returns diligently 
 for some technicality that would justify "going behind 
 the returns," with the hope, and without doubt the inten- 
 tion, of discovering a vital error which would change 
 the result. At this juncture it was found that one of 
 
90 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 the Republican electors, Dr. J. W. Watts, of Lafayette, 
 Yamhill County, was the postmaster in his home town, 
 a position which probably yielded a salary of one 
 hundred dollars a year. But the Federal law governing 
 the qualifications of Presidential electors prescribed that 
 they should not be holding any "remunerative" office, and 
 the eagle-eyed Democrats, perceiving the value of the 
 discovery, and its possible influence at that critical 
 juncture, made the most of it. The news was imme- 
 diately sent to Washington, with the result that the con- 
 test was re-opened with a partisan vigor which has not 
 been surpassed, perhaps not equalled, since the formation 
 of the Government. 
 
 Of course everybody knew that Oregon had voted 
 decisively in favor of the election of General Hayes. 
 There was not a shadow of doubt as to what the people 
 of the State wanted, nor as to what they intended when 
 they expressed their choice for President. But the 
 admitted wish of the people was not to be considered for 
 a moment. There was a dazzling prize at stake, and 
 everything was fair in a war of this character. To 
 correct the error, Dr. Watts resigned his position as 
 postmaster, thus creating a vacancy in the Oregon 
 college, and the other two members, assuming the right 
 to fill a vacancy, when they met at the State capital to 
 cast their votes for President at once selected Dr. Watts, 
 who at the time held no "remunerative office." The 
 doctor without hesitation accepted the unexpected honor, 
 took his seat as a member of the college and within a 
 few minutes three votes were cast for Rutherford B. 
 Hayes for President of the United States. And that 
 act made him the national Chief Executive for four 
 years ! 
 
 But not without a struggle which is unparalleled in 
 our history. Governor Grover, always a partisan who 
 could be counted upon under any sort of party stress, 
 refused to recognize the election of Dr. Watts as a 
 member of the State electoral college and gave him no 
 commission. Instead, he appointed the Democratic 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 91 
 
 candidate who had received the highest number of votes 
 and he went to Washington City with his certificate of 
 appointment. The Electoral Commission, however, 
 being inclined to the Republican party, refused to 
 recognize the legality of his claims and accepted the 
 vote of Dr. Watts, just as the same body would have 
 reversed this finding had a majority of its members been 
 Democrats — so prone are we all to see and interpret 
 matters in accordance with our wishes and personal 
 views. 
 
 This exciting national episode developed into a near- 
 scandal, as it was charged that cipher dispatches passed 
 between those having the Tilden interests in charge in 
 Washington and the Oregon State authorities which 
 hinted at some transactions that were not intended to 
 be generally known. It reached so far that charges were 
 made against Governor Grover as to certain features 
 of his election to the Senate, and a committee actually 
 came to Oregon and investigated the matter, but it came 
 to naught, and he was permitted to conclude his six 
 years' service without further molestation. 
 
 From the date of his arrival in Oregon in 1851 until 
 his retirement from the Senate in 1883, Mr. Grover held 
 a greater variety of public positions, including the 
 highest within the gift of the people, than any other 
 man. He was clerk of the United States District Court; 
 prosecuting attorney for the second district, which then 
 extended from Oregon City to the California line; 
 raised a company of men to fight Indians in the Rogue 
 River country; was a member of the territorial Legisla- 
 ture in 1855 from Marion County and was returned the 
 next year, when he was chosen Speaker of the House; 
 was elected a member of the Constitutional Convention, 
 which met in Salem on August 17, 1857, and was 
 chosen the new State's first Representative in Congress 
 in 1858. From this date until 1870 he devoted himself 
 to the practice of the law in Salem and was prominent 
 in business enterprises of various kinds. In 1866 he was 
 chairman of the Democratic State Convention and of 
 
92 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 the State committee in the campaign which followed. 
 Four years later he concluded he would like to be Gov- 
 ernor of the State, and it was so. His preference was 
 to serve a second term, and a second term was given him, 
 the State being Democratic and the party gospel at that 
 time entirely subject to his interpretation of the text. 
 By a singular combination of circumstances, when the 
 middle of his second term as Governor had come around 
 he decided that he was precisely the proper age to enter 
 the United States Senate, communicated his decision to 
 the Democratic members of the Legislature, which met 
 in September, 1876, and on the day provided by law 
 a certificate of election was made out in his name. 
 
 Indeed, in those days Lafayette Grover was a power 
 in the land, and he understood how to wield it in the 
 way that would best serve his personal ambitions. He 
 was the first Governor of Oregon who was able to secure 
 a reelection, though since then Sylvester Pennoyer has 
 had that distinction, as has also George E. Chamberlain 
 — all Democrats. In this connection it will not be amiss 
 to remark that the people of Oregon have chosen five 
 Republicans and five Democrats to the office of Gover- 
 nor during the fifty years of its statehood, excluding 
 the present incumbent, who is a Democrat, and it is 
 a somewhat singular circumstance that no Republican 
 has been able to succeed himself, while three Democrats 
 have made that record. The fact is that no Republican 
 Governor has ever been renominated by his party, the 
 inference being that there has been such a perfect wealth 
 of superior material among them for that position that, 
 even restricting them to one term, the aspirants cannot 
 be satisfied within the ordinary lifetime, while with the 
 
 Democrats the case is dif , however, it is best to be 
 
 charitable. 
 
 Governor Grover is a very cultured man. In his 
 capacity of politician he was always dignified in his 
 bearing and in a manner reserved when the situation 
 did not call for a different mien. But with all this he 
 was afifable, kind, approachable and personally popular, 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 93 
 
 as any man with his remarkably successful record must 
 necessarily be. Soon after his retirement from the 
 United States Senate, in 1883, he removed to Portland, 
 where he engaged in many business undertakings. 
 During the past fifteen years he has been a confirmed 
 invalid and has at no time appeared in public* 
 
 *It is a somewhat strange circumstance that since the 
 first of this chapter was written this morning — May 12 — 
 Governor Grover has passed to the life beyond, the even- 
 ing papers just at hand announcing that while at his 
 breakfast he was attacked with a fainting spell and died 
 within a few moments, at the advanced age of nearly 
 eighty-eight years. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Dr. W. H. Willson, — spelled with two I's, — was born 
 in Massachusetts in 1805, came to Oregon in 1837 and 
 was among the first settlers in Salem, the fact being 
 that he made the original plat of that city and should 
 be known as its founder. He took up a claim which 
 included the tract later owned by Rev. J. L. Parrish, in 
 North Salem, and a part of the present campus of the 
 Willamette University. He also donated to the city 
 of Salem that beautiful tract known as Willson Avenue, 
 one block wide — and the Salem blocks are unusually 
 large — and four blocks long. It covers the distance 
 between the State Capitol and the Marion County court- 
 house, is artistically arranged with shade trees of 
 various kinds and has winding walks among a lavish 
 display of flowers during ten months of the year — all 
 of which attractions make it a favorite resort for Salem's 
 people and their visitors. 
 
 In 1853 Dr. Willson established a drug store in Salem, 
 the first in the future capital of Oregon, locating it one 
 block west of Commercial Street, near South Mill Creek. 
 He did a thriving business in that line and also practised 
 his profession. While in this business he erected a fine 
 home one block north of the present site of the Capitol, 
 where he lived until his death, and where his family, 
 consisting of his wife and three daughters, lived during 
 my school days in Salem. 
 
 Dr. Willson's ancestors originally came from Salem, 
 England, and Salem, New Hampshire, received its name 
 from them. Oregon's capital owes its name to Dr. 
 Willson, who naturally desired to perpetuate it in the 
 new country in which he had permanently located. Its 
 streets were platted by him and the donation of the 
 avenue made at the same time. The original plat is now 
 
 94 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 95 
 
 in the possession of his daughter, Mrs. J. K. Gill, of 
 Portland. 
 
 In August, 1840, Dr. Willson married Miss Chloe 
 Clark, a member of the celebrated Lausanne party, which 
 came to Oregon the previous June. She was the first 
 teacher in the Oregon Institute and remained in that 
 position for several years. Dr. Willson was a man of 
 especially cheerful nature and his optimistic disposition 
 made him a favorite with all his acquaintances. He sold 
 his drug store in the spring of 1856 to W. K. Smith, 
 but retained it as his headquarters while following his 
 profession as a physician. In April of that year, while 
 he and Dr. Smith were sitting by the stove, Dr. Willson 
 was relating to Smith the circumstance of a French 
 woman who had that morning made a purchase in the 
 store, the humorous feature being the misapplication of 
 the word used by her in describing the article she wanted. 
 While the two were laughing at the recital, Smith noticed 
 that Dr. Willson leaned far over in his chair and 
 appeared to be in great pain. After waiting a moment 
 and satisfying himself that something was wrong, he 
 jumped up and went to his friend's rescue, only to 
 discover that he had completely collapsed. A physician, 
 Dr. A. M. Belt, was sent for at once, but all efforts to 
 revive him failed and he died within a half-hour from 
 the effects of heart failure, to which he had been subject 
 for several years. 
 
 Dr. Willson was the first secretary of the Willamette 
 University Board of Trustees and held that position 
 until his death. He was especially happy in his 
 domestic relations and his untimely demise was keenly 
 felt by a host of friends. 
 
CHAPTER .XIV 
 
 Perhaps of all the men who figured largely in the 
 public affairs of Oregon during its formative period 
 less is known to-day of Thomas H. Pearne than of any 
 other. For nearly fifteen years he was prominent in the 
 public eye, and took a leading part not only in church 
 matters — he was a leading Methodist — but was always 
 to the front in the discussion of the political questions 
 that demanded the attention of the people. For the 
 entire period of his residence in Oregon he served on 
 the Board of Trustees of Willamette University. Yet 
 to-day not many Oregonians, except the few still surviv- 
 ing who were here at that time, know anything about 
 Pearne or ever heard of him! 
 
 Thomas H. Pearne was born in New York State on 
 June 7, 1820, and before reaching his majority entered 
 the ministry of the Methodist Church. He followed his 
 profession in various parts of the Eastern States until 
 1851, when he was transferred to the Oregon Confer- 
 ence. Physically and mentally he was a man of unusual 
 vigor, combative to a fault almost, impatient of opposi- 
 tion, and frequently verging upon the very extreme di 
 intolerance. He was a born fighter, with the ability to 
 follow successfully his bent in that direction. 
 
 In 1855 the Methodists founded the Pacific Christian 
 Advocate^ which has been published continuously since, 
 and Pearne was elected its editor. This position he held 
 without intermission until 1864, when he asked for a 
 leave of absence to join the Christian Commission, which 
 was then engaged in assisting the Union army. After 
 the war was over, he settled in eastern Tennessee, took 
 charge of a church there and never returned to Oregon. 
 
 During the years Pearne was editor of the Advocate 
 he used its columns for the free discussion of political 
 
 96 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 97 
 
 questions, and since he contended that good politics 
 meant good religion, and vice versa, his critics always 
 received as good as they sent. He was a very pronounced 
 anti-slavery man, holding that slavery was a stupendous 
 sin and that a good Christian should fight sin wherever 
 found. 
 
 My grandfather on my mother's side was an ardent 
 and outspoken Southern sympathizer during the war, 
 and in the years immediately preceding that event, while 
 spending weeks at a time at his home when a small boy, 
 I would listen while he and his friends discussed the 
 public situation. I remember that I imbibed from what 
 I heard that a man named Peame was about the least 
 desirable of citizens. I think that m man, perhaps, was 
 hated by certain people in Oregon during those years 
 more enthusiastically than was Pearne. I know that as 
 a child my impression was that he was a veritable brute, 
 lacking every characteristic of a man fit to be tolerated 
 in society. But the fact was he was one of the ablest 
 of the men in Oregon at that time and was instrumental 
 in crystallizing public opinion along lines which meant 
 the best results for the public weal. 
 
 Mr. Pearne was one of the official short-hand 
 reporters in the State Constitutional Convention of 1857, 
 and, as a lobbyist, took an active part in the struggle in 
 that body with regard to its attitude on the slavery ques- 
 tion — and he was hated for that! That was during his 
 editorship of the Advocate. There were thousands who 
 insisted that he was a "political preacher," and that he 
 had no right to interfere in a contest of that character; 
 but such criticism had as little effect upon the belligerent 
 editor as pouring water on the back of a duck. 
 
 Pearne was an active preacher during his nine years' 
 residence in Oregon, in addition to his other duties, and 
 had his share of hardships and adventures incident to 
 conditions which prevailed here at that time. In fact, 
 he had experienced many of them during his different 
 pastorates in interior New York before coming West. 
 He used to relate this incident : 
 
98 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 "In my boyhood, the introduction of instrumental 
 music in the Sunday-school service created much agita- 
 tion and warm controversy. A maiden lady of mature 
 years came into the church while the first hymn was 
 being sung. For the first time instruments had been 
 introduced into the choir in the gallery; but as she sat 
 under the gallery, directly below the choir, she did not 
 observe them and sang from the same hymn-book with 
 my mother with apparent zest and delight. After the 
 prayer, and after the second hymn was announced, the 
 instruments sounded the pitch. 'What is that?' said she 
 to my mother. 'Musical instruments,' was the answer. 
 She was at once seized with convulsions which lasted 
 for several days." 
 
 Another of Pearne's experiences — rather an exciting 
 one this time — took place in the Willamette valley. "On 
 one occasion," he said, "when I was preaching on the 
 Sabbath in Long Tom, in Lane County, a man became 
 deranged. He ordered me down from the pulpit that 
 he might preach. I expostulated with him. He became 
 angry and pulled off his shoes, with which he pelted 
 me. His aim was so good, and the force with which he 
 hurled the shoes at me so great, that I had to do some 
 dodging to save my face from mutilation. Then he ran 
 up into the stand to take me down. Strong men seized 
 him and carried him away. There was no lunatic 
 hospital in Oregon then and a log pen was made, in 
 which he was placed. He was fed and cared for in 
 that pen, but he died in a few months." 
 
 Whether Pearne relates this incident to illustrate the 
 power of his preaching is a matter which opens up to the 
 reader a wide field for conjecture. 
 
 At another time Pearne was conducting a camp-meet- 
 ing on Rock Creek, in Clackamas County, which was 
 attended by all the different denominations. Of this 
 meeting he says : 
 
 "One could not determine from general observation 
 who were Methodists and who were not. One morning I 
 took a long walk before breakfast. Half a mile from 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 99 
 
 the meeting I found a man milking in his kraal, or 
 cow-pen, whom I had not seen at the meetings. I 
 entered into conversation with him about as follows : 
 
 " 'I don't think I have seen you at our meetings up 
 above here.' 
 
 " 'I presume not,' said he, 'I never go to such p'laces.' 
 
 " 'Why not?' I inquired. 
 
 " 'I don't believe in 'em,' he said. 
 
 " 'Perhaps you do not profess religion.' 
 
 " 'O, yes, I do.' 
 
 " 'Of what Church are you a member?' 
 
 " 'Of the Baptist Church.' 
 
 " 'But,' I said, 'there are several Baptists camped up 
 here at our meeting.' 
 
 " 'They are not my kind of Baptists,' he said. 
 
 " 'What kind of Baptist Church is yours?' I inquired. 
 
 '"It is a Two-Seed Baptist Church, or a Two-Prin- 
 ciple Baptist Church, as it is sometimes called,' he 
 answered. 
 
 "I asked him to explain and he said: 
 
 " 'The Lord has a seed and the devil has a seed. The 
 devil's seed are goats. The Lord's seeds are sheep, and 
 thar's no mixin' of than ar' breeds. The devil has been 
 tryin' to make goats outen' the Lord's sheep for six 
 thousand years and has never made a single goat outen 
 a sheep. And at your camp-meetings ministers of the 
 gospel have been tryin' to make sheep outen the devil's 
 goats and never made a sheep outen a goat yit.' " 
 
 Still another camp meeting experience of Pearne's in 
 Oregon during the territorial days : 
 
 "I held a camp-meeting once in the forks of the San- 
 tiam. We had been somewhat annoyed by the Campbell- 
 ites, who denied conversion by faith and the Holy Ghost, 
 and who taught baptismal regeneration, or conversion 
 by baptism. Weeks before the meeting I announced 
 far and wide that I would preach on salvation by faith, 
 as being the Bible teaching on that subject, rather than 
 salvation by water baptism or immersion, as held by the 
 Campbellites. My sermon lasted three hours and a half. 
 
lOO FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Beginning at eleven o'clock in the morning I finished 
 my discourse at half-past two in the afternoon. Strange 
 as it may seem, I held the audience all that time without 
 a break. We heard less about salvation by water after 
 that sermon than we had been accustomed to hear 
 before." 
 
 Of course Brother Pearne might have misconstrued 
 the fact that he heard less about his subject after that 
 sermon than before. It is easy to understand why he at 
 least never heard from those same people again — after 
 their escape. And the incident as related by Mr. Pearne 
 illustrates the vein of intolerance which cropped out in 
 his dominating nature on every occasion. The same 
 spirit is shown in his allusion to the members of the 
 Christian Church as "Campbellites," he being well aware 
 of the fact that those belonging to that denomination 
 feel in a measure insulted when so referred to. 
 
 Another Pearne experience in Oregon was this : 
 
 "About a month after reaching Oregon I had occasion 
 to travel, on one Saturday, thirty-five miles across coun- 
 try to hold a meeting at Dimmick's, on French Prairie. 
 I went to the Willamette River, expecting to find a ferry- 
 boat at Champoeg, ten miles beyond which was Dim- 
 mick's. But as the boat had been washed down the 
 river by a freshet, I had to go back and up the river to 
 another ferry. Attempting this, I was lost in a fog. I 
 met a boy driving cows to pasture and he piloted me to 
 the house of a German named Fulquarts. I inquired of 
 him the way to the ferry. He directed me thus: 
 
 " 'Veil, den, you see my farm down dare in de pottom 
 (an inclosure of an acre or two for a truck patch). You 
 vill take dat farm up on your right hand, and dat vill 
 bring you to von very bad slough; dere you had petter 
 git down and lead your horse or you vill mire down mit 
 him; den you vill take anodder farm up on your right 
 hand, and turn anodder corner down on your left hand 
 and dat vill pring you to de ferry.' The ferryman was a 
 half-breed Indian. 
 
 "I had to inquire my way to Dimmick's. I asked the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON loi 
 
 Indian if he could speak English, but could not make 
 him understand me. I said, 'What is your name ?' 
 
 " 'Icta,' he replied, which I afterward learned means 
 'what' in jargon. 
 
 "I said, 'Is your name Icta?' 
 
 " 'Wake,' he replied. 'Wake' means 'no.' 
 
 " 'Your name is Icta Wake ?' I inquired. 
 
 "He merely laughed at my verdancy. Finding that I 
 could learn nothing from him, I pushed on, traveling 
 three or four miles, fording deep water. At last I came 
 to a whitewashed house surrounded by a peach orchard. 
 I hailed, and an Indian woman came to the door. I 
 said, 'Who lives here?' 
 
 " 'Lucy,' she answered. 
 
 "Supposing she had given me her surname, I inquired 
 if her husband's name was 'Lucy.' 
 
 " 'Nawitka,' she said. 
 
 " 'Then your name is Lucy Nawitka ?' I inquired. 
 
 "She laughed at my blunder and said in good English, 
 'My husband's name is Lucier.' 'Nawitka' is the Chi- 
 nook, or jargon word, for 'yes.' 
 
 "I asked her the way to some American house. She 
 said if I kept on for a mile and a half I would reach 
 Champoeg, and there I would find Dr. Newell, an Ameri- 
 can. Here I staid all night, but I had eaten nothing 
 since morning and went to bed supperless. The next day 
 the Doctor piloted me to Dimmick's, which I reached by 
 church time." 
 
 In 1864 Mr. Pearne was chairman of the Oregon dele- 
 gation which attended the Republican National Conven- 
 tion at Baltimore where, as he says in his "Notes," the 
 first blood of the war was shed. When the business of 
 the convention was advanced enough, Rev. Dr. J. Mc- 
 Kendree Riley made the opening prayer. It was deeply 
 affecting. He thanked the Lord that after four years 
 of bloody war we were enabled to hold a national con- 
 vention in the city of Baltimore. His tones were pathetic. 
 The convention stood during its delivery. Many of the 
 members wept freely. One man in particular, of the 
 
I02 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Ohio delegation, could not refrain from sobbing and 
 weeping violently. In the preliminaries of the conven- 
 tion he had been very talkative and, withal, quite profuse 
 in the use of profane language. 
 
 After the prayer, however, when the convention was 
 seated, one of his own delegation challenged the profane 
 man thus : 
 
 "Why, I didn't know that you were so d pious." 
 
 "Well," said the other, "I don't cry very much nor 
 
 very often, as a rule, but that prayer was so d good, 
 
 it just drew the juice out of me in spite of everything." 
 
 After spending thirteen vigorous years in Oregon, Mr. 
 Pearne finally accepted a pastorate in Cincinnati, where 
 he preached for many years. He died in that city not 
 many years since, well advanced in age, strong in his 
 convictions and courageous in expressing them to the 
 last. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 From the foregoing brief account of the relation which 
 the first Board of Trustees of the Willamette University 
 bore to the subsequent political and material develop- 
 ment of Oregon Territory, it will be seen that they were 
 men of ability and of unusual energy, young, most of 
 them, and dominated by the determination to accomplish 
 definite objects. While conducting their personal lines 
 of business they devoted much of their time to the 
 demands of the new school, which was in that dangerous 
 transition state from a mere Indian manual training 
 institution, which had proved a signal failure, to the begin- 
 ning of a great university, such as had been the ultimate 
 dream of its founder, Jason Lee. 
 
 And the vision of its founder has literally come true. 
 From the first this pioneer institution has been a great 
 factor in the educational development of the entire 
 Northwest, many hundreds of the most prominent men 
 and women of this region having at one time been 
 students within its walls. Every one of these has since 
 been loyal to its needs and hopeful for its continued 
 growth and usefulness. After nearly sixty years of 
 activity in all that makes for better manhood and woman- 
 hood, in the meantime passing through many seasons of 
 financial depression and encountering opposition in unex- 
 pected quarters, it is to-day on a better footing than at 
 any other time in its long history. Several men of 
 wealth have given endowments which, in the aggregate, 
 aflford substantial assistance, and still others are arrang- 
 ing to increase the present sum to a total amount which 
 will end all anxiety with regard to finances. 
 
 Naturally, the opportunities afforded for education in 
 every department of practical endeavor by the State 
 University at Eugene and the Agricultural College at 
 
 103 
 
I04 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Corvallis have greatly increased the difficuUies with which 
 an institution Uke the Willamette University, depending 
 solely upon private funds for its support, must contend, 
 and for a time, just after these two State-supported 
 schools began successfully to reach out over the State 
 for their pupils, "Old Willamette" was sore pressed for 
 the necessary means of support. Indeed, at that time 
 and for some years afterward, its attendance had fallen 
 off to such a degree that many of its old supporters feared 
 that it might not be able to keep up the fight for exist- 
 ence. But fortunately it had a small regiment of loyal 
 friends imbued with the spirit of old Father Waller — its 
 indefatigable solicitor for funds for a third of a century 
 — who, once enlisted in a fight, "stay put." 
 
 In addition to this, it received further aid through 
 the unusual fidelity of its Faculty, many of whom refused 
 to accept their salaries, though little able to afford such a 
 sacrifice, in order that the all-too-scant funds available 
 might be applied to the payment of obligations demand- 
 ing immediate settlement. Among these especially loyal 
 friends should be mentioned Hon. Willis C. Hawley, at 
 present the Representative of the First District in the 
 lower house of Congress, who for several years was 
 president of the University during its severest trials. 
 His salary at one time was in arrears more than he would 
 admit; but he maintained his position through it all and 
 applied that indomitable energy, which is one of his 
 characteristics, to gaining the victory that afterward came 
 as a reward for unselfish devotion to a noble cause. And 
 Mr. Hawley had several colleagues in the Faculty who 
 manifested the same spirit of self-sacrifice. 
 
 When I entered the Willamette University in Sep- 
 tember, 1863, I was twelve years old and had for the 
 two years previous attended what was known as the 
 Central School, the two at that time being the only 
 schools in all Salem — though "all Salem" at that time 
 could claim but about twelve hundred people. There 
 were two rooms in the Central building, one upstairs and 
 one down. The principal was A. C. Daniels, an old- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 105 
 
 fashioned pedagogue, whose chief characteristics, as I 
 now remember him, were his uniform kindness, and uni- 
 form laziness, as manifested by the constancy with which 
 he remained in the large swivel chair he occupied. He 
 was also noted for his excellent penmanship. He could 
 make "copy" for the writing class that would equal the 
 best specimens of "store" copy to be found in the 
 "boughten" books. I veritably believe that my failure 
 to develop at any subsequent time a good "hand" was 
 the direct result of the discouragement I felt when, in 
 passing my desk occasionally in his search for evidences 
 of mischief, he would volunteer to write me a "copy." 
 He did it with such ease and painful perfection that the 
 contrast between my efforts and his was most depressing, 
 and I was hindered from any possible development along 
 that line. It seems to be one of the characteristics of 
 our human nature that it detests a model which is super- 
 human. In other words, the "model man" is usually 
 quite tiresome and is never required to feel the burden 
 of an overwhelming popularity. The average man ad- 
 mires more the sort of good man whose excellent qualities 
 he feels he can not only emulate but may possibly surpass. 
 Give him that kind of a model and he feels that he can 
 proceed hopefully, but with a "perfect man" perpetually 
 before him as an example his hopes droop and his ambi- 
 tion withers. Many a man possessed with the highest 
 purposes has failed as a husband because his wife has 
 constantly held before his tired vision the numberless 
 excellent qualities which her first husband radiated at all 
 times as from a battery of concentrated perfection. Too 
 much brilliancy dazzles and destroys. 
 
 However, typewriters have since been invented and I 
 long ago forgave Mr. Daniels for his one fault. I 
 never knew what became of him, but I was very much 
 pleased to-day to discover among my old books a copy 
 of Sargent's Fourth Reader, on the fly-leaf of which is 
 my name, written by Mr. Daniels, followed by the words : 
 "Presented to him by his teacher, A. C. Daniels, May 2, 
 1862." 
 
io6 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 This book, which was a favorite in the public schools 
 at that time, would be a curiosity now if devoted to such 
 purposes, since it contains nothing of a simpler nature 
 than Cicero's oration on the expulsion of Cataline, the 
 great address of Samuel Adams in favor of American 
 independence and Edmund Burke's tribute to Marie An- 
 toinette, in which he eloquently gives expression to his 
 lament over the decline of chivalry. Incidentally, it con- 
 tains Longfellow's "Hiawatha" and a liberal extract 
 from an oration by a man named Webster in reply to 
 some remarks by a Senator from South Carolina, called 
 Hayne. The character of its contents is of the best, but 
 somewhat heavy. It was given me, I presume, by reason 
 of its having been the last of the spring term of school, 
 and as a reward for the beautiful (?) deportment which 
 had characterized me during that period. 
 
 I found between two leaves, about midway of the 
 book, an old faded flower, doubtless placed there by me 
 during that term of school, more than forty-nine years 
 ago. It probably never has been exposed to the light in 
 the interval. To be candid, I have given more time to 
 thinking about this tiny reminder of the past than to 
 either Webster's speech on his father's log cabin in the 
 New Hampshire hills or to Cato's message to Caesar, 
 since it seems of vastly more importance — to me. I 
 choose to believe that it was the gift of one of the many 
 pretty girls who were pupils at that school, and I have 
 found no difficulty in settling back in my chair, while the 
 click of the typewriter ceases, and falling into a pleasant, 
 half-sad reverie as I recall the faces of a dozen little 
 beauties of about my age who were then on the verge 
 of budding into young womanhood. This flower was 
 the innocent gift of one of these ; but whether the donor 
 was Maggie, Alice, Julia or Lizzie — ^how shall I ever 
 know ? But as it would have made little difference then, 
 so multifarious were the charms of the little tempters, 
 and so free was I from showing any partiality to any 
 one of the pretty members of the disturbing galaxy, it 
 should not cause me any particular anxiety of mind now. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 107 
 
 Nevertheless, when I closed the book a few moments 
 ago and replaced it in the old-fashioned bookcase where 
 many souvenirs of former times are stowed away, I care- 
 fully placed that flower where it has lain so long undis- 
 turbed, making certain that it had not fluttered to the 
 floor, and I wondered where many of my intimate asso- 
 ciates of that time are to-day. 
 
 The old Central School was a landmark in Salem's 
 history. Many of the poorer families sent their children 
 there because they could not afford the higher rates 
 charged at the Institute, but there were young men and 
 women listed among its pupils who in after years rose 
 to prominence in the affairs of the Northwest. Among 
 the students during my attendance there was "Billy" 
 Stanton, who was paralyzed from his hips down, and 
 who traveled over town and to school in a three-wheeled 
 wagon which he propelled with a crank. He attended 
 school regularly, and it was a duty of two volunteers 
 each morning to carry him up the stairs to the recitation 
 room. Notwithstanding his affliction, he lived to be past 
 fifty years old and enjoyed good health most of that 
 time. 
 
 The Central building was used for school purposes 
 until the summer of 1906, when a later generation com- 
 mitted an act of near-vandalism by selling the land on 
 which it stood to the city for a site upon which to erect 
 a modern brick high school building. This beautiful and 
 imposing structure now graces (?) the spot where fifty 
 years ago many of us had our introduction to spelling- 
 schools and their kindred agencies for social pleasures 
 and educational improvement. The old Central itself 
 was moved a block away and made to face Commercial 
 Street, where it now serves as a hall for miscellaneous 
 public gatherings, etc. 
 
 One frosty morning in January, 1891, when I was 
 serving as Speaker of the House of Representatives, I 
 took a stroll after breakfast down to the old Central, the 
 first time I had seen the old architectural relic of former 
 days in nearly thirty years. It was too early for books 
 
io8 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 to be taken up, and a small regiment of boys and girls 
 was engaged in playing "tag" — ^boys and girls that knew 
 me not and cared not a whit who the stranger was that 
 halted, apparently interested in their game. I believe I 
 entertained a feeling of pity for the little brats, as they 
 appeared to be having a good time when I knew very well 
 that they were the victims of one of those illusions that 
 really delude — for there was, in fact, nothing there to 
 create any fun. I could not have been deceived about 
 the matter for I was there and could see for myself. I 
 could not deny the fact, proven before my eyes, that the 
 human family is undoubtedly on the toboggan slide of 
 retrogression, and that children are not what they were a 
 generation before — for Billy and Sam, Jennie and Mollie, 
 Kate and Jerome and n\a.ny others, were absent. The 
 play was a sham and a mockery. Sorry for them, I went 
 within the old familiar door and ascended the winding 
 stairs, down whose banisters I had slidden a thousand 
 times — and they were the identical stairs and banisters, 
 too, used in those days instead of the modern elevator. 
 And do you ask if the girls resorted to the banisters for 
 purposes of rapid transit? If so, please withdraw the 
 inquiry, for some of those very girls are still living in 
 this country and are inveterate readers of every book 
 that is issued to the public! I went into the same old 
 doorway and feasted my eyes on the old walls, windows, 
 seats, ceiling and floor, for evidently there had been no 
 change. The pedestal upon which Mr. Daniels sat in his 
 swinging armchair remained intact, but it seemed less 
 high from the floor, the room itself was smaller, and, in 
 fact, the entire building seemed to have shrunk percep- 
 tibly since the days of its youth. My stay was brief, 
 since the teachers had begun to arrive, and with an 
 apology I withdrew, but I was more or less depressed 
 all day as a result of my side-trip to the old Central, and 
 frequently I found myself recalling some of the experi- 
 ences there in former times while Barnes, of Wallowa, 
 was explaining the great importance of his local road 
 appropriation bill, or Glenn Holman was calling the roll 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 109 
 
 and in thundering tones repeating the name of some 
 sleeping member for the third time. 
 
 In later years Salem's population grew so rapidly that 
 it was necessary to build modern and commodious school 
 buildings. When it had provided four such in widely 
 separated parts of the city the demand for a high school 
 had arisen, and as thene appeared no site so suitable for 
 this purpose as that on which rested the old Central, it 
 was selected. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the provision of the larger build- 
 ings, there was a continued need for the old standby, 
 and it was occupied for school purposes during every 
 school day for fully fifty years — until it was moved away 
 in 1905. 
 
 Oh, the dear old school days ! Who does not in after 
 life, when he has a few moments respite from the multi- 
 farious cares which attend the adult man, confronted by 
 the necessity of living, drift back to the time when he 
 had for his playmates John and Fred, and Charles and 
 Tom and Miles, when all responsibilities were resting 
 upon older shoulders and every prospect was pleasing! 
 At this moment, when I am recalling more vividly than 
 for many years before the days when school-books were 
 regarded by us as a necessary evil and town-ball or "three- 
 cornered cat" the ideal of earthly happiness, I bring to 
 mind that first morning in May, 1861, when, a brand- 
 newcomer in Salem, my mother went with me to the 
 Central School and introduced me to "Teacher." It was 
 in the middle of the spring term and the other children 
 were acquainted with one another. Consequently I was 
 eyed, and regarded, and measured and sentenced by my 
 little fellows — not to a very hard experience, for we 
 soon became good friends, and my new home, Salem, 
 proved to be a veritable earthly paradise to me. We 
 had moved there only a few days before, from Silverton, 
 a village ten miles distant, and I had never seen Salem, 
 though to do so had been my greatest desire. I was just 
 ten years old and the opportunities to enlarge the range 
 
no FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 of my vision seemed boundless. Everything was new, 
 and things were doing, for the town contained more than 
 a thousand people. 
 
 There was the Willamette Woolen Mills in North 
 Salem, the first manufacturing establishment of its kind 
 in the entire Northwest, and thither I went when it was 
 possible to get the privilege. There I soon became 
 acquainted with Mr. Butts, a good old soul, who had 
 charge of a spinning machine, which he sometimes made 
 me believe I was running by ostensibly putting me in 
 charge, though he was right at his post to see that noth- 
 ing went wrong. But it served to arouse my ambition, 
 and in a short time I begged my parents to allow me to 
 quit school and get work in the woolen mills. With that 
 inborn shortsightedness and narrow stubbornness with 
 which the average parent is endowed, however, my father 
 and mother failed to see the advantages of the proposition 
 — plain to me as day — and I was compelled to pursue my 
 studies. 
 
 And, then, there was Nicklin's sawmill, located where 
 Mill Creek emptied into the Willamette River — and where 
 it still empties into the river, by the way — where great 
 logs were being devoured by a fierce "up and down" 
 saw. It was the first sawmill of any kind I had ever 
 seen, and, if possible, its attractions were superior to 
 those of the woolen mill — I suppose, as I regard the cir- 
 cumstance after the lapse of fifty years, because the saw- 
 mill was destroying things right and left, while the fac- 
 tory was perfectly tame in its results. I used to stand 
 for an hour at a time and admire the head sawyer as, by 
 the manipulation of a lever, he would reverse the direc- 
 tion traveled by the carriage, and by the rapid turn of a 
 couple of wheels shove the log over and again start the 
 carriage on its furious charge. I am sure that saw, as I 
 remember it now, would eat its way through a log six- 
 teen feet long in five minutes, and I was there and then 
 convinced that the miracles I had been recently reading 
 about for the first time in my Sunday-school class were 
 not at all improbable! My school-books again became 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON iii 
 
 bare of interest and I saw nothing in the future so attrac- 
 tive as the position of head sawyer in a big sawmill, but 
 I hesitated to bring the subject to the attention of my 
 obdurate parents, and finally decided not to do it. 
 
 These two spurts of youthful ambition, thwarted in 
 their initial appearance, occurred within the first month 
 of my attendance at the Central School and the resultant 
 disappointment would perhaps have made a mental wreck 
 of me, possibly have driven me to drink, had it not been 
 that one day one of the prettiest little girls that ever wore 
 a sunbonnet, arrayed in a pink calico dress — the pinkness 
 has never been equalled by her sisters who have followed 
 her — gave me at recess a bunch of snapdragons. The 
 gift was accompanied by some sort of little expression, 
 not verbal, to attempt to describe which would be an utter 
 waste of time, but which nevertheless served to make me 
 conscious of the grease and unpleasant odor which are 
 always found in a wooden mill, and to emphasize the 
 danger to life and limb which is unavoidably connected 
 with the sawmill business. Incidentally, I have for fifty 
 years been a great and confessed lover of snapdragons — 
 so much so that they always adorn my flower garden in 
 lavish profusion, though the reason for my preference 
 has never been explained in detail to the leading member 
 of my domestic household. 
 
 But from that time forward the interest I took in the 
 school was unquestioned in its genuineness. Not for any 
 consideration would I miss a day in my attendance, and 
 when soon afterward I was taken down with the measles, 
 my mother said she never in all her born days saw a boy 
 so attached to his books. I surely did reduce the days of 
 absence from school to the minimum, so anxious was I 
 to keep my place in my classes ! 
 
 Bearing this little episode in mind, I am persuaded 
 that the claim of Christian Science that one can dominate 
 a disease by letting one's thoughts have full sway in the 
 right direction is not necessarily absurd, after all, — and 
 that snapdragons have curative properties which should 
 not be overlooked by the medical fraternity. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 In common with thousands of other men in the Wil- 
 lamette valley, in the spring of 1862 my father went to 
 the Caribou mines, in British Columbia, and did not 
 return for a year and a half. In consequence, at the end 
 of the term of school in May, our family moved to the 
 home of my grandfather, eight miles east of Salem. I 
 worked on his farm until September of the next year, 
 when my father returned to Salem temporarily for the 
 purpose of putting me into school again. At this time I 
 made an urgent appeal for the privilege of going to the 
 Institute. The fact was that even at that early date there 
 was some "class," — using the word in one of its strictly 
 modern phases, — to the Institute, which I discovered 
 soon after becoming enlisted as a pupil at the Central. 
 Those who were favored with tuition privileges at the 
 former had socially a higher prestige and there was an 
 atmosphere — intangible, but very distinctly felt, neverthe- 
 less — that made a marked distinction between the pupils 
 attending the two schools. There was not a child attend- 
 ing the Central who didn't entertain high hopes that he 
 might at some time be transferred to the Institute; so 
 it was with unalloyed delight that I was told by my 
 father when he returned that, if it were possible to find 
 some place where I could work for my board, he would 
 pay for my attendance there. And it was so arranged, 
 he returning to the mines at Canyon City immediately 
 afterward. 
 
 At the opening of the fall term at the Institute in Sep- 
 tember, 1863, Thomas M. Gatch was president of the 
 Faculty. The other members were Professor L. J. 
 Powell, Professor F. H. Grubbs, Miss Lucy Anna Lee, 
 and Miss Cornell, the last two conducting the primary 
 departments. I was found competent to enter the Aca- 
 
 112 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 113 
 
 demic Department under the tuition of Professor Grubbs, 
 having for a seatmate John Minto, a son of the well- 
 known pioneer of 1844, who has since filled many posi- 
 tions of trust of a public nature in Oregon. He was for 
 four years sheriff of Marion County, chief of police in 
 Portland for a term, passed several years in the United 
 States Internal Revenue service and not long since com- 
 pleted a five-years' term as postmaster in Portland. 
 
 Professor Grubbs was a new "hand" at teaching, 
 though, as I remember it now, I had no conception of the 
 fact at the time. The son of a pioneer of 1852, he had 
 by dint of persistent industry and personal deprivation 
 of many of the comforts of life literally worked his way 
 through college and won his graduation diploma. Of 
 course I knew nothing of all this at the time. A school- 
 boy seldom knows or cares anything about the ante- 
 cedents of his teacher, or whether he has any. After I 
 left the University in 1865 I did not see Professor Grubbs 
 for thirty-five years, but when we met in the Governor's 
 ofifice in the Capitol, whither he had gone to pay his 
 respects to a former pupil, the tears came to his eyes as 
 he recalled bygone days. After we had exchanged greet- 
 ings and had rapidly indulged in many reminiscences, he 
 suddenly said: 
 
 "Well, in the old Willamette days, when my room was 
 full of sturdy boys, I am not sure that I would have 
 picked you out to be a future Governor of Oregon, had 
 I been assured that such an honor was in store for one 
 among that lot." 
 
 "Why, of course not," I replied. "You must remem- 
 ber how very modest and unassuming I was then — being 
 endowed with all the characteristics which are noticeably 
 absent in the average successful politician. I suppose, 
 then, that you recall me as a sort of model boy?" 
 
 "Oh, no, not that," he replied," you simply didn't look 
 it. But you can't always bank on appearances. I re- 
 member that my father, who was a farmer, used to say, 
 'Well, sir, you can't ever tell what a lousy calf will come 
 to be.' " 
 
114 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 In return for this sally I at once ofifered to appoint him 
 to any office within my gift that in my judgment he was 
 qualified to fill, and requested my secretary to get a blank 
 notary public commission. But the Professor quickly 
 said he was "not in politics," so the matter was dropped 
 at that point. 
 
 When he rose to take his departure, he said: 
 
 "Say, it looks good to see you here — seems as if I had 
 a sort o' proprietary interest in you and something to 
 do with your getting here." 
 
 I assured him that I entertained a similar feeling as 
 to his share in laying the foundation of such success as I 
 had achieved, and that if he found our meeting delightful 
 after the lapse of so many years, it was equally so to me. 
 Our interview was a treat for us both — for thirty-five 
 years is a long break between teacher and pupil, though 
 not infrequent. 
 
 Professor Grubbs was a very affable man but, withal, 
 had a quick temper; it was usually well under control, 
 however. In the class-room he instituted what he called 
 "object lessons" — short instructions in matters not con- 
 tained in the text-books. For this purpose he would 
 occasionally dismiss the school twenty minutes before the 
 usual time, requesting a dozen of the older boys to remain 
 to receive the benefit of the extra lesson. At the par- 
 ticular time of which I speak he was giving some demon- 
 strations in chemistry to a class of boys who had never 
 studied that branch, and with some apparatus was show- 
 ing some very marvelous results produced by certain com- 
 binations of fluids. He was explaining that he was about 
 to make a combination of chemicals by which he could 
 actually set water on fire. 
 
 "Now," said he, as he stood with match ready to 
 scratch on the edge of his desk, "did any of you boys 
 ever see water burn ?" 
 
 Without any hesitation at all, Egbert Brown, a boy 
 whose real brightness was perceptibly dimmed by the 
 slight provocation upon which he was ready to display it, 
 said: 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 115 
 
 "Yes, sir. This morning I stuck my hand in a pan 
 of hot water and it burnt one of my fingers so that it 
 hurts yet!" 
 
 This unexpected and really witty reply caused a burst 
 of laughter from the entire class, but the Professor 
 missed the point of the joke altogether. His face flushed, 
 and after the demonstration was completed, he dismissed 
 the boys, with one exception — the exception being re- 
 quested to remain in for a few minutes, which he did. 
 Just what happened during the interview we never knew, 
 though Egbert's demeanor afterward pointed to a pos- 
 sible armistice whose chief concessions came from his 
 side of the house. 
 
 The last term I attended the University I was trans- 
 ferred to the room over which L. J. Powell presided. 
 Professor Powell was a big man, both physically and 
 mentally, with a head which appeared even larger than 
 is usual for a man of his proportions. He was rather 
 heavy, too, in his method of procedure, but an instructor 
 whose qualifications were of the best. 
 
 In my class in this last department were a dozen boys 
 who were as fully surcharged with the spirit of mischief 
 as could be found in a seven days' journey. Nothing 
 could have produced greater results in this direction 
 except more boys. There was Tom Nicklin, afterward 
 a prominent dentist in Portland, who died several years 
 ago ; Miles Miller, who for many years was a banker in 
 eastern Washington, of whom I have not heard in recent 
 years; Fred Schwatka, who graduated from West Point 
 and afterward made a good reputation as a successful 
 Arctic explorer, but who died some twenty years ago; 
 Charles B. Moores, the irrepressible wit and excellent 
 writer, graduate of Ann Arbor, and Speaker of the 
 Oregon House of Representatives in 1895, who declined 
 an election to Congress, now a successful business man 
 in Portland ; Emmet Williams, who for many years has 
 been a prominent lawyer in Portland; P. H. D'Arcy, a 
 successful attorney and business man whose home has 
 been in Salem for more years than anybody can remem- 
 
ii6 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 ber, and who is now the president of the State Historical 
 Society — and several others whose names I shall not 
 mention out of consideration for their retiring disposi- 
 tions. 
 
 One day when Professor Powell was hearing the class 
 in anatomy, he was describing the manner in which the 
 ■ muscles of the scalp perform their several functions. He 
 was holding a sure-enough skull in his hands and was 
 very carefully illustrating the marvelous construction of 
 said muscles in their relation to the connecting ligaments. 
 To make the subject clearer, he told the members of the 
 class to move their scalps by the aid of the muscles, with- 
 out moving the head, and he proceeded to lead the way 
 by giving a personal demonstration. He had a shaggy 
 head of hair, always uncombed, each individual hair 
 standing on end, and he could turn his scalp almost half- 
 way around his head. The success which attended his 
 maiden effort before the class was so astonishingly com- 
 plete that it brought forth a roar of laughter in which 
 the Professor heartily joined — though it was a ghastly 
 smile, since his mouth was where his right eye usually was 
 and his ears were under his chin. 
 
 When order was finally restored, or partially so, for the 
 Professor's exhibition continued to entertain the class 
 during the remainder of the recitation, he requested the 
 boys to see what they could do in the same line. Each 
 one tried it, with varying degrees of success, but Tom 
 Nicklin's effort was a hopeless failure. It was the only 
 thing I ever knew him to undertake in which he did not 
 succeed ; but his failure, as he made superhuman efforts 
 to move his scalp, was as superlatively laughable as Pro- 
 fessor Powell's grotesque success had been. Finally, 
 after the poor fellow had made all the oblique grimaces 
 the class could endure, the Professor said: 
 
 "Thomas, what is the matter with your head ?" 
 
 "I don't know, sir," replied Thomas, "unless I am the 
 only one in the room whose head is so full of brains that 
 they crowd his scalp." 
 
 And this sally abruptly ended the recitation in anatomy, 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 117 
 
 with everybody, Professor Powell included, enjoying the 
 wholesome fun. 
 
 During those really "halcyon days" at the University I 
 saw every day Miss Lucy Anna Lee, who had charge of 
 the primary department. At that time I had never heard 
 of Jason Lee, or if I had, so short a time had elapsed 
 since his activities in Oregon that I did not appreciate 
 who he was or what he had done. The fact is, I believe 
 most of us knew nothing about him, though he was the 
 founder of the school and had many times been in that 
 very building. So it was not until after years that I 
 understood the fine lineage of Lucy Ann Lee, but I easily 
 recall that she was a tall, pale young woman whose face 
 habitually bore a sad expression. It seems to me now 
 that she usually wore a loose white shawl around her 
 shoulders, as if chilly, and that her manner was so very 
 kind that it excited one's wonder as to the occasion for 
 it. It was unnatural in a world where nearly every act 
 was prompted by motives more or less selfish and where 
 in the ceaseless struggle for place every person one met 
 was a competitor, and therefore in that sense an enemy. 
 But Lucy Anna Lee was not an enemy to any mortal; 
 on the contrary she was a positive inspiration in a time 
 of difficulty — and at other times. I have often wished in 
 subsequent years that I had known, at the time, she was 
 the daughter of such a purposeful man as was Jason Lee. 
 Surely pre-natal influences were in evidence in her tem- 
 perament, manner and thought. She was the daughter 
 of Jason Lee's second wife, Lucy Thomson, and was 
 named after her mother and Lee's first wife, Anna Maria 
 Pitman. Upon the death of her mother she was taken by 
 Rev. Gustavus Hines and wife and given the same care 
 they would have bestowed upon one of their own. Lee 
 went to his old home in Canada in 1844, when the child 
 was two years of age, and, as has been stated, died there 
 the following year. Twenty days before his death, he 
 wrote the following pathetic letter, received long after 
 his passing away was known in Oregon : 
 
ii8 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Stanstead, Canada, Feb. 8, 1845. 
 My Dear Brother and Sister Hines: 
 
 I have written you twice since I reached this coun- 
 try, once by Mexico and once by Panama. I have 
 heard nothing from you since I left you in Oahu. I 
 have seen a notice in the Advocate that Brother Gary 
 had arrivel and that the missionaries are all well. I 
 inferred that you and all reached Oregon in safety 
 and were in good health. I suppose you wrote by 
 the same conveyance that Brother Gary wrote, for I 
 just received news that there are letters for me in 
 New York. I think I mentioned in my last letter 
 that I was afflicted with a severe cold and that no 
 medical aid I could secure has been able to remove it. 
 I have suffered severely from pain and am so reduced 
 that I have been confined to my bed for several weeks, 
 and unless some favorable change occurs soon it is 
 my deliberate opinion that it will prove fatal. 
 
 If I should continue to fail, I think I shall appoint 
 an executor here and in New York. These, I suppose, 
 will do all the business so that you can draw what- 
 ever money there may be in New York without any 
 trouble. There will be an opportunity by the express 
 to write you. Some favorable change may take place, 
 and I may be advising you to be looking for me coming 
 around Cape Horn or threading my way up the Wil- 
 lamette, as I used to do. But if I should never make 
 my appearance, what shall I say concerning the dear 
 little one? Let her have, if possible, a first-rate edu- 
 cation. But, above all, do not neglect her religious 
 education. My dear brother and sister, I must hold 
 you responsible under God to train that child for 
 heaven. 
 
 I remain your affectionate friend and brother, 
 
 Jason Lee. 
 
 In July, 1864, when twenty-two years of age. Miss 
 Lee became the wife of Professor Grubbs, both having 
 graduated from the University on July 13, 1863. They 
 continued in the teaching profession for several years in 
 various parts of the State until failing health compelled 
 Mrs. Grubbs to abandon her chosen vocation. She died 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 119 
 
 April 25, 1881, leaving a little daughter now living in 
 Portland. Soon after becoming a widower Professor 
 Grubbs established a printing business in Portland which 
 he followed until his death, which occurred a month ago. 
 
 SfC }|C 4! Ip !(C ^F 
 
 One of the thrilling events connected with the earlier 
 history of Oregon was the great flood of December, 1861, 
 well remembered by all the older inhabitants. It was 
 altogether unprecedented both as to the height of the 
 Willamette River and the time of year in which it 
 occurred. Usually the rivers and smaller streams reach 
 their highest stages in the spring, when late rains com- 
 bine with the melting snows to produce disastrous results, 
 but this flood was caused by a protracted "wet spell" 
 during the first week of December. 
 
 We had been living in Salem little more than six 
 months and had moved into our new house on Commer- 
 cial Street, within one block of South Mill Creek. In 
 the first week of December the river had risen so rapidly 
 because of the enormous downpour that there was much 
 alarm as to the outcome. All business was suspended 
 and the people spent most of their time on the banks of 
 the river watching its progress toward the high water 
 mark limit. It had covered the lowlands just west of 
 town, had swept away the big steam sawmill owned by 
 B. M. Du Relle, and was still rising rapidly. It was fulf 
 of driftwood, interspersed with small barns, rails and 
 other evidences of damage done to farms. One man 
 was seen going down the river on what seemed to be a 
 huge barn door. 
 
 One morning at four o'clock a night watchman rapped 
 at our front door and warned us that we would have to 
 vacate the house, as the water was within a foot of the 
 big bridge which crossed the creek and still rising very 
 rapidly. We at once arose and hurriedly crossed the 
 bridge, against the floor of which the water was flapping. 
 We sought refuge, I remember, in the home of Ben 
 Strang, who lived just across the creek, and remained 
 there until the water subsided two days later. 
 
120 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 The hero of that flood was Captain George A. Pease, 
 who took the steamboat Onward from Canemah to Salem 
 during the highest stage of the waters solely for the pur- 
 pose of saving the lives of those who were endangered. 
 It was a most perilous journey, but he was an unusually 
 skillful navigator and wholly without fear. The river 
 was filled with sawlogs, thousands of fir trees, many of 
 them two hundred feet in length, houses and barns, which 
 occasionally contained men and women, as well as horses 
 and other stock. 
 
 The headlines in the Weekly Oregonian of December 
 14, 1 86 1, were in part as follows : 
 
 Flood Highest at Salem Ever Known By Whites — 
 Du Relle's Sawmill and Matheny's Wharf Carried 
 Away — A Family Saved Going Down on a Raft — 
 People Saved from Trees, Rafts and Buildings — Gal- 
 lant Conduct of Captain Pease of the Onward — 
 Warehouse at Wheatland Containing 7000 Bushels of 
 Wheat Carried Away — Desolation and Ruin on the 
 River — Orleans, Opposite Corvallis, Entirely Swept 
 Away. 
 
 The Oregonian of that date, December 14, says : "We 
 have the Salem Statesman of the sth inst., brought down 
 by Tracey's Express by O. A. Brown, who went up for 
 that purpose." All old-timers well remember O. A. (One 
 Armed) Brown, and it was entirely characteristic of him 
 that he should have made that trip. 
 
 The Oregonian further recites how "on Tuesday a 
 shouting was heard across the river (this was from the 
 Salem Statesman) . Two boats were sent over and twelve 
 persons were saved from a barn. Two young men, Elias 
 Peasely and William Farrell, went to relieve Mr. Chit- 
 wood's family, but their boat was broken against a tree, 
 which they climbed, and they were saved by the Onward. 
 Two of the younger Chitwood boys were drowned." 
 
 Since the Columbia was not unusually high, the flood 
 did not work so much damage at Portland as at Oregon 
 City, Salem and other points to the south. I remember 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 121 
 
 seeing the Onward as it arrived after its perilous trip to 
 be welcomed by the entire population of Salem, together 
 with that of a large part of the surrounding country. It 
 made fast where the Willamette Hotel now stands, on 
 Commercial Street, and carried as passengers forty people 
 who had been rescued from the tops of trees and from 
 houses and barns, either surrounded by water or actually 
 afloat and drifting down the river. In Salem the water 
 reached the corner of the court-house grounds and skiffs 
 were in use in many parts of the city. 
 
 This freak in the weather in early December, 1861, 
 which has not been repeated in the fifty years ensuing, 
 has constituted an event in the history of Oregon by 
 which comparisons are made. The old people reckon the 
 births, marriages and deaths of their acquaintances by 
 the occurrence having taken place so many years before 
 or after the Big Flood. 
 
 Captain Pease, who did such valiant work on that oc- 
 casion, at the risk of the destruction of the Onward 
 and the loss of his own life as well as that of his brave 
 crew, still lives in Portland at the advanced age of eighty- 
 two years. His general worth as a man has won the 
 esteem of all the people of Oregon. 
 
 Perhaps no murder trial which has ever been con- 
 ducted in Oregon received wider attention from the 
 people than that of Beale and Baker, in Salem, in March, 
 1865. 
 
 On January 9 Daniel Delaney, an old farmer living 
 six miles south of Salem, had been called from his house 
 at dusk, shot and killed, and his house robbed of a 
 large sum of money. Delaney had lived alone for some 
 time, save for a negro boy twelve years of age, who 
 as soon as he recovered from his fright alarmed the 
 neighbors. The news spread rapidly and the greatest 
 excitement prevailed everywhere, for Delaney was one 
 of the best known of the early pioneers. 
 
 Suspicion soon pointed its finger to George Beale, a 
 prominent saloon-keeper of Salem, who had worked 
 
122 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 several years for Delaney on his farm and who had fre- 
 quently discussed with his friends his belief that Delaney 
 had large sums of money hidden about his house. He 
 had said that he believed he knew where it was, and 
 had predicted somebody would murder the old man for 
 his money — that it could be easily done without danger 
 of the perpetrator being discovered, etc. Naturally these 
 conversations were recalled by those who had heard them, 
 as they discussed the appalling tragedy. Investigation 
 also disclosed the fact that Beale was away from home 
 on the night of the murder and had staid all night at 
 the farm of William Taylor, an uncle of his wife, on 
 the night before that. Other circumstances strengthened 
 the suspicion and within a few days he was arrested, 
 accused of the murder. With him was arrested a man 
 named Baker, a butcher, and the two were charged by 
 the grand jury with murder in the first degree. 
 
 Beale was a prominent Mason and had good standing 
 with the business men of Salem. He kept a saloon, to 
 be sure, but his character as a man of integrity had 
 not been questioned and his arrest caused general sur- 
 prise. 
 
 The trial began on March 20 and was one of the 
 most notable in the history of our State courts. The 
 accused men were prosecuted by Williams and Mallory 
 and were defended by David Logan, assisted by Caton 
 and Curl, of Salem. Rufus Mallory, one of his prose- 
 cutors, was elected to Congress the next year, and 
 Richard Williams, his partner, was given the same 
 honor eleven years later. David Logan, one of the best 
 criminal lawyers in the State, was ably assisted by the 
 local firm. Reuben P. Boise, who continued in the 
 judicial service of the State for forty years afterwards, 
 and who had then been on the bench for ten years, 
 presided. 
 
 It was a forensic battle among the "higher-ups" that 
 will long be referred to by the State lawyers as one that 
 put the contestants on their mettle and made lasting 
 reputations for those who participated. It was a case 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 123 
 
 purely of circumstantial evidence, but incidents fitted in 
 so closely that the evidence was regarded as completely 
 and conclusively proving the guilt of the accused men. 
 After a trial lasting one week, the jurors found a verdict 
 without delay. 
 
 When Judge Boise read the verdict he requested Beale 
 to stand up, and asked him if there was any reason why 
 he should not be sentenced. Beale said : 
 
 "I don't know that there is. I don't think I have a 
 friend in the community. There has been false swearing 
 against me here in this court. Everybody seems to think 
 I ought to die and I suppose I must be hung to satisfy 
 them. I hope everybody here is as ready to die as I 
 am. I expect soon to meet old man Delaney in the other 
 world and will say to him, 'Delaney, it was not me who 
 killed you.' I knew the old man well in this world 
 and always was a friend to him. I am an innocent 
 man. Give me time, Judge Boise, and I can prove my 
 innocence — I know I can." 
 
 When he resumed his seat. Judge Boise said : 
 
 "The court does not see how the jury could come to 
 any other conclusion than it did. The accused did not 
 attempt to show their whereabouts and the jury was 
 warranted in their conclusion. A man who will steal will 
 lie about it, and a man who will murder will lie about 
 it. They always declare themselves innocent. I never 
 knew it to fail. There remains no doubt that Daniel 
 Delaney died at your hands. There is no hope for you 
 to escape and it only remains for you to prepare for 
 death. I advise you so to prepare, and that you confess 
 and make some restitution to Delaney's heirs. The old 
 man's money was sweat for and hoarded up for them. 
 Let it be your last act to restore it." 
 
 Beale and Baker were hanged in Salem on May 17, 
 on a public square, in the presence of at least one thou- 
 sand spectators. Persons came from the surrounding 
 counties — whole families eating their luncheons in their 
 wagons, having tied their teams near by, in order that 
 none of the details might be missed. 
 
124 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 As I have already narrated, I was living virith Beale's 
 family at the time he committed this murder, and, as 
 the occurrence broke up his household, my school-days 
 were permanently terminated. This circumstance of my 
 association with Beale did not deter me from the desire 
 to see him hanged — must I confess it? It may have 
 been the reason I harbored the desire. At any rate, I 
 walked to Salem, a distance of seven miles, carried a 
 luncheon with me prepared by my grandmother — ^having 
 not a cent of money — and was so fortunate (?) as to 
 get a good position near the scaffold. I remember seeing 
 the two men walk up the steps to the platform, with their 
 guards, and closely watched them as the black cap was 
 drawn down over their faces. At this moment I recall 
 distinctly the shudder that went over my body when 
 this was done, as it caused me to realize the awful feeling 
 they must have experienced as that cap cut off their 
 vision of this world forever. For a moment I felt an 
 intense revulsion against the whole proceeding, or rather 
 against being a part of the crowd that had assembled 
 to witness it, but I soon recovered, as a woman imme- 
 diately behind me fainted and was carried from the 
 grounds. 
 
 Sam Headrick was the sheriff, and I remember that 
 when the trap was sprung and the men shot downward 
 to the end of the rope he dropped to his knees in prayer 
 for a moment, as if to ask for forgiveness for the per- 
 formance of his distressing official duty. 
 
 A few days before their execution Beale and Baker 
 made a full confession of the murder. Their intention, 
 they declared, was merely to rob Delaney. They planned 
 to call him out, as they did, and Baker was then to cover 
 him with his gun while Beale was to ransack the house 
 and get the money. But when Baker pointed his gun 
 toward the old man, Beale, fearing he might shoot, since 
 he had been drinking quite heavily, shouted, "Don't 
 shoot!" At once Baker fired his gun and Delaney fell 
 dead. He afterward said he thought Beale said "Shoot !" 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 125 
 
 seeing perhaps some danger which he did not, and obeyed 
 what he thought was an order. 
 
 It would be a difficult matter to find to-day a man in 
 Marion, Linn or Polk Counties, who was living in them in 
 1865, who was not present at the hanging of Beale and 
 Baker. Most of them at the time said they "had business 
 in Salem that day, anyway," and, being there, attended the 
 "hanging." That people would not flock to see such a 
 gruesome sight to-day, if the opportunity offered, is an 
 evidence that some progress has been made along certain 
 lines — or would they? 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 By common consent Thomas M. Gatch stands at the 
 head of the list of men who have devoted their Hves to 
 the upbuilding of the cause of education in Oregon. This 
 estimate of him will, I am sure, be endorsed without 
 exception by all his co-workers in this State during the 
 past half-century. He came here in i860, after spend- 
 ing a short time in the California mines and occupying 
 the chair of mathematics in the University of the Pacific 
 at Santa Clara, to become professor of Greek and Latin 
 in the Willamette University. The next year he was 
 chosen president of that institution to fill a vacancy, and 
 held that position until 1865, when he resigned to return 
 to California. A few years later, however, he returned to 
 Oregon and served as president of the Portland Academy 
 until 1870, when he was again elected to the presidency 
 of "Old Willamette." After another incumbency of nine 
 years, he resigned to accept a position at the State Uni- 
 versity at Eugene, after which he was elected principal 
 of the Wasco Academy at The Dalles. He subsequently 
 moved to Seattle, where he became president of the Uni- 
 versity of Washington, which post he held for ten years. 
 
 In i8g6 Professor Gatch was elected president of the 
 Oregon State Agricultural College at Corvallis, which 
 latter position he filled with marked ability until his ad- 
 vancing years suggested that he permanently rest from 
 his long service in the cause of education, which had 
 covered fifty years of his life and a field co-extensive 
 with the three Pacific Coast States. 
 
 Thomas M. Gatch was born in Clermont County, 
 Ohio, January 28, 1833. His grandfather, Philip Gatch, 
 of Prussian extraction, was one of the first three min- 
 isters ordained in America in the Methodist Church. 
 He was a chaplain in the Revolutionary War and served 
 
 126 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 127 
 
 under Washington, afterwards moving to Ohio, where 
 he became a member of the first constitutional convention 
 of that State. 
 
 The father of Professor Gatch was a prominent man 
 in Ohio, an officer in its militia, and had served several 
 terms in the State Legislature, which, it is sincerely 
 hoped, was more of a badge of respectability and honor 
 than it has been in that State in recent years, notably 
 the present one. 
 
 One of the first men I met upon entering the Insti- 
 tute was Professor Gatch, who kindly asked me my 
 name- and where I had attended school before. I espec- 
 ially recall his kindly manner, for, finding myself actually 
 a pupil in the building toward which I had been longingly 
 gazing for a couple of years, while realizing how im- 
 probable it was that my ambition to attend it would ever 
 be attained, I felt some misgiving as to the outcome of 
 the wild adventure. I had the impression that all the 
 other boys and girls had always been pupils there, as 
 they appeared to know one another and to be engaged 
 in lively banterings and greetings, while I was a lone 
 pilgrim without a friend or acquaintance. I am sure 
 now, as I look back to that first hour at the Institute, 
 that I regretted I had not, after all, returned to the old 
 Central. 
 
 But this feeling did not last long. I soon became im- 
 pressed with the fact, or what appeared to be a fact, 
 that the superiority which had been generally conceded 
 to the Institute students was wholly imaginary, and that 
 Tom and Fred and Charlie were not different in their 
 outward, or other, make-up from Bill and Jerome and 
 
 Jo. 
 
 I had precisely the same feeling after the first week 
 that United States Senator Nesmith experienced upon 
 entering, as a member, the upper house of Congress. 
 Nesmith was one of the earliest of the Oregon pioneers, 
 coming here in 1843, when a young man, from Maine, 
 where he had been born and reared. A man of great 
 natural ability and force, he took an active interest in 
 
128 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 affairs in the new country at once, and being very com- 
 panionable in his manner and the very best story-teller 
 Oregon has ever known, became a general favorite. 
 
 In 1 860, after a protracted contest in the State Legisla- 
 ture over the election of two United States Senators, a 
 compromise was effected between the Republican and 
 Union Democratic members by the election of Nesmith, 
 a "war Democrat," and Colonel Edward D. Baker, a 
 Republican. Nesmith had been several times a member 
 of the territorial Legislature, Superintendent of Indian 
 Affairs and a colonel in the Indian wars, but he was a 
 large landowner in Polk County, and farming had always 
 been his vocation. His home was at "Dixie," a country 
 post-office, but he was for much of the time in the 
 public service in some capacity. Upon the approach 
 of the Civil War, however, he broke with his political 
 associates who sympathized with the South and sup- 
 ported Breckinridge for President, and with most of 
 the Douglas Democrats openly supported the cause of the 
 Union. In the Senatorial contest referred to the Breck- 
 inridge Democrats insisted upon the election of Delazon 
 Smith as one of the Senators, but the Douglas men would 
 not accept him under any circumstances, and finally made 
 a combination with the Republicans which resulted in the 
 election of Nesmith and Colonel Baker. 
 
 Nesmith became a Senator March 4, 1861. Upon his 
 return home the next fall, while entertaining a few old 
 friends in Salem with a narration of some of his ex- 
 periences, in answer to an inquiry how it felt to be a 
 United States Senator, he said: 
 
 "Well, I must tell you. After my election in October 
 I had several months to think it over before going to 
 Washington, and I often wondered if I hadn't over- 
 stepped myself in pushing my ambition. I had always 
 been a common clodhopper, as you all know, had slept 
 in my blankets all over the Northwest, lived for weeks 
 on sowbelly and beans while chasing Indians, worn buck- 
 skin trousers and gone barefooted, — and here I was, 
 elected to a seat in the United States Senate, the greatest 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 129 
 
 lawmaking body in the world! Often, when I was out 
 looking after the cattle or harnessing the horses, I would 
 debate the situation with myself and wonder if, after 
 all, I hadn't made a mistake, — whether it wouldn't be 
 better to resign, giving an opportunity for the selection of 
 some man who was competent to hold his own with the 
 big men whom a Senator is compelled to meet. 
 
 "I had a mighty exalted idea as to the size of the 
 United States Senators — of any United States Senator — 
 and many times in the night I would lie awake and almost 
 shudder at what my friends had done in putting me 
 in such a position — knowing as they did, my limitations. 
 And when I was on my way to Washington I got right 
 down to bedrock in my analysis of the situation and 
 
 said : 'Nesmith, how in the d 1 did you ever get to 
 
 be a United States Senator, anyway ?' But do you know 
 that after I had been with Sumner, Morrill, Wade, 
 Bayard, Chase, and Cameron and the rest of 'em, and 
 
 got to know them well, my wonder was how in h 
 
 they ever got there!" 
 
 As I was saying, however. Professor Gatch himself 
 came to my rescue, and with his reassuring words I 
 began to feel at home at the Institute and soon had a 
 bunch of chums who were original enough and mis- 
 chievous enough to make life worth living. Many of 
 these I meet frequently in these days, so far removed 
 from the joyous time when it required a mighty solid 
 obstacle to form a real shadow across our pathways. 
 
 Professor Gatch lived in an "L" which projected to 
 the south from the main Institute building, and which 
 had been occupied by former presidents of the school. 
 He was universally liked, though he seemed to be devoid 
 of humor — due to the fact, probably, that his time was 
 so valuable and so completely taken up that he found 
 his only recreation in added application to his work. 
 
 In 1877, after having lived in eastern Oregon for ten 
 years, I returned to the Waldo Hills to resume my per- 
 manent residence there, taking with me a certificate of 
 membership in the Cove Lodge I. O. O. F. I desired to 
 
I30 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 transfer my membership to the Olive Lodge in Salem and 
 gave the certificate to Professor Gatch for presentation. I 
 found he had again become president of the University 
 and -WHS himself a member of Olive Lodge. I shall never 
 forget the warmth with which he greeted me. I had not 
 seen him since my school days, twelve years before, and 
 he always regarded one of his old pupils as a member 
 of his family. 
 
 Professor Gatch undoubtedly occupies an exalted place 
 in the esteem of more people than any other man in the 
 Northwest, since his great work has covered so much 
 territory. There are many thousands of men and women 
 on the Pacific Coast now who owe him a direct debt 
 of gratitude for his splendid example, his helpful advice 
 and his invariable insistence upon having the right thing 
 done. At the age of seventy-eight years he is resting 
 from his labors and enjoying the fruits of a long life 
 well spent in the interest of his fellows. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 To many people no part of the story of a State is so 
 interesting as that which pertains to its early settlement. 
 Not only is this true as to the pioneers themselves — ^those 
 who actually endured the privations necessarily connected 
 with the reaching and subjugation of a region thousands 
 of miles removed from the nearest outposts of civiliza- 
 tion — but younger people, those who are fond of history 
 or even of romance, take a delight in hearing of the in- 
 cidents which constituted the experience of those who 
 "crossed the plains" and formed a part of the immi- 
 grant trains which conquered the desert, met the savage 
 Indians without fear, mocked at the roadless mountains, 
 swam the fordless rivers, used "buffalo chips" for fuel, 
 went hungry much of the time at the last end of the trip, 
 and finally reached the promised land destitute, most of 
 them, many of them sick, but all of them brave and 
 hopeful. 
 
 For the weakling didn't start to Oregon in the '40's; 
 or, if he did, he soon lost his "grip" and returned to his 
 former home. Many did this. But the pioneers were all 
 of the stuff out of which real men and women are made 
 and the historian doesn't need to draw upon his imagina- 
 tion in order to make his narrative read like a composite 
 story of the old martyrs. For instance, my own mother 
 was thirteen and a half years old when she started across 
 the plains with her parents in April, 1847, but she walked 
 practically all the way from the Missouri River to the 
 Willamette valley. She was the oldest of six children, 
 and as there were some loose horses and cattle every day 
 which would not follow the train unless made to do so, 
 she was required to "trail" behind them and see that 
 none was lost. To be sure, the distance made would 
 not average more than ten or twelve miles a day, but it 
 
 131 
 
132 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 necessitated walking in the dust caused by hundreds of 
 tramping oxen and horses, besides the duty of keeping 
 the stubborn or contrary or indifferent animals from 
 lagging behind. And her duties were not deemed par- 
 ticularly hard when compared with those assigned to 
 every other member of the train who was old enough 
 to stand alone. Everybody, including "father," was re- 
 quired to work, and the slothful one was not permitted to 
 lag very far before he was made to feel an energetic 
 prod which brought him up standing. 
 
 For the purpose of illustrating to the younger genera- 
 tion the suffering experienced by thousands who came to 
 Oregon in the early days, it is deemed well to incorporate 
 here a few pages of extracts from a diary kept by a 
 pioneer woman, Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, who crossed the 
 plains in 1847, and who was afterwards well known in 
 the Willamette valley. She was the mother of Mrs. 
 P. S. Knight, of Salem, and of Judge Seneca Smith, a 
 well-known attorney of Portland. Each night, after her 
 eight children were asleep, she would write her notes for 
 that day. She wrote it in letter form the next year and 
 sent it to some friends in Indiana, who, fifteen years 
 later, sent it to Mrs. Knight. It is now the property of 
 the State Historical Society, where it will be kept per- 
 manently as a valuable contribution to the history of 
 Oregon as vividly portraying the hardships endured by 
 those who laid the foundation for one of the greatest 
 States in the Union. Her letter and diary, in part, 
 follow : 
 
 Lafayette, Yamhill County, Oregon, 
 
 May 25, 1848. 
 Mrs. Pauline Foster and Mrs. Cynthia Ames 
 La Porte, Indiana: 
 Dear Friends, — By your request I have endeavored 
 to keep a record of our journey from "The States" 
 to Oregon, though it is poorly done, owing to my hav- 
 ing a young babe and, besides, a large family to do 
 for; and, worst of all, my education is limited. 
 
 April 21, 1847. Commenced our journey from La 
 Porte, Ind., to Oregon. Made fourteen miles. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 133 
 
 April 22. Made twelve miles. Rain all day. 
 
 April 23. Made nineteen miles; traveled till dark. 
 Ate a cold bite and went to bed chilly and cold, which 
 is very disagreeable, with a parcel of children. 
 
 April 25. Last night our cattle ran off, conse- 
 quently, we made only eleven miles. 
 
 April 26. Made sixteen miles. Had a view of Mt. 
 Juliett. It is one of the great works of nature. We 
 see a great many admirable works of nature and art 
 as we pass through Illinois. 
 
 April 29. Made sixteen miles through a delightful 
 country and camped on the Illinois River. Cold and 
 rainy. 
 
 April 30. Made fourteen miles. Passed through 
 Peru. Traveled through a beautiful and fertile coun- 
 try. Cold and rainy. 
 
 May I. Made nineteen miles. Passed through 
 Princeton, Bureau County, 111. Rich soil. Hundreds 
 of acres not owned nor cultivated by any one. 
 
 May 2. Made twenty miles. Exceedingly cold for 
 the season. 
 
 May 3. Made twenty miles. Cold and dry. All 
 in good spirits. 
 
 May 4. Made twenty miles. Pleasant weather. 
 
 May 5. Made sixteen miles. Passed through Hen- 
 dersonville and Galesburg, Knox County, 111. Good 
 roads. Fine weather. 
 
 May 7. Made twelve miles. Rainy weather. 
 
 May 8. Crossed the Mississippi River on a ferry. 
 Delayed in Burlington. Made seven miles. In Bur- 
 lington I saw Percy Mitchell's first wife. 
 
 May 9. Passed Augusta, a small village. Ferried 
 Skunk River. 
 
 May 10. Fine weather. Laid by to wash. 
 
 May II. Laid by for rain. 
 
 May 14. Forded the Des Moines River. Made 
 eighteen miles. 
 
 May 15. Fell in with several Oregon wagons. 
 Made eighteen miles. 
 
 May 16. Made fifteen miles. Rained all day. 
 
 May 17. Laid by for rain. 
 
 May 19. Last night one of our cows went back 
 
134 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 one day's journey to see her calf that we had given 
 away that morning. 
 
 May 20. Made eighteen miles. Rainy weather, bad 
 roads. 
 
 May 21. Made seven miles. Water-bound by a 
 branch of Grand River. Hilly and bad roads. 
 
 May 22. Water-bound by a creek called the 
 Muddy. 
 
 May 23. Crossed Weldon River, Missouri State. 
 Made seven miles. 
 
 May 24. Made twelve miles. Rain all day. En- 
 camped in a marsh. Shoe-mouth deep in water. 
 The men peeled bark, made a floor, built a fire on it 
 to dry themselves and get supper by. 
 
 May 25. Made two miles. Water-bound. 
 
 May 27. Made fourteen miles. Crossed Big 
 Creek. It has on it one sawmill and one gristmill. 
 
 May 28. Made twenty-eight miles. Crossed Sam- 
 son Creek. Encamped without food or water on a 
 large prairie. Ate a cold bite and went to bed. 
 
 May 30. Rained this morning until late. Made 
 eight miles. Crossed a river called Hundred and Two 
 on a dangerous bridge and encamped. 
 
 May 31. Laid by to wash. 
 
 June I. Lying by. 
 
 June 3. Passed through St. Joseph on the Mis- 
 souri River. Laid in our flour, cheese, crackers and 
 medicine, for no one should travel this road without 
 medicine, for they are almost sure to have the sum- 
 mer complaint. Each family should have a box of 
 physicing pills, a quart of castor oil, a quart of the 
 best rum and a large vial of peppermint essence. 
 
 June 4. Crossed the Missouri River. Doubled 
 teams with difficulty. Ascended a hill or mountain. 
 Traveled three miles and encamped. We ara now in 
 Indian Territory. 
 
 June 6. Made eighteen miles. Passed seventy 
 Oregon wagons as they were encamped. 
 
 June 8. Made twenty miles; crossed one creek. 
 Very high and steep banks. Where I know the names 
 of streams I give them. 
 
 June II. Made eighteen miles. Crossed the Blue 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 135 
 
 Earth River. One wagon turned over just at the 
 water, but happily nobody was hurt. 
 
 June 14. Made eighteen miles. We are con- 
 tinually finding elks' horns, buffaloes' skulls and car- 
 casses. 
 
 June 16. Made seventeen miles. Saw one grave 
 day before yesterday and one to-day by the lonely 
 wayside. Made this spring. 
 
 June 17. Made twelve miles. Fell in with eighteen 
 wagons. Broke an axle-tree. Laid by and made a 
 new one. Stood guard all night in the rain. 
 
 June 18. Finished the broken axle. Made five 
 miles. Encamped in a circle as is our custom. Put 
 out guards and retired to rest. 
 
 June 19. Made twenty miles. Every night when 
 we encamp we make quite a village, but take it up the 
 next day. We have plenty of music with a flute and 
 violin and some dancing. 
 
 June 20. Made ten miles. Encamped on the Platte. 
 The ground here is covered with a white surface. 
 Something between salt and salts. The cattle are fond 
 of it. 
 
 June 21. Made eighteen miles. Last night had two 
 more horses stolen. One belonged to the same man 
 who lost one of the first ones. It was a fine horse 
 and his last one. Our road along the Platte is beauti- 
 ful and level. The river is a mile wide or more, and 
 very rily and shallow. 
 
 June 22. Made fifteen miles. See antelope every 
 day. 
 
 June 23. Made eighteen miles. At present there 
 are one hundred and forty persons in our company. 
 We see thousands of buffaloes, and have to use their 
 dung for fuel. A man will gather a bushel in a min- 
 ute. Three bushels make a good fire. We call the 
 stuff "buffalo chips." 
 
 June 24. Made ten miles. Stopped to kill a buf- 
 falo, but did not succeed. Saw hundreds of prairie 
 dogs barking about. They are about as large as a 
 gray gopher. Saw another grave. 
 
 June 26. Made ten miles. Killed three buffaloes. 
 Their flesh is generally coarser and drier than beef, 
 
136 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 but a fat buffalo heifer is as good meat as I would 
 wish to taste. 
 
 June 28. Made eighteen miles. Saw thousands of 
 buffaloes. Caught two of their calves. One ran away 
 the other day. The other they drove along with the 
 loose cattle several miles. It finally left them. Nine 
 wagons overtook us. 
 
 June 2y. Made fifteen miles. Killed four buffaloes. 
 At the least calculation we saw three thousand buf- 
 faloes to-day. A buffalo rolls and gallops like a horse. 
 
 June 29. This morning eight of our largest and 
 best work oxen were missing, besides two yoke of 
 Welch's, three yoke of Adam Polk's, and about thirty- 
 nine head belonging to the company — all work oxen, 
 right out of our company. Here we are, thousands 
 of miles from any inhabitants, and thus deprived of 
 teams — an appalling situation. We had only one yoke 
 left. We hunted in every direction without success. 
 
 June 30. Hunted all day. Our cattle hunters, my 
 husband among them, were so far from camp, some 
 thirty miles, that they staid away all night. 
 
 July I. To-day when our hunters came in they 
 brought one dead man ; he had shot himself acci- 
 dentally. He left a wife and six small children. The 
 distress of his wife I cannot describe. He was an 
 excellent man and very much missed. His name was 
 Smith Dunlap, from Chicago, 111. The hunters found 
 no cattle. 
 
 July 2. A trying time. So many of us having to 
 get teams, had to hire, borrow, buy, just as we could. 
 Had to take cows, raw cattle, or anything we could 
 get. Some had to apply to other companies for help. 
 At last we moved off. Made fifteen miles. 
 
 July 6. Made eighteen miles. Our cattle are lame. 
 It is plain to my mind what makes their feet wear 
 out. It is the alkaline nature of the ground. 
 
 July 7. This country is full of curiosities. Hun- 
 dreds of acres seem to have been bursted and thrown 
 open by volcanic eruptions. The earth along here 
 is strong with lye. After a shower, if the little ponds 
 were not rily, one could wash linen without soap. 
 
 July 8. Made twelve miles. Saw Chimney Rock. 
 It is a curiosity, indeed. A rock, or rather a hard 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 137 
 
 clay, standing alone, towering in the air perhaps three 
 hundred feet. All of the lofty rocks along here are 
 composed of that same material. Some of them re- 
 semble old demolished villages, half-sunk in the 
 ground, with the stovepipes sticking out of the ground. 
 To-day we had the most dreadful hail-storm I ever 
 witnessed, in which a young woman and I came near 
 being caught as we went out to the famous Chimney 
 Rock. Fortunately we reached one of the foremost 
 wagons just as the hail began to pelt us. It tore some 
 of the wagon covers off, broke some bows and made 
 the oxen run away — making bad work. They say that 
 about here it is subject to tornadoes. 
 
 July 9. To-day we saw by the wayside about two 
 acres of fine white stone, all cut up comparatively 
 in pieces about ten feet square and two feet thick. 
 I ran barefooted to get on them, but got my feet full 
 of stickers and was glad to get back to my wagon. 
 All the herbs in this region are briery and prickly. 
 The sage is dreadful on one's clothes. It grows from 
 one to six feet high and has a stalk like our tame sage 
 or sedge. The leaves are smaller and very narrow. It 
 has a sage taste, but is very bitter, besides. We travel 
 through a shrub called greasewood — generally not so 
 large as the sage. It is very thorny. We have to 
 use it sometimes for fuel. Then there is the prickly 
 pear — step on it any and everywhere. Look out for 
 bare feet. Encamped at Scott's Bluff. Here is starva- 
 tion. No feed and little water after traveling twenty 
 miles. We chained up our oxen to the wagon wheels 
 and started next morning by sunrise. 
 
 July 10. Made twelve miles through a barren, deso- 
 late region. Encamped on a creek and found feed and 
 willows. 
 
 July 12. Made ten miles. Encamped at a French 
 and Indian residence. As soon as we had corralled, 
 the Indians flocked in and spread their blankets and 
 begged for presents. We gave them meat, flour and 
 beans, for which we afterward suffered. 
 
 July 13. This morning five of our work cattle were 
 missing. The men hunted and hired Indians to hunt, 
 but found no cattle. Emptied one wagon and went 
 on. Passed Fort Laramie. Made five miles and en- 
 
138 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 camped. The Indians came as before and sat down 
 in a circle and spread a blanket in their midst and 
 begged for presents. We gave them provisions and 
 they dispersed. 
 
 July 14. Laid by. Found the cattle. Paid the 
 Indians fifteen dollars for hunting, although our men 
 found them. 
 
 July 15. Made twenty miles through a barren 
 desert. Found wood and water but no feed. Rain 
 to-night. I intend to state all the rain we have. 
 Poor woman! She little knew when she wrote that 
 sentence how she and her children were going to suffer 
 by reason of the excessive amount of rain during the 
 latter part of their journey. As this diary is a faithful 
 kaleidoscopic presentation of the average experience of 
 those who "pioneered" to Oregon in the early days, I will 
 make a larger requisition upon its contents than was 
 at first intended, since it tells briefly the whole heroic 
 story. It is a volume in a few pages, graphically por- 
 traying the increasing dangers which beset the pioneers 
 and the growing necessity on their part for patience and 
 courage. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 By the middle of July the train in which Mrs. Smith 
 and husband were traveling had reached the Black Hills, 
 a region made famous by its mines. On July 25 Mrs. 
 Smith made this record : 
 
 Encamped at Willow Springs, a handsome place of 
 grass and willows. To-day we crossed a little muddy 
 branch. Along the sides of it we could have gathered 
 pails of clean saltpeter. Many of our cattle are sick 
 and dying. 
 
 July 27. We, on rising this morning, baked a lot 
 of light bread and moved on. Passed Independence 
 Rock. 
 
 July 29. Made eighteen miles. I could write a 
 great deal more if I had the opportunity. Sometimes 
 I do not get a chance to write anything for two or 
 three days, and then have to rise in the night when my 
 babe and all hands are asleep, light a candle and write. 
 
 July 31. Encamped at the foot of South Pass. 
 Here we found some gooseberries ; they were as 
 smooth as currants and taste much like fox grapes. 
 All the gooseberries this side of the Missouri are 
 smooth. Still we have sage to cook with. I do not 
 know which is best to cook with — it or "buffalo chips." 
 Just step out and pull a lot of sage out of your 
 garden and build a fire in the wind, and bake, boil 
 and fry by it, and then you will guess how we do. 
 
 August I. Passed over the Rocky Mountains, the 
 backbone of America. It is all rocks on top and they 
 are all split up and turned up edgeways. Oh, that 
 I had time to describe this curious country. We 
 wound over the mountains along a very crooked road. 
 Had rain and hail to-day, which made it very dis- 
 agreeable. 
 
 August 3. Encamped on the Little Sandy. Are 
 two days' journey into the Oregon territory and have 
 
 139 
 
I40 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 found no timber except on the streams since we left 
 the Missouri. 
 
 August 6. Crossed Green River, a large and beau- 
 tiful stream, bordered with considerable timber — 
 quaking asp. 
 
 August 7. Encamped on Black's Fork, a small river 
 bordered with willows. This large waste of country, 
 in my opinion, has once been a sea. My husband 
 found on top of a mountain seashells petrified into 
 stone. The crevices in the rocks show the different 
 stages of the water. 
 
 August 7. Encamped at Fort Bridger. One of 
 the superintendents traveled with us from Fort 
 Laramie to this place. He is a good and intelligent 
 man. He has a white wife. Long will he remember 
 the captain of our company, Cornelius Smith. They 
 were great friends. 
 
 August 12. Still at Fort Bridger. Here we have 
 a good time for washing, which we women deem a 
 great privilege. 
 
 August 15. Passed over one high mountain. Made 
 twenty miles and encamped without food, water or 
 fuel. 
 
 August 16. Started without breakfast. Made nine 
 miles and encamped on Bear River. 
 
 August 22. Saw some of nature's curious works. 
 Here are mounds perhaps forty feet in diameter and 
 ten feet high, composed of shelly stone. In the middle 
 of the mound stands a — I know not what to call it — 
 it looks like a stump about three feet high. It has 
 a hole in the top full of boiling water and running 
 over all the time. It is the water that makes the 
 mounds. The water is blood warm and has a little 
 of the soda taste. A mile or so from here are the 
 Soda Springs. They are not so good as represented. 
 Only one or two of the company like it. It tastes like 
 vinegar with a little saleratus in it. They are generally 
 ten feet across and look like hog wallows more than 
 springs, though I saw one that was clear. About two 
 hundred yards from the Soda Springs is a boiling 
 spring which boils over and foams and runs over 
 thirty barrels in a day. It boils out of the stone. The 
 hole is about as large as a large dinner pot. Every 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 141 
 
 few minutes the water will bounce up three or four 
 feet. 
 
 August 23. Made sixteen miles. Encamped with 
 nothing but green sage to cook with. Good feed. 
 This sage is larger than the tame sage, but much like 
 it in appearance. It sometimes grows six feet high. 
 
 August 28. Passed Fort Hall. Captain Grant, of 
 the Hudson Bay Company, is not that charitable gen- 
 tleman we expected to see, but a boasting, burlesquing, 
 unfeeling man. 
 
 August 29. Made sixteen miles. You in "the 
 States" know nothing of dust. It will fly so that you 
 can hardly see the horns of the tongue-yoke of oxen. 
 It often seems that the cattle must die for want of 
 breath, and then in our wagons, such a spectacle — 
 beds, clothes, victuals and children all completely 
 covered. 
 
 September 4. Made fourteen miles. Camped with- 
 out feed. Had cedar to burn. 
 
 September 7. Nooned at Snake River. Watered 
 our cattle and moved on two miles and camped. Two 
 men were left behind, which was always the case with 
 them, they had such heavy loads. They came up after- 
 wards, and while watering, some of their cattle swam 
 over the river. One of the men swam after them, 
 and before he got across sank to rise no more. He 
 left a wife and three small children. The other came 
 running up to camp to let us know. Some went back 
 and staid with them. By this time another company 
 had overtaken them. Next morning my husband took 
 a horse and went back to swim a horse over after 
 the cattle. The man that owned the cattle took the 
 horse and swam after the cattle, and while 
 coming back by some means got off the horse and 
 sank and was seen no more. He left a wife and 
 six helpless children. My husband stood watching 
 him. It is supposed that there is a whirlpool at the 
 bottom of the river. 
 
 September 8. We moved on, for we had neither 
 feed nor water. Camped on Snake River. My hus- 
 band came up at ten o'clock and told us the shock- 
 ing news. 
 
 September 12. One of our oxen died. The Indians 
 
142 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 along Snake River go naked except an old rag tied 
 around their hips. They have few horses, no blankets. 
 The immigrants trade them old clothes for fish which 
 were dead, no doubt, when they were caught. 
 
 September 14. Blocked up our wagon beds and 
 forded Snake River, which was wide, deep and swift. 
 Camped at a spring with good grass. 
 
 September 15. Laid by. This morning our com- 
 pany moved on, except one family. The woman got 
 mad and wouldn't budge nor let the children go. He 
 had the cattle hitched on for three hours and coaxed 
 her to go, but she wouldn't stir. I told my husband 
 the circumstance and he and Adam Polk and Mr. 
 Kimball went and each one took a young one and 
 crammed them in the wagon and the husband drove 
 off and left her sitting. She got up, took the back 
 track and traveled out of sight. Cut across and over- 
 took her husband. Meantime he sent his boy back to 
 camp after a horse he had left, and when she came 
 up her husband said, "Did you meet John?" "Yes," 
 was the reply, "and I picked up a stone and knocked 
 out his brains." Her husband went back to ascer- 
 tain the truth and while he was gone she set fire to 
 one of the wagons that was loaded with store goods. 
 The cover burnt off with some valuable articles. He 
 saw the flames and came running and put it out, and 
 then mustered up spunk enough to give her a good 
 flogging. 
 
 September 19. Made nineteen miles over mountains 
 and dust. Camped on Boise River. Good feed. 
 
 September 23. Forded Snake River just before 
 dark. It was waist deep and very cold. It is a large 
 and swift-running river. 
 
 September 24. Mr. Kimball's oldest son died last 
 night of typhus fever. 
 
 September 25. Buried the corpse. Camped on 
 Burnt River. 
 
 September 28. Crossed Burnt River six times. We 
 are all the time either on a hill or in a hollow. 
 
 September 29. Made eleven miles. Winding in and 
 between mountains all day. 
 
 October i. A woman of our company died as we 
 ivere traveling along. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 143 
 
 October 4. Camped on north branch of Powder 
 River. Middling feed. 
 
 October 5. Camped on head waters of Grand 
 Ronde. Plenty of feed and pine to burn. 
 
 October 6. Passed over one difficult and stony 
 mountain. If Grand Ronde was west of the Cascade 
 Mountains, how soon it would be taken up. It is 
 level and covered with grass and watered with brooks 
 and springs. It has a river flowing through it. 
 
 October 9. Doubled teams up another mountain. 
 Camped at Pine Creek. To some wagons they put 
 nine yoke of oxen. My husband and I are both sick 
 with summer complaint. 
 
 October 11. Made twelve miles. Camped near a 
 branch of the Utilla (Umatilla) River. 
 
 October 12. Went three miles. Here our company 
 separated. Some went to Whitman's Mission to win- 
 ter, and they were murdered in the general massacre, 
 of which I suppose you have already heard. Here 
 my husband bought a beef of the Indians. It was 
 eighteen months old and weighed four hundred and 
 eighty pounds. He paid them with a cow and calf 
 and a new shirt. 
 
 October 17. Cold and windy. We made a fire 
 of a little wood that we carried all day yesterday. 
 Made a bite to eat. Our cattle ran off in search of 
 water, which hindered us until late. Camped with- 
 out wood except a small shrub called greasewood. It 
 burns like greased weeds. I used to wonder why 
 it was said that men must be dressed in buckskin to 
 come to this country, but now I know. Everything 
 we travel through is thorny and rough. There is no 
 chance to save your clothes. Here we found a great 
 hole of water twelve or fifteen feet across. Had to 
 water one hundred and fifty head of cattle with pails. 
 Had to stand out all night in the rain to keep the cattle 
 from drowning each other — ^after water in this hole. 
 
 October 21. Camped on John Day's River. Here 
 we put out a guard for fear of Indians, which we have 
 not done before for three months. 
 
 October 22. Traveled up a long, steep ascent be- 
 tween two mountains. The road was so narrow that 
 
144 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 a wagon could scarcely squeeze along, and very rough 
 at that. 
 
 October 23. Camped on the Columbia River. 
 Scarce feed. No wood or shrubs. We had to burn 
 little green weeds. 
 
 October 24. Crossed Falls or Shutes River. It 
 was high, rapid and dangerous. The water came 
 clear to the tops of the wagon beds. My children and 
 I, with as many more women and children as could 
 be stowed into a canoe, were taken over by two 
 Indians, which cost a good many shirts. The Indians 
 are thick as hops here and not very friendly. Any- 
 body in preparing to come to this country should make 
 up some calico shirts to trade to the Indians in case 
 of necessity. You will have to hire them to pilot you 
 across the rivers. When we got here my folks were 
 about stripped of shirts, trousers, jackets and 
 "wamusses." 
 
 October 26. Made ten miles over a mountain all 
 the way. Saw oak trees for the first time in Oregon. 
 Camped on the Columbia. 
 
 October 2^. Passed what is called the Dalles Mis- 
 sion, where two white families live with the Indians. 
 It looks like starvation. 
 
 October 28. Here are a great many immigrants 
 camped. Some making rafts, others going down in 
 boats which have been sent up by speculators. 
 
 October 29. Rained most all day. Cold weather. 
 
 October 30. Rainy day. Men making rafts. Women 
 cooking and washing and babies crying. Indians 
 bartering potatoes for shirts. They must have a good 
 shirt for a peck of potatoes. 
 
 October 31. Snow close by on the mountains. We 
 should have gone over the mountains with our wagons, 
 but they are covered with snow and we must go down 
 by water and drive our cattle over the mountains. 
 
 November i. We are lying by waiting for the wind 
 to blow down stream in order that we may embark 
 with our raft. 
 
 November 2. We took off our wagon wheels, laid 
 them on the raft, placed the wagon beds on them and 
 started. There are three families of us, Adam Folk, 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 145 
 
 Russell Welch and ourselves, on twelve logs eighteen 
 inches through and forty feet long. The water runs 
 three inches over our raft. 
 
 November 3. Still lying by waiting for calm. 
 Cold and disagreeable weather. 
 
 November 4. Rain all day. Laid by for the water 
 to become calm. We clambered up a steep hillside 
 among the rocks and built a fire and tried to cook and 
 warm ourselves and children, while the wind blew and 
 the waves rolled beneath. 
 
 November 5. Still lying by waiting for calm 
 weather. Mr. Polk is very sick. 
 
 November 7. Put out in rough water. Moved a 
 few miles. The water became so rough that we were 
 forced to land. No one to man the raft but my hus- 
 band and my oldest boy, sixteen years old. Russell 
 Welch and our youngest boys are driving our cattle 
 over the mountains. Here we are lying, smoking 
 our eyes, burning our clothes and trying to keep warm. 
 We have plenty of wood, but the wind takes away the 
 warmth. 
 
 November 8. We are still lying at anchor, waiting 
 for the wind to fall. We have but one day's provi- 
 sions ahead of us here. We can see snow on the tops 
 of the mountains whose rocky heights reach to the 
 clouds at times. A few Indians call on us and steal 
 something from us but we are not afraid of them. 
 Cold weather — my hands are so cold I can hardly 
 write. 
 
 November 9. Finds us still in trouble. Waves 
 dashing over our raft and we already stinting our- 
 selves in provisions. My husband started this morn- 
 ing to hunt provisions. Left no man with us except 
 our oldest boy. It is very cold. The icicles are hang- 
 ing from our wagon beds to the water. To-night 
 about dusk Adam Polk expired. No one with him but 
 his wife and myself. We sat up all night with him 
 while the waves were dashing below. 
 
 November 10. Finds us still waiting for calm 
 weather. My husband returned at two o'clock. 
 Brought fifty pounds of beef on his back twelve miles, 
 which he bought from another company. By this time 
 the water had become calm and we started once more. 
 
146 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 but the wind soon began to blow and we were forced to 
 land. My husband and boy were an hour and a half 
 after dark getting the raft landed and made fast while 
 the water ran knee-deep over our raft, the wind blew 
 and it was freezing cold. We women and children 
 didn't attempt to get out of the wagons to-night. 
 
 November ii. Laid by most all day. Started this 
 evening. Ran about three miles and landed after 
 dark. Here we found Welch and our cattle, for they 
 could not be driven farther on this side of the moun- 
 tain. Here was a ferry for the purpose of ferrying 
 immigrants' cattle. 
 
 November 12. Ferried our cattle across the Co- 
 lumbia and buried Mr. Polk. Rained all day. We are 
 living entirely on beef. 
 
 November 13. We got the ferrymen to shift our 
 load onto their boat and take us down to the falls, 
 where we found quite a town of people waiting for 
 their cattle to pull them around the falls. Rain all 
 day. 
 
 November 18. My husband is sick. It rains and 
 snows. We start around the falls this morning with 
 our wagons. We have five miles to go. I carry my babe 
 and lead, or rather carry another, through snow, mud, 
 and water almost to my knees. It is the worst road a 
 team could possibly travel. I went ahead with my 
 children and I was afraid to look behind me for fear 
 of seeing the wagons overturn into the mud and water 
 with everything in them. My children gave out with 
 cold and fatigue and could not travel, and the boys 
 had to unhitch the oxen and bring them and carry 
 the children on to camp. I was so cold and numb 
 that I could not tell by the feeling that I had any feet. 
 We started this morning at sunrise and did not camp 
 until after dark, and there was not one dry thread on 
 one of us — not even on the babe. I had carried my 
 babe and I was so fatigued that I could scarcely speak 
 or step. When I got here I found my husband lying 
 in Welch's wagon very sick. He had brought Mrs. 
 Polk down the day before and was taken sick. We 
 had to stay up all night for our wagons were left half- 
 way back. I have not told half we suffered. I am not 
 adequate to the task. Here were some hundreds 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 147 
 
 camped, waiting for some boats to come and take them 
 down to Vancouver, Portland or Oregon City. 
 
 November 19. My husband is sick and can have but 
 little care. Rain all day. 
 
 November 20. Rain all day. It is almost an im- 
 possibility to cook, and quite so to keep warm or dry. 
 I froze or chilled my feet so that I cannot wear a shoe, 
 so I have to go around in the cold water in my bare 
 feet. 
 
 November 27. Embarked once more on the Colum- 
 bia on a flatboat. Ran all day, though the waves 
 threatened hard to sink us. Passed Fort Vancouver 
 in the night. Landed a mile below. My husband has 
 never left his bed since he was taken sick. 
 
 November 29. Landed at Portland on the Wil- 
 lamette, twelve miles above its mouth, at eleven 
 o'clock at night. 
 
 November 30. Raining. This morning I ran about 
 trying to get a house to get into with my sick husband. 
 At last I found a small, leaky concern with two fami- 
 lies already in it. Mrs. Polk had got down before 
 us. She and another widow were in this house. My 
 family and Welch's went in with them and you could 
 have stirred us with a stick. Welch and my oldest boy 
 were driving our cattle around. My children and I 
 carried up a bed. The distance was nearly a quarter 
 of a mile. Made it down on the floor in the mud. I 
 got some men to carry my husband up through the 
 rain and lay him on it, and he was never out of that 
 shed until he was carried out in his coffin. Here lay 
 five of us bedfast at one time, and we had no money 
 and what few things we had left that would bring 
 money I had to sell. I had to give ten cents a pound 
 for fresh pork, seventy-five cents a bushel for potatoes 
 and four cents a pound for fish. There are so many 
 of us sick that I cannot write any more at present. 
 I have not time to write much, but I thought it would 
 be interesting to know what kind of weather we have 
 in the winter. 
 
 January 15, 1848. My husband is still alive, but 
 very sick. There is no medicine here except at Fort 
 Vancouver, and the people there will not sell one bit 
 — not even a bottle of wine. 
 
148 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 January i6. We are still living in the old leaky 
 shed in Portland. It is six miles below Vancouver 
 and up the Willamette twelve miles. Portland has 
 two white houses and one brick and three wood- 
 colored frame buildings and a few log cabins. 
 
 January 20. Cool and dry. Soldiers are collect- 
 ing here from every part of Oregon to go and fight 
 the Indians in middle Oregon in consequence of the 
 massacre at Whitman's Mission. I think there were 
 seventeen men killed at the massacre, but no women 
 or children, except Whitman's wife. They killed 
 every white man there except one, and he was an 
 Englishman. They took all the young women for 
 wives. Robbed them of their clothing and everything. 
 The Oregon government bought the prisoners at a 
 dear rate, and then gave the Indians fight. But one 
 white man, I believe, was killed in the war and not 
 many Indians. The murderers escaped. 
 
 January 21. Warm and dry. 
 
 January 24. Dry in daytime but rain at night. 
 
 January 31. Rain all day. If I could tell you how 
 we suffer you would not believe it. Our house, or 
 rather a shed joined to a house, leaks all over. The 
 roof descends in such a manner that the rain runs 
 right down into the fire. I have dipped as much as 
 six pails of water oflf our dirt hearth in one night. 
 Here I sit up night after night with my poor sick hus- 
 band, all alone, and expecting him every day to die. 
 I neglected to tell you that Welch moved away and 
 left us all alone. Mr. Smith has not been moved off 
 his bed for six weeks, only by lifting him by each 
 corner of the sheet, and I had hard work to get help 
 enough for that, let alone to get watchers. I have 
 not undressed to lie down for six weeks. Besides 
 our sickness I had a cross little babe to take care of. 
 Indeed, I cannot tell you half. 
 
 February i. Rain all day. This day my dear hus- 
 band, my last remaining friend, died. 
 
 February 2. To-day we buried my earthly com- 
 panion. Now I know what none but widows know: 
 that is, how comfortless is a widow's life; especially 
 when left in a strange land without money or friends, 
 and the care of seven children. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 149 
 
 February 9. Clear and cool. Perhaps you will want 
 to know how cool. We have lived all winter in a 
 shed constructed by setting up studs five feet high 
 on the lowest side. The other side joins the cabin. 
 It is boarded up with clapboards and several of them 
 are torn off in places, and there is no shutter to our 
 door ; but if it was not for the rain putting out the fire 
 and leaking all over the house we would be com- 
 fortable. 
 
 February 21. Clear and cool. You will wonder 
 that we do not leave this starved place. The reason 
 is this — the road from here to the country is im- 
 passable in winter, the distance being twelve miles, 
 and because our cattle are yet very weak. 
 
 February 24. Clear and warm. To-day we left 
 Portland at sunrise. Having no one to assist us, we 
 had to leave one wagon and a part of our things for 
 want of teams. We traveled four or five miles, all 
 the way up hill and through the thickest woods I 
 ever saw — all fir, from two to six feet through, with 
 now and then a scattering cedar, and an intolerably 
 bad road. We all had to walk. Sometimes I had to 
 put my babe on the ground and help to keep the wagon 
 from turning over. When we got to the top of the 
 mountain we descended through mud up to the wagon- 
 hubs and over logs two feet through, and log bridges 
 torn to pieces in the mud. Sometimes I would be be- 
 hind, out of sight of the wagon, tugging and carrying 
 my little ones along. Sometimes the boys would stop 
 the teams and come back after us. Made nine miles. 
 Camped in thick woods. Found some grass. Un- 
 hitched the oxen ; let them feed two hours and chained 
 them to trees. These woods are infested with wild- 
 cats, panthers, bears and wolves. A man told me he 
 had killed six tigers — but they are a species of wolf. 
 We made us a fire and made a bed down on the wet 
 grass and laid down as happy as circumstances would 
 admit. Glad to think we had escaped from Port- 
 land — such a game place. 
 
 This was the last record of Mrs. Smith's diary — a 
 story of deprivation, hardships, hunger, danger, destitu- 
 tion and even death — perhaps more harrowing in its de- 
 
ISO FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 tails than that of the average family who made the two- 
 thousand-mile trip to Oregon in the '40's. And yet there 
 were thousands who brought upon themselves the same 
 awful difficulties — leaving their lifelong friends, aban- 
 doning their native country where plenty abounded and 
 where there were millions of acres of vacant land yet 
 to be had — all for the love of adventure. This accounts 
 for the fact, accepted by everybody who understands 
 early conditions here, that the Oregon pioneers, men and 
 women, were of the stuff which develops into a sturdy 
 citizenship. 
 
 The reading of the diary of Mrs. Smith, penned as 
 she wended her way to Oregon in the summer of 1847, 
 cannot fail to impress the average reader with the strik- 
 ing contrast between the manner of journeying from the 
 Mississippi Valley to Oregon then and now. The man 
 who makes the trip now is usually a tourist. He buys a 
 sleeper at Chicago, and within three days is in Portland, 
 a city of over two hundred thousand inhabitants, where 
 Mrs. Smith found upon her arrival one brick building, 
 two white houses and a few log cabins. Instead of living 
 on beef alone for several days, the tourist is supplied 
 three times a day on a "diner" with the best the land 
 affords, while a colored waiter bows and smiles — ^pro- 
 vided on some previous occasion he has not failed to 
 tip him generously — and for this he pays at least a whole 
 dollar in the coin of the realm. There is no opportunity 
 for him to trade his shirt for a peck of potatoes. After 
 his meal is served, he returns to his upholstered seat and 
 resumes the reading of his favorite book. While enjoy- 
 ing his steak and coffee he travels as far, in the utmost 
 comfort, as Mrs. Smith did in any of the days at the 
 end of which she recorded "made eighteen miles" in 
 suffocating dust, and much of the time with insufficient 
 food. At a station the train stops for a few minutes. 
 The traveler drops his book, steps out on the platform 
 and, with a yawn, says to his companion: "What a 
 tedious trip ! Let us take a turn or two and stretch our 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 151 
 
 legs. And they say we will get into Portland two hours 
 late. Blast these railroads, anyway !" 
 
 On September 2, 1850, two years and a half after the 
 last entry in her diary, which I have quoted, Mrs. Smith 
 wrote a letter to the same two women friends in Indiana, 
 in the course of which occurs this paragraph : 
 
 My three boys started to the California gold mines 
 and it was doubtful to me if I ever should see them 
 again. Perhaps you will think it strange that I let such 
 young boys go so far, but I was willing and I helped 
 them off in as good style as I could. Well, after the 
 boys were gone, it is true I had plenty of cows and 
 hogs, and plenty of wheat to feed them on and to make 
 my bread. Indeed, I was well off, if I had only known 
 it, but I lived in a remote place where my strength 
 was of little use to me. I could get nothing to do, 
 and you know I could not live without work. I em- 
 ployed myself in teaching my children ; yet that did not 
 fully occupy my mind. I became as poor as a snake, 
 yet I was in good health and was never so nimble 
 since I was a child. I could run half a mile without 
 stopping to breathe. Well, I thought I would try my 
 fortune again, so on the 24th of June, 1849, I was 
 married to Mr. Joseph Geer, a man fourteen years 
 older than myself, though young enough for me. He 
 is the father of ten children. They are all married 
 but two boys and two girls. He is a Yankee from 
 Connecticut, and he is a Yankee in every sense of the 
 word, as I told you he would be if it ever proved my 
 lot to marry again. I did not marry rich, but my hus- 
 band is industrious and is as kind to me as I can ask. 
 Indeed, he sometimes provokes me in trying to humor 
 me so much. He is a stout, healthy man for one of 
 his age. 
 
 Since the "Yankee husband" referred to was my 
 grandfather, before mentioned in these pages, it will be 
 appropriate to close this chapter by quoting a part of the 
 postscript to the above letter, which was written by him : 
 
152 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Dear Ladies : 
 
 As Mrs. Geer has introduced me to you as her "old 
 Yankee husband," I will add a few words in hopes of 
 becoming better acquainted hereafter. She so often 
 speaks of you that you seem like old neighbors. She 
 has neglected to tell you that she was once the wife 
 of Cornelius Smith. She has told you how poor she 
 became while a widow but has not said one word about 
 how fat she has become since she has been living with 
 her Yankee husband. This is perhaps reserved for 
 her next epistle so I will say nothing about it. 
 
 Of her I will say she makes me a first-rate wife, 
 industrious and kind almost to a fault to me, a fault, 
 however, that I can cheerfully overlook, you know. 
 
 We are not rich, but independent, and live agree- 
 ably together, which is enough. We are located on 
 the west bank of the Willamette River, about twenty 
 miles from Oregon City, about forty yards from the 
 water — a very pleasant situation. I intend putting out 
 a large orchard as soon as I can prepare the ground; 
 have about ten thousand apple trees and two hun- 
 dred pear trees on hand. Apple trees worth one 
 dollar and pears one dollar and fifty cents apiece. 
 I have not room to give you a description of this, the 
 best country in the world, so I will not attempt it, 
 but if you will answer this I will give you a more 
 particular account next time. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 Joseph C. Geer, Sen. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 If left to the people of Oregon to decide by popular 
 vote which of its citizens, past or present, stands first 
 in the general esteem, because of the value of his public 
 services and the impression he has made or left upon the 
 commonwealth, I have no doubt that George H. Williams 
 would receive the highest endorsement and James W. 
 Nesmith would stand only second. Of these two great 
 men I will speak more at length later, but will remark 
 now that in my judgment Nesmith should outrank Wil- 
 liams for one reason — that he came here ten years before 
 Williams and that he came without friends or money, a 
 rugged, ambitious young pioneer, embarking upon a 
 hazardous journey to a distant land about which little 
 was known, though that little was extremely favorable. 
 
 On the contrary, Williams, Oregon's "grand old man," 
 of towering intellect and in disposition as gentle as a 
 child, arrived here in 1853, when the country was fairly 
 well occupied, with a commission from President Pierce 
 as one of the associate judges for the new Territory. 
 
 I desire to refer to Nesmith here for the purpose of 
 quoting briefly from an address he delivered before the 
 Oregon Pioneer Association in 1876, in the course of 
 which he graphically described the manner in which a 
 company of immigrants came together from different 
 parts of the country, organized by the election of a 
 captain and other officers, and proceeded upon the great 
 undertaking : 
 
 As early as the year 1840, being then an adven- 
 turous youth in what at that time was known as the 
 "Far West," I had heard of Oregon as a "terra in- 
 cognita" somewhere upon the western slope of the 
 continent, as a country to which the United States 
 had some kind of a claim, and 
 
 153 
 
154 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 "Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound 
 Save its own dashings." 
 
 During the winter of 1841-42, being in Jefferson 
 County, Iowa, I incidentally heard that a company in- 
 tended leaving Independence, Mo., in May or June, 
 1842, for Oregon under the leadership of Dr. Elijah 
 White, who had formerly been in Oregon connected 
 with the Methodist missions, and who was then about 
 returning to the Territory in the service of the United 
 States Government as sub-Indian agent. Thinking 
 this a good opportunity to make the trip I had for 
 some time contemplated, I mounted my horse and 
 rode across western Iowa, then a wilderness, and 
 arrived at Independence seventeen days after White 
 and his party had left. I at first contemplated fol- 
 lowing them alone, but learning that I would be lia- 
 ble to encounter the murderous Pawnees determined 
 not to attempt the dangerous experiment. I there- 
 fore abandoned the trip for the time and spent the most 
 of the ensuing year in the employment of the Govern- 
 ment as a carpenter in the construction of Fort Scott, 
 in Kansas, about one hundred miles south of Inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 During the winter of 1842-43, Dr. Marcus Whitman, 
 then a missionary in the Walla Walla valley, visited 
 Washington to intercede in behalf of the American 
 interests on the coast. 
 
 Dr. Lewis F. Linn, who was then in the United 
 States Senate from Missouri, took a great interest 
 in the settlement of Oregon. The means for the trans- 
 mission of news at that time was slow and meager 
 upon the frontier, it being before the days of rail- 
 roads, telegraphs and postage stamps. But the 
 Oregon question, through the medium of Senators 
 Linn and Benton and Dr. Whitman, did create a cer- 
 tain commotion in Washington, and enough of it found 
 its way to the "Far West" to make some stir among 
 the ever restless and adventurous frontiersman. With- 
 out any formal promulgation it became understood — 
 and was so published in the few border papers then 
 in existence — that our emigration party would rendez- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 155 
 
 vous at Independence to start for Oregon as soon as 
 the grass offered subsistence to the stock. 
 
 Without orders from any quarter, and without pre- 
 concerted action, promptly as the grass started the emi- 
 grants began to assemble at Independence at a place 
 called Fitzhugh's Mill. On May 17, 1843, notices were 
 circulated through the different encampments that on 
 the following day those contemplating emigrating to 
 Oregon would meet at a designated point to organize. 
 
 Promptly at the appointed hour the motley group 
 assembled. It consisted of people from all the States 
 and Territories, embracing all nationalities. Most of 
 them, however, were from Missouri, Iowa, Illinois and 
 Arkansas — all strangers to one another, but deeply 
 impressed with the imperative necessity for mutual 
 protection against the hostile Indians inhabiting the 
 great unknown wilderness, stretching away to the 
 shores of the Pacific, which they were about to 
 traverse with their wives, children, household goods 
 and all their earthly possessions. 
 
 Many of the emigrants were from the western tier 
 of counties in Missouri known as the Platte Purchase, 
 and among them was Peter H. Burnett, a former mer- 
 chant, who had abandoned the yardstick and become 
 a lawyer of some celebrity, being noted for his ability 
 as a smooth-tongued advocate. He subsequently emi- 
 grated to the Golden State and became its first Gov- 
 ernor, was afterward its Chief Justice, and is still 
 an honored citizen of that State. Mr. Burnett, or, 
 as he was familiarly called, "Pete," was called on for 
 a speech. Mounting a log, the glib-tongued orator de- 
 livered a florid, glowing address. He commenced by 
 showing his audience that the then western tier of 
 States and Territories was overcrowded; that the 
 population had not sufficient elbow-room for the ex- 
 pansion of their genius and enterprise, and that it was 
 a duty they owed to themselves and their posterity to 
 strike out in search of a wider field and a more genial 
 climate, where the soil yielded the richest return for 
 the smallest amount of cultivation, where the trees 
 were loaded with perennial fruit and where a good 
 substitute for bread, called "lacamash," grew in the 
 ground, salmon and other fish crowded the streams. 
 
156 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 and where the principal labor of the settler would be 
 keeping his gardens free from the inroads of elk, buf- 
 falo, deer and wild turkeys. He appealed to our 
 patriotism by picturing forth the glorious empire we 
 would establish on the shores of the Pacific; how, 
 with our trusty rifles, we would drive out the British 
 usurpers who claimed the soil and defend the country 
 from the avarice and pretensions of the British lion, 
 and how posterity would honor us for placing the 
 fairest portion of our land under the dominion of the 
 Stars and Stripes. He concluded with a slight allusion 
 to the trials and hardships incident to the trip and 
 the dangers to be encountered from hostile Indians on 
 the way, and also those inhabiting the country whither 
 we were bound. He furthermore indicated a desire 
 to look upon the tribe of noble "red men" that the 
 valiant and well-armed crowd around him could not 
 vanquish in a single encounter. 
 
 Other speeches were made, full of glowing descrip- 
 tions of the fair land of promise, far-away Oregon, 
 which no one in the assemblage had ever seen and of 
 which not more than half a dozen had ever read any 
 account. After the election of officers, Mr. Burnett 
 being selected captain, the meeting, as primitive and 
 motley a one as ever assembled, adjourned with three 
 cheers for Captain Burnett and Oregon. 
 
 On May 20, 1843, after a pretty thorough military 
 organization, we took up our line of march with Cap- 
 tain John Gannt, an old army officer who combined 
 the character of trapper and mountaineer, as our guide. 
 Gannt had been as far in his wanderings as Green 
 River and assured us of the practicability of the wagon 
 road that far. Green River, the boundary of our 
 guide's knowledge in that direction, was not half- 
 way to the Willamette valley, at that time the only 
 inhabited portion of Oregon. We went forth trust- 
 ing to the future and would doubtless have encoun- 
 tered more difficulties than we did had not Dr. Whit- 
 man overtaken us before we reached Green River. 
 He was familiar with the whole route and was con- 
 fident that wagons could pass through the canyons 
 and gorges of Snake River and over the Blue Moun- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 157 
 
 tains, which the mountaineers in the vicinity of Fort 
 Hall declared to be a physical impossibility. 
 
 Describing his experience upon his arrival in Oregon, 
 Colonel Nesmith says : 
 
 With three comrades I left the emigration on the 
 Umatilla River, at a point near the present agency, 
 and after a variety of adventures we arrived in a 
 canoe at Fort Vancouver on the evening of October 
 23, 1843. We encamped on the bank of the river 
 about where the Government wharf now stands. The 
 greater part of our means was spent in the purchase 
 of provisions and hickory shirts, consigning those that 
 had done such long and continuous service, with their 
 inhabitants, to the Columbia. On the morning of the 
 24th we started for what was known as the "Wil- 
 lamette" settlement at the Falls. 
 
 Dr. McLoughlin had told us that at a distance of 
 seven miles below the fort we would encounter the 
 waters of the Willamette entering the Columbia from 
 the south. At about the distance indicated by the 
 Doctor we reached what we supposed was the mouth 
 of the river, and after paddling up it until noon, looked 
 across, and to our astonishment saw Fort Vancouver. 
 It then flashed on our minds that we had circumnavi- 
 gfated the island opposite the fort. We retraced our 
 way and that evening discovered the mouth of the 
 Willamette and encamped on its banks. The next 
 evening we encamped on the prairie opposite Portland 
 upon what is now the town site of East Portland, 
 owned by James Stephens, Esq. The present site of 
 Portland was a solitude surrounded by a dense forest 
 of fir trees. 
 
 The following amusing incident which illustrates the 
 troubles of the early settlers in endeavoring to understand 
 the language and gestures of the Indians, is related in 
 this same address. It well illustrates the clumsy effort 
 of the Indian to convey his meaning to one who does not 
 understand his language, and the humorous manner of 
 telling it is characteristic of Nesmith. 
 
 At Fort Hall we fell in with some Cayuse and 
 
158 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Nez Perce Indians returning from the buffalo country, 
 and as it was necessary for Dr. Whitman to precede us 
 , to Walla Walla, he recommended to us a guide in the 
 person of an old Cayuse Indian called "Sticcus." He 
 was a faithful old fellow, perfectly familiar with all 
 the trails and topography of the country from Fort 
 Hall to The Dalles, and although he could not speak a 
 word of English, and no one in our party a word of 
 Cayuse, he succeeded by pantomine in leading us suc- 
 cessfully over the roughest wagon road I ever saw. 
 Sticcus was a member of Dr. Whitman's church, and 
 the only Indian I ever saw that I thought had any con- 
 ception of the Christian religion or practiced it. I 
 met him afterward in the Cayuse war. He did not 
 participate in the murder of Dr. Whitman and his 
 family, and remained neutral in the war between his 
 tribe and the whites which grew out of the massacre. 
 I once dined with Sticcus in his camp on what I 
 supposed was elk meat. I had arrived at that con- 
 clusion because, when I looked at the cooked meat in- 
 terrogatively, the Indian held up his hands in a manner 
 that indicated elk horns ; but after dinner, seeing the 
 ears, tail and hoofs of a mule near camp I became 
 satisfied that what he meant to convey with his 
 pantomine was "ears," not "horns." But digestion 
 waited on appetite and after dinner it did not make 
 much difference about the appendages of the animal 
 that furnished it. 
 
 Still another "film" in the great moving picture which 
 was presented to an astonished world by the Oregon 
 pioneers between 1840 and 1852 was introduced by 
 J. Quinn Thornton in an address before the State Asso- 
 ciation in 1878, when he described three events which 
 occurred in the same camp on June 14 of that year, on 
 the Platte River. He says: 
 
 Three companies camped near each other on June 
 14, which was Sabbath, and as if by previous arrange- 
 ment determined to spend the day together. All the 
 members of one of these companies had, without much 
 ceremony, been invited to attend a wedding at the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 159 
 
 tent of a Mr. Lard in the evening. Rev. J. E. Corn- 
 well, acting as the officiating minister, proceeded at 
 once to unite Miss Lard and a Mr. Mootry in the 
 holy bonds of wedlock. The bride was arrayed very 
 decently but rather gaily. The groom had on his 
 best. Some of the young women present were dressed 
 with a tolerable degree of taste and with even some 
 degree of elegance. Among the men there were no 
 long beards, dirty hands, begrimed faces, soiled linen 
 or torn garments. Indeed, at that time and place there 
 were four others who expected to be married in a 
 few days. I cannot say that I approved this marry- 
 ing on the road. It looked as though the women, at 
 least, were making a sort of hop, skip and jump into 
 matrimony, without knowing what their feet would 
 come down upon or whether they might not be bruised 
 and wounded. 
 
 During that afternoon a boy's leg was amputated 
 by one not a surgeon, the instruments employed being 
 a butcher knife and an old dull hand-saw. He bore 
 his sufferings with the most wonderful fortitude and 
 heroism. He seemed scarcely to move a muscle. A 
 deathlike paleness would sometimes cover his face, 
 but instead of groaning he would use some word of 
 encouragement to the almost shrinking operator, or 
 some expression of comfort to his afflicted friends. 
 The limb was at length severed, the arteries gathered 
 and the flap brought down in an hour and forty-five 
 minutes after making the first incision. 
 
 An emigrant who had been frequently compelled 
 to retire from the afflicting spectacle, but who at the 
 time the operation was completed held the boy's hands 
 in his, observing that he appeared much exhausted, 
 tenderly inquired if he suffered much pain. The boy 
 withdrew his hands, clasped them together, and par- 
 tially raising them, exclaimed : "Oh, yes, I am suf- 
 fering ! I am suffering so much !" His hands fell on 
 his breast, his white lips quivered a few moments, his 
 eyeballs rolled back, and his spirit went to God. He 
 was buried in the night, and the sad and silent pro- 
 cession, by the light of the torches to the lonely grave 
 so hastily dug in the solitude and almost unbroken 
 
i6o FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 silence of that far-away wilderness, contrasted 
 strangely with the wedding festivities at the neighbor- 
 ing tent. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, that same evening an- 
 other interesting event transpired — ^the birth of a 
 child on the same plain — so that the three great epochs 
 of life, birth, marriage and death, were all repre- 
 sented at nearly the same time and place. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Oregon undoubtedly bears the distinction of being the 
 only State in the Union whose people formed a provisional 
 government in advance of territorial organization au- 
 thorized by act of Congress. The first settlers were in 
 a country which was without a successful claimant, and 
 for a few years were too few in numbers to need or 
 maintain any kind of government. It was everybody 
 for himself, indeed, but there was nothing in the land 
 to steal; and the only "settlement" extended from the 
 Columbia River to the California line and consisted of 
 not more than a couple of hundred white people. 
 
 The first meeting of a public nature was held in Feb- 
 ruary, 1841, for the purpose of determining on some 
 means of protection against the depredations of wild 
 animals, which were destroying the few hogs and calves 
 with which the people were beginning to be blessed. 
 Several such were called that year and the next, with 
 this object in view ostensibly; but a feeling began to 
 develop that it would be necessary for the Americans to 
 take the initiative in organizing a local government whose 
 scope would not be confined to the destruction of the 
 wolves, but would include a movement toward the con- 
 trol of affairs and the counteracting of the hostile in- 
 fluence of the Hudson Bay Company. The company was 
 opposed to any kind of government — preferring the un- 
 broken wilderness, fur-bearing animals in increasing 
 numbers if possible, and no legal restraint whatever. It 
 was really a case where they did not need any govern- 
 ment in their business. 
 
 But the Americans, coming from the centers of civiliza- 
 tion, began to be clamorous for some regularly constituted 
 authority to which they might appeal in case something 
 should happen. Not only this, but the fair historian 
 
 161 
 
1 62 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 will be compelled to admit that at even that early date 
 there was a well-defined feeling among the Americans 
 that it was necessary to begin a movement whose ultimate 
 results would be the acquisition of the entire country by 
 the United States. For they were men whose attachment 
 to Old Glory was firm as the foundations of the earth, 
 and they were not willing to lose any tricks through un- 
 necessary delay or apparent indifference. Many other- 
 wise unimportant circumstances combined to awaken the 
 suspicions of the settlers, who were men of pluck and 
 determination. 
 
 A few thefts began to take place in the growing com- 
 munity and there was no lawful redress. Men of reck- 
 less character, and of no character, were by degrees 
 drawn hither by reason of the anomalous situation, and 
 the Indians were always to be closely watched. In the 
 fall of 1842 the house of a minister living on Tualitan 
 Plains was entered and provisions and clothing taken. 
 This was a new experience and the neighbors took the 
 matter in hand in an effort to detect the thief. A com- 
 mittee was formed, consisting of Rev. J. S. Griffin, 
 Robert Newell, Joseph L. Meek and Caleb Wilkins, 
 whose purpose was to ferret out the culprit, if possible, 
 and to administer such punishment as the case seemed to 
 require. 
 
 in a few days an Indian came to the house of one of 
 the members of this committee and seemed to be very 
 anxious to ascertain whom the whites suspected. His 
 unnatural interest in the affair arousing the suspicion 
 of the committeeman, he pursued such a line of inquiry 
 that it proved a veritable sweat-box — though it. was not 
 called by that name in those days. 
 
 The result was that he was detained, tried and ad- 
 judged guilty. He confessed, was tied up to an oak tree, 
 treated to five lashes at the hands of each of the judges 
 and dismissed. The affair caused a great deal of dis- 
 cussion and served to impress more forcibly upon the 
 settlers that the prevailing conditions were not only 
 unsatisfactory, but dangerous, for the Indians, especially. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 163 
 
 appeared to understand the disorganized state of the 
 colony and translated it into license — a proceeding 
 altogether in harmony with their desires. 
 
 At this time Dr. Elijah White drafted and promulgated 
 a code of "laws" which was intended to govern the 
 Indians in their relations with the settlers. It was called 
 the "White Code," consisted of eleven articles and was 
 as follows : 
 
 Article i. Whoever wilfully takes a life shall be 
 hung. 
 
 Art. 2. Whoever burns a dwelling-house shall be 
 hung. 
 
 Art. 3. Whoever burns an outbuilding shall be 
 imprisoned six months, receive fifty lashes and pay 
 all damages. 
 
 Art. 4. Whoever carelessly burns a house or any 
 property shall pay damages. 
 
 Art. 5. If any one enters a house without the per- 
 mission of the owner the chiefs shall punish him as 
 they think proper. Public rooms are excepted. 
 
 Art. 6. If any one steal, he shall pay back twofold. 
 And if it be of the value of a beaver skin, or less, 
 he shall receive twenty-five lashes; and if the value 
 is over a beaver skin, he shall pay back twofold and 
 receive fifty lashes. 
 
 Art. 7. If any one take a horse and ride it without 
 permission, or take any article and use it without 
 liberty, he shall pay for the use of it and receive 
 from twenty-five to fifty lashes, as the chiefs shall 
 direct. 
 
 Art. 8. If any one enter a field and injure the crops, 
 or throw down the fence so that cattle or horses enter 
 and do damage, he shall pay all damage and receive 
 twenty-five lashes for every oflfense. 
 
 Art. 9. Those only may keep dogs who travel or 
 live among game. If a dog kill a lamb, calf or any 
 domestic animal, the owner shall pay the damage and 
 kill the dog. 
 
 Art. 10. If any Indian raise a gun or other weapon 
 against a white man, it shall be reported to the chiefs 
 and they shall punish him. If a white man do the 
 
1 64 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 same to an Indian, it shall be reported to Dr. White, 
 and he shall punish or redress. 
 
 Art. II. If an Indian break these laws he shall be 
 punished by the chiefs, and if a white man break them 
 he shall be reported to Dr. White and he shall punish 
 or redress. 
 
 But on February 2, 1842, a meeting was held at the 
 Institute, in Salem, for the purpose of "taking into con- 
 sideration the propriety of adopting some measures for 
 the protection of our herds," etc. This is known in 
 Oregon history as the "Wolf Meeting," and was presided 
 over by Dr. I. L. Babcock, the secretary being W. H. 
 Willson. After considering the purposes of the meeting, 
 it appointed a committee consisting of William H. Gray, 
 Alanson Beers, Joseph Gervais, William H. Willson, G. 
 W. Bellamy and Etienne Lucier, who were instructed to 
 make arrangements for an adjourned meeting to be held 
 on March 4 at the house of Joseph Gervais, on French 
 Prairie. Mr. Gervais was practically the first white 
 settler in that part of the Willamette valley, having been 
 induced to locate there by Dr. McLoughlin, to raise 
 wheat for the Russian trade. 
 
 At this meeting the committee appointed on February 
 2 made the following report, which will give the student 
 of early Oregon history a clear insight into the primitive 
 condition of affairs and what the people were compelled 
 to accept as an unavoidable duty. The report, which 
 was in reality the germ that produced the succeeding 
 governments, provisional, territorial and State, was as 
 follows : 
 
 It being admitted by all that bears, panthers, wolves, 
 etc., are destructive to useful animals owned by the 
 settlers of this colony, your committee would respect- 
 fully submit the following resolutions as the sense of 
 this meeting, by which the community may be gov- 
 erned in carrying on a defensive and destructive war 
 against all such animals. Resolved, 
 
 I. That we deem it expedient for this community to 
 take immediate measures for the destruction of all 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 165 
 
 bears, wolves, panthers and such other animals as are 
 known to be destructive to horses, cattle, hogs and 
 sheep. 
 
 2. That a treasurer shall be appointed who shall re- 
 ceive and disburse all funds in accordance with drafts 
 drawn on him by the committee appointed to receive 
 the evidences of the destruction of all such animals, 
 and that he report the state of the treasury by posting 
 up public notices once every three months in the 
 vicinity of each of the committee. 
 
 3. That a standing committee of eight be appointed 
 whose duty it shall be, together with the treasurer, to 
 receive the proofs of the evidences of the animals for 
 which bounties are claimed having been killed in 
 the Willamette valley. 
 
 4. That a bounty of fifty cents be paid for the de- 
 struction of a small wolf; three dollars for a large 
 wolf ; one dollar and fifty cents for a lynx ; two dol- 
 lars for a bear and five dollars for a panther. 
 
 5. That no bounty be paid unless the individual 
 claiming such bounty gives satisfactory evidence, or 
 by presenting the skin of the head, with the ears, of 
 all animals for which he claims a bounty. 
 
 6. That the committee and treasurer form a board 
 of advice to call public meetings when deemed neces- 
 sary to promote and encourage all persons to use their 
 vigilance in destroying all the animals named in the 
 fourth resolution. 
 
 7. That the bounties named in the fourth resolu- 
 tion be confined to whites and their descendants. 
 
 On motion, it was 
 
 Resolved, That no one receive a bounty (except 
 Indians) unless he pay a subscription of five dollars. 
 
 It was moved and seconded that the Indians receive 
 one-half as much as the whites. 
 
 It was moved and seconded that all claims for 
 bounties be presented within ten days from the time 
 of becoming entitled to such bounties, and if there 
 should be any doubt, the individual claiming such 
 bounty shall give his oath as to the various circum- 
 stances. 
 
 In the meantime, however, it was becoming apparent to 
 
1 66 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 the settlers that the protection of their own rights — and 
 lives — as well as their herds, could not be longer safely 
 postponed, and as the result of this growing conviction, 
 the committee of twelve, which had been authorized to 
 call meetings relative to the protection of the herds 
 against the marauding panthers and wolves, issued a 
 call for another meeting to be held at Champoeg on May 
 2, in the following year (1843), to "consider the pro- 
 priety of taking measures for the civil and military pro- 
 tection of the colony." 
 
 This was, indeed, a bold step; literally "coming out 
 from under cover," for it was well understood that any 
 attempt to organize any kind of government would meet 
 with the bitter hostility of the Hudson Bay Company, 
 whose control of the country for thirty years had been 
 undisputed. 
 
 But changing conditions were pressing for action. 
 Civilization was calling for recognition, and men and 
 women who were accustomed to law and order were not 
 to be balked in their purposes. There was a deep dissatis- 
 faction with the unsettled conditions which manifested 
 itself constantly, and in the light of ensuing events, 
 which followed one another in rapid succession, there 
 is no difficulty in understanding the impossibility of 
 stilling the demand for the installation of a dependable 
 government. 
 
 During all these manifestations of an unmistakable 
 drift toward an emancipation from existing conditions 
 there was one man who was placed in a very awkward 
 and unenviable situation — Dr. John McLoughlin, Chief 
 Factor of the Hudson Bay Company and absolute Gov- 
 ernor of the Northwest Territory. Indeed, he was 
 virtually its dictator, and had been for thirty years. The 
 London stockholders of the company had given him a 
 free rein and all the report they cared for was that which 
 yielded enormous quantities of furs. 
 
 But, fortunately for the early American immigrants, the 
 Doctor, himself a giant physically, was as big of heart as 
 of stature. In the situation by which he was confronted 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 167 
 
 his s)TTipathies outran his subserviency to the company 
 which was paying him a princely salary, and when he 
 saw an American immigrant and his family in need of 
 either food or clothing, he contributed liberally from his 
 stores. He thus indirectly aided in the colonization of 
 the Oregon Country by the Americans, which meant the 
 ruin of his own business, the extent and value of which 
 can never be properly estimated. For this he was never 
 reimbursed in any sense of the word. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 The necessity for a government of some character 
 among the early Oregon pioneers, which had been taking 
 form by degrees ever since the arrival of the "Great 
 Reenforcement" to the Methodist missionaries in 1840, 
 was emphasized the next year by the death of Ewing 
 Young, who came here with Hall J. Kelley, already 
 mentioned in these pages, in the fall of 1834. Young's 
 death was, in reality, the special event which stimulated 
 the settlers to speedy action, since he was a man of 
 considerable means, of no family (as was supposed), 
 and the condition was presented to the settlers of a 
 valuable estate without an owner or any one possessing 
 legal claim to any part of it. It was a very awkward 
 condition, since his property consisted of many horses 
 and cattle as well as desirable land. No person had any 
 right to move in the matter ; there was no law to govern 
 the situation, and yet some action must be taken. 
 
 Ewing Young, who occupied so prominent a position in 
 our early history, principally, and singularly enough, by 
 reason of his death, was born in Knox County, Tennessee, 
 but the year of his birth seems not to be known. When a 
 comparatively young man, however, he was in California. 
 He left the Spanish settlement there in the summer of 
 1834 for Oregon, bringing with him a large number of 
 Spanish horses — mostly mares. He had heard of the 
 wonderful fertility of the land here and the boundless 
 range the country afforded for grazing. He settled on 
 the west bank of the Willamette River, opposite Cham- 
 poeg, about twenty miles south of Portland. There he 
 built the first house ever erected on the west side of 
 the river. 
 
 The difficulty with which he was confronted soon 
 after his arrival, in the form of a notification sent to 
 Dr. McLoughlin by the Spanish Governor of California 
 
 168 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 169 
 
 that Young and Kelley had stolen a large part of their 
 horses, has already been mentioned, and the fact ex- 
 plained that the report had no truthful foundation. Sub- 
 sequently the CaHfornia Governor acknowledged his 
 error and duly apologized for it. 
 
 In the spring of 1836 Young, concluding that there 
 was more money to be made in the distillery business 
 than in the slow process of raising and selling Spanish 
 horses, began preparations for the manufacture of 
 whiskey. Upon hearing of his intention Dr. McLough- 
 lin, in a personal interview, explained to him that the 
 introduction of the manufacture of whiskey would injure, 
 and perhaps ruin, the farming industry, then just be- 
 ginning to develop, and asked that he should embark 
 in some other business. The request was granted. 
 Young began, instead, the erection of a grist- and planing- 
 mill, but was soon induced to return to California for a 
 herd of cattle. These he brought back with him in the 
 summer of 1838 and settled down to become a stock- 
 raiser. In connection with this business he erected his 
 mill on the Chehalem creek, near where it empties into 
 the Willamette River, which he conducted until the 
 winter of 1 840-1, when it was carried away by high 
 water. It was not long after this that he was taken 
 sick with a pressure on the brain and died a somewhat 
 violent death at his home. 
 
 The death of Young, as has been stated, was the real 
 origin of the movement which culminated in the Cham- 
 poeg meeting. .Soon after his funeral the settlers began 
 discussing the matter, which was not finally disposed 
 of imtil several years afterward. His property finally 
 went to the territorial government, but it required much 
 time and encountered a considerable opposition. 
 
 On December 11, 1845, Mr. Garrison presented a 
 petition to the provisional Legislature "from Daniel 
 Waldo and Thomas Jeffries in relation to the estate of 
 Ewing Young," nearly five years after his death. Refer- 
 ence is made to the same matter in the Oregon archives 
 December 17, 1845, December 4, 1846, and again De- 
 
I70 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 cember 8. It was finally disposed of by an act passed 
 on December 24, 1844 (?). Its interest consists in its 
 value as an illustration of the primitive conditions which 
 prevailed among those who were striving amid the most 
 adverse circumstances to found a State. The act reads 
 as follows: 
 
 Section i. Be it enacted by the Legislative Com- 
 mittee of Oregon that the executive power shall ap- 
 point an administrator to close up the estate of Ewing 
 Young, deceased, and such administrator shall pro- 
 ceed as soon as possible to wind up the business of 
 the estate. 
 
 Sec. 2. That the executive power shall cause to 
 be let out to the lowest bidder the building of a sub- 
 stantial log jail at Oregon City, to be finished at such 
 time and manner as they may think proper, and shall 
 take such bond and security as they shall deem suffi- 
 cient to secure its completion. 
 
 Sec. 3. That said administrator shall pay all moneys 
 collected by him belonging to the estate of the said 
 Ewing Young, deceased, to the treasurer of Oregon, 
 whose duty it shall be to give the said administrator 
 a receipt for the same. 
 
 Sec. 4. That the sum of one thousand five hundred 
 dollars is hereby appropriated for the building of said 
 jail, to be paid out of the first moneys received by 
 the said administrator of said estate, and in the event 
 there is not so much received, then the balance to be 
 paid out of any money in the treasury not otherwise 
 appropriated. 
 
 Sec. 5. That the faith of this government is hereby 
 pledged for the payment of all moneys hereafter re- 
 ceived from the administrator of the estate of said 
 Young, whenever the same shall be lawfully claimed, 
 and said claim established by the heirs or creditors of 
 said Young. 
 
 Sec. 6. That the executive power shall be author- 
 ized to receive a lot donated by John McLoughlin for 
 the purpose of erecting said jail, which lot shall be 
 conveyed to Oregon agreeably to a communication 
 received from John McLoughlin addressed to a com- 
 mittee of this House appointed to wait on him. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 171 
 
 Sec. 7. That said jail shall be used alike for the 
 imprisonment of all criminals in Oregon. 
 Passed December 24, 1844. 
 
 (Signed) M. M. McCarver, 
 Speaker. 
 
 The reader will, of course, at once detect the con- 
 tradictory dates in the foregoing account of the set- 
 tlement of Ewing Young's estate, but they are found in 
 the archives as printed here and it is impossible to arrive 
 at a definite conclusion as to their accuracy. It is a fact 
 well established, however, that the property of Young 
 had been sold and the proceeds loaned to diflferent in- 
 dividuals when the "executive power" decided to call 
 them in and invest them in a jail that would accom- 
 modate "all the criminals in Oregon." It might be 
 added here, sub rosa, that the inadequacy of such a jail 
 now for such a purpose clearly indicates the phenomenal 
 growth of the population of the Oregon Country since 
 that far-away time when the log structure at Oregon 
 City answered the purpose of incarcerating all the male- 
 factors between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific 
 Ocean — maybe. 
 
 One authority avers that the jail was built, as pro- 
 vided, and was burned to the ground some years after- 
 ward. By putting two and two together it may be 
 inferred that the fire occurred soon after its completion, 
 for it is recorded in the archives that on December 13, 
 three years later, "Mr. Nesmith, from the committee on 
 judiciary, to whom was referred that portion of the 
 Governor's message relating to the erection of a jail, 
 reported that it was deemed inexpedient in the present 
 embarrassed condition of finance to incur the expense 
 of a jail." 
 
 The inference is, of course, or at least one justifiable 
 inference is, that the salutary eflfect of the log jail during 
 its brief existence had been sufficient to disperse "all the 
 criminals in Oregon," and that since there was no other 
 estate unclaimed and available to be used for the erec- 
 
172 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 tion of another one thousand five hundred dollar jail, the 
 young Territory — as yet belonging to nobody — could 
 proceed along its way very well without one. Blessed 
 condition ! 
 
 Although the value of the estate of Mr. Young was 
 collected into the treasury, it was never regarded as the 
 absolute property of the Territory. In the territorial 
 liabilities twenty-six hundred and fifteen dollars is given 
 as "collected from the estate of Ewing Young." In 
 after years, when Oregon had been admitted into the 
 Union, the value of his property was refunded to his 
 son, Joaquin Young, who appeared and established his 
 claim to the satisfaction of the authorities. Ewing 
 Young, it seemed, had contracted a marriage with an 
 Indian woman, in New Mexico, before going to Cali- 
 fornia, the issue of which marriage was Joaquin, a 
 personage who would have never been known in the 
 history of Oregon if his father had died in the poor- 
 house — provided there had been one in Oregon. 
 
 When Ewing Young first came to Oregon he was of 
 the opinion that the land would be disposed of in large 
 grants, as in California. In accordance with this im- 
 pression, he made claim to practically all of the Chehalem 
 valley and was its nominal owner, without opposition, 
 at the time of his death. 
 
 In 1845 there came to the valley a man named 
 Sydney Smith, a grandnephew of Ethan Allen, of Ticon- 
 deroga fame, who secured employment on his farm. 
 Young was said to be a hard man to get along with, 
 but Smith appeared to understand him sufficiently well 
 to smooth over the rough places and they were great 
 friends at the time of Young's death. Smith was born 
 in New York State in 1809 and came to Oregon with a 
 score of other young men, making the entire trip on 
 horseback. Upon Young's death and the settlement of 
 his estate, Sydney Smith purchased as much of the land 
 as he could lawfully hold, including the houses and other 
 improvements. He was then thirty-two years old and 
 single. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 173 
 
 In 1845 there also came to the Chehalem valley a man 
 named Daniel Bailey, from Missouri. He had a family 
 consisting of his wife and several children, and hearing 
 that a bachelor named Smith had a house not far away, 
 he immediatel) went to see him with the hope that he 
 would like to take a family in for the winter, for he had 
 no place to go. Fortunately, the proposition met with 
 Smith's approval, and the family moved in. 
 
 It may seem somewhat singular that 'way out here 
 on this coast, so long ago as 1846, such things could 
 happen, but it turned out that Bailey's second daughter, 
 Miranda, looked good to Smith, and by Christmas time 
 she began to suspect that such was his impression. In 
 a few months more this suspicion proved to be well 
 grounded. 
 
 So, one day in April — one Sunday, when the sun was 
 shining gloriously and the meadow-larks, as if rejoicing 
 at the turn things had taken, were making the air vibrant 
 with their silver melody, Sydney Smith and Miranda 
 Bailey were taking a stroll through the adjacent woods, 
 talking, it may be supposed, of little nothings and of 
 nothing in particular. As they walked along they 
 noticed an acorn which, after spending the winter under 
 a covering of leaves, had sent out a small sprout in 
 search of a footing. Sydney carried the incipient oak in 
 his hand until, as it happened, they came to the grave of 
 Ewing Young, still covered with the low, square pen 
 made of rails, which was placed there on the day of his 
 funeral, five years previous. 
 
 On one of the top rails of this pen the young couple 
 sat down to discuss such topics as were uppermost in 
 their minds. Presently Smith suggested that they plant 
 the acorn on the grave and watch for results. Accord- 
 ingly he made a small hole in the dirt, Miranda placed 
 the sprout in it and covered it with the toe of her shoe. 
 They went home that day by a circuitous route, and before 
 they arrived an agreement had been entered into that 
 there should be a wedding in the immediate vicinity 
 
174 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 sometime during the year — and they knew who the con-' 
 tracting parties were to be. 
 
 So, on the seventh day of the following August Sydney 
 Smith and Miranda Bailey were married and lived all 
 their lives on the farm which he obtained from Ewing 
 Young. During the summer of '46 several visits were 
 made to the grave of Ewing Young to observe the 
 growth of that acorn. It had, in fact, developed into an 
 oak plant and reached the height of one foot in that 
 season. It prospered without interruption in the years 
 that came afterward and is to-day, at the age of sixty- 
 five years, a sturdy tree forty feet in height, thirty inches 
 in diameter. Standing, as it does, on the grave of Ewing 
 Young, it constitutes the only monument to the memory 
 of a man whose singular career had so much to do with 
 the early history of Oregon. 
 
 Sydney Smith was one of the fifty-two Americans who 
 carried the day at Champoeg on May 2, 1843, and his 
 name is carved on the marble shaft which has been 
 erected there. He died on his farm on September 18, 
 1880. Mrs. Smith is still living, a remarkably bright 
 woman past eighty years of age, and is the owner of the 
 old farm in the Chehalem vallev. Her oldest daughter, 
 Irene, is the wife of Dr. J. F. Calbreath, superintendent 
 for eight years of the Oregon Hospital for the Insane, 
 now a prominent physician of Portland. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 A pretty place is Champoeg, Marion County, Oregon. 
 It is located on the east bank of the Willamette River, 
 about thirty miles above Portland, or rather the spot is 
 where Champoeg was in 1843 ^.nd where it continued to 
 be until it was washed away in the great flood in the 
 Willamette River in December, 1861. The magnificent 
 French Prairie, which begins a few miles north of Salem, 
 some twenty miles away, narrows in an irregular way 
 as one travels toward the north until, as the Willamette 
 is approached, the timber closes in occasionally only to 
 give away again for a smaller opening of fertile land. 
 Champoeg was located where the last of these small 
 prairies touches the river, where the bank is at least forty 
 feet above the water when at its average stage. 
 
 For the reason that the Indians who inhabited the 
 Willamette valley naturally followed the open land as 
 they journeyed to the river on their annual and other 
 fishing trips, they made their Great Camp at the point 
 where this route led them. It was for this reason that 
 the Hudson Bay Company established a trading post at 
 that point in the spring of 1843. Prior to that time, 
 however, it had built a small warehouse there for the 
 purpose of receiving wheat, which was raised in small 
 quantities on the French Prairie. Dr. McLoughlin had 
 discovered that the Russian traders toward the north 
 were fond of wheat and were quite willing to give furs 
 in exchange for it. The Doctor, being certain that wheat 
 would grow to great perfection in the Willamette valley, 
 as early as 1836 had induced Joseph Gervais to locate on 
 the French Prairie and engage in that business. Others 
 in a small way followed his example and a warehouse 
 was erected at Champoeg — "The Place of the Camp" — 
 to receive the new product, which was transported to 
 
 175 
 
176 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Vancouver and to Oregon City for the purpose of 
 exchange. 
 
 F. X. Matthieu, who came to the French Prairie in 
 September, 1842, and who is still living, assisted by 
 another Frenchman, built an addition to this warehouse 
 in the early spring of, 1843, in which Dr. McLoughlin 
 placed a small stock of goods. His company was thus 
 enabled' to take advantage of the disposition of the 
 Indians to barter furs for bright colored articles of 
 apparel. After that, Mr. and Mrs. No-Shirt, coming 
 from the vicinity of Salem or Scio, could return home 
 arrayed in all the hues of the rainbow and excite the 
 envy, if not the admiration, of their copper-colored 
 fellows in all the region 'round about. 
 
 As the early settlers in the Willamette valley by com- 
 mon consent regarded Champoeg as the most centrally 
 located point for their occasional meetings, naturally it 
 was chosen as the place where they should assemble to 
 decide the momentous question whether or not an 
 attempt should be made to effect a civil organization. 
 It was, indeed, a day and an occasion fraught with 
 wonderful consequences, as we look backward and con- 
 sider the situation and the courage of the men who were 
 directly behind it. 
 
 At the appointed hour one hundred and two men had 
 assembled at Champoeg — May 2, 1843 — in accordance 
 with the call of the Committee of Twelve. As may be 
 supposed, the atmosphere was charged with apprehension, 
 uncertainty and a decided, though somewhat suppressed, 
 feeling of bitterness ; for the Hudson Bay men had come 
 in force to vote against any sort of an organization. 
 The Americans, on their part, had summoned every man 
 from California to British Columbia! And, all told, 
 there were one hundred and two men there to engage in 
 a contest which probably would decide — and which 
 actually did decide — whether a country half as large as 
 the best portion of Europe should ultimately belong to 
 the United States or to Great Britain. 
 
 It was a great day for millions yet unborn. The 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 177 
 
 importance of it was fully appreciated by the Americans, 
 for they were striving in the interest of the nation they 
 loved, and while it must be admitted that their opponents 
 were equally in earnest, their underlying motive was 
 merely a desire to keep the country in the condition most 
 favorable for the business of trapping. 
 
 The various records of that great meeting at Cham- 
 poeg do not give its details. The records merely recite 
 the results, together with the manner of taking the vote. 
 F. X. Matthieu is now the only survivor of that gather- 
 ing: singularly enough, it was his action and influence 
 alone which decided the vote in favor of the Ameri- 
 cans. Many times I have visited the old patriarch at his 
 home on his magnificent farm, located near Champoeg, 
 and listened with increasing interest to his narration of 
 that incident and many others of surpassing historical 
 value. 
 
 The fact is, many more people participated in the 
 meeting than its promoters dared hope. Some men were 
 compelled to travel more than a hundred miles on horse- 
 back or on foot, and though the meeting had been ex- 
 tensively advertised, and the interest was unbounded, 
 it was not thought that even a hundred people would 
 undertake the difficult journey. Mr. Matthieu says, how- 
 ever, it was hardly possible after adjournment to recall 
 the name of an American settler who had neglected to 
 respond to the call of duty on that day. 
 
 The meeting was called to order and Dr. I. L. Bab- 
 cock chosen as presiding officer. Three secretaries were 
 selected, Gray, Willson and LeBreton. Amid suppressed 
 excitement, and some threats from both sides as to what 
 would be the result if so and so should happen, the Com- 
 mittee of Twelve submitted a plan for the organization 
 of a government which included a supreme judge, with 
 probate powers, a clerk of his court who should be a 
 recorder also, a sheriff, three magistrates, three con- 
 stables, a treasurer, a major and three captains. It also 
 provided for "the appointment of nine persons who 
 
178 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 should draft a code of laws to be submitted to a public 
 meeting to be held at Champoeg on July 5, next." , 
 
 After the report was read, or, in other words, after 
 the red flag had been waved in the face of the English 
 lion, the storm burst with great fury and all forms of 
 parliamentary procedure were abandoned. One man 
 got the floor and began "a few remarks," but soon dis- 
 covered that there were several groups in the room en- 
 gaged in a warm discussion "on the side." The noise, 
 and the confusion which it necessarily precipitated, soon 
 rendered the chairman powerless to preserve order or 
 further direct the meeting. At this juncture he put the 
 question on the motion to accept, which was about to be 
 declared lost, when LeBreton demanded a division. 
 This was seconded by William H. Gray, and as the room 
 was too small to hold so large a gathering — a part of the 
 men never having been able to get inside the door — 
 everybody rushed for the outside, where it seemed for 
 a moment that all would end in a dispersion without 
 further results. Excited men were standing in groups 
 gesticulating frantically, after the manner of French- 
 men, and talking vociferously in English and French, 
 with a suggestion here and there of Spanish. LeBreton's 
 motion was still "in the air," when that bold mountaineer 
 and trapper — he of giant frame and courage unquestioned, 
 Jo Meek — seeing the drift of things and the danger 
 which confronted the Americans of losing all, suddenly 
 shouted, "Who's for a divide ? All in favor of organiza- 
 tion follow me !" 
 
 The effect of Meek's impetuosity and characteristic 
 "go," acted like magic upon the partially disconcerted 
 and puzzled Americans. At once he strode to one side 
 of the little prairie, the dimensions of which were a 
 half -acre, and the Americans followed him to a man. 
 Those opposed to organization remained in a group. 
 A count disclosed the fact that there were fifty men with 
 Meek and fifty opposed, with two men half-way between 
 the opposing forces, not yet taking sides and engaged in 
 
FIFTY YEARS ;IN OREGON 179 
 
 a very earnest conversation. These men were F. X. 
 Matthieu and Etienne Lucier — both Frenchmen. 
 
 The suspense lasted but a few moments, however, for 
 the two belated debators suddenly turned and took their 
 places with the Americans, who, having already "taken 
 the count," knew the result. With hats flying in the air 
 and handshaking going on with the utmost enthusiasm, 
 they took possession of the "meeting," while the defeated 
 participants mounted their horses and rode away. 
 
 It was a small contest, comparatively, waged three 
 thousand miles and more from the capital of the United 
 States by fifty-two men who were Americans either by 
 birth or in sentiment, but in that hour a question was 
 decided which without doubt resulted in the final acqui- 
 sition of all the Northwest territory by our beloved 
 Uncle Sam. Benton, Linn and their associates did valiant 
 work for many years in behalf of this very consumma- 
 tion, but the most important link in the great chain which 
 finally bound this country to the United States was 
 welded on that day at Champoeg by that little band of 
 determined and patriotic men. Chief among these — shall 
 it not be said ? — were Meek, Matthieu and Lucier. And 
 the chief of this triumvirate was Matthieu, who, it was 
 discovered immediately after the meeting was adjourned, 
 had been in favor of an organization all the time; but 
 finding Lucier undecided, and about to follow his fellow 
 Frenchmen against the Americans, Matthieu arrested 
 him en route to their camp and persuaded him to ac- 
 company him. It was, indeed, what would be called 
 in modern slang "a close shave." Etienne Lucier at that 
 time had a farm on French Prairie, but had previously 
 been employed by the Hudson Bay Company. He had 
 a home and family and Matthieu, not yet married, was 
 living with him. The influence of the latter was sufficient 
 to secure his support and the day was carried. 
 
 The meeting at once proceeded to elect officers in ac- 
 cordance with the plan adopted and chose A. E. Wilson, 
 supreme judge; George W. LeBreton, clerk, and Joseph 
 L. Meek, sheriff. The first Legislative Committee was 
 
i8o FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 composed of Robert Shortess, David Hill, Alanson Beers, 
 William H. Gray, Thomas J. Hubbard, James O'Neil, 
 Robert Moore, Robert Newell and William Doughty. 
 Before adjournment a resolution of instruction to the 
 Legislative Committee was passed which read as follows : 
 
 The sessions of the said Legislative Committee shall 
 not last longer than six days ; no tax shall be levied ; 
 the office of Governor shall not be created ; the com- 
 pensation of the members of the Legislative Committe 
 shall be one dollar and twenty-five cents per day and 
 the revenues of the territory shall be secured by vol- 
 untary contribution. 
 
 Oh, for another condition like that ! — where there shall 
 be no taxes levied, no revenues except voluntary contri- 
 butions, legislators serving for a dollar and a quarter a 
 day and — no Governors ! 
 
 The first meeting of the Legislative Committee, the first 
 of its kind, or of any kind, west of the Rocky Mountains 
 in any part of the territory now constituting the United 
 States, was held at the Methodist Mission ten miles below 
 Salem. The building used was known as the "Granary," 
 a story-and-a-half building, sixteen by thirty feet, with a 
 square room in front. After having been successively 
 used for a school and church and finally turned into a 
 granary by the missionaries, it now became the Capitol 
 of the "Oregon Country" about whose acquisition states- 
 men of national renown had wrangled with varying 
 degrees of eloquence for more than twenty years. 
 
 The members appear to have appreciated the impor- 
 tance of the step they were taking and were as frugal in 
 their disbursements as the "proletariat" could have 
 wished. Alanson Beers and Dr. Babcock contributed 
 enough to the public treasury to defray the entire expense 
 of the first session and each of the members gave a sum 
 equal to the amount of his pay. This session convened 
 May 6 and adjourned four days later to re-convene June 
 27, which latter session was completed June 28. 
 
 The chief work of these two sessions was the prepara- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON i8i 
 
 tion of an organic law which was submitted to the people 
 at a mass-meeting held at Champoeg July 5 and ratified 
 practically without opposition, the only note of discord 
 arising from the proposition to create the office of Gov- 
 ernor, in violation of the instructions of the meeting of 
 May 2. Rev. Gustavus Hines, who presided, made a 
 vigorous speech against the report in this particular, de- 
 nouncing it as "the proposed triple executive, a hydra- 
 headed monster — a repetition of the Roman Trium- 
 virate." But the office was created as a sort of trinity, a 
 three-in-one Governor, whose responsibility could not be 
 definitely fixed. 
 
 Accordingly, Alanson Beers, Joseph Gale and David 
 Hill were chosen as the Executive Committee to serve 
 until a general election should be held in May, 1844. 
 
 In talking with F. X. Matthieu not long ago about that 
 Champoeg meeting, prompted by curiosity, I asked him 
 what kind of weather it was on that day. After thinking 
 a moment, he said the sun was shining, he believed, as he 
 remembered that the men were there in their shirt sleeves. 
 But, he added, that fact would not necessarily indicate the 
 kind of weather which was prevailing, since few of the 
 men had any coats to wear, anyway ! 
 
 His friend Lucier had been made to believe by his 
 fellow Frenchmen that if a government was organized 
 the few things they possessed would be so heavily taxed 
 that it would be ruinous. Lucier had been told that if 
 the Americans carried the day the tax on a single win- 
 dow-glass would be twenty-five cents, and Matthieu was 
 laboring with him to disprove such an absurdity while 
 the fifty impatient Americans were waiting to see where 
 they would take their places. 
 
 "Besides," said Matthieu to him, "you know you have 
 no window-glass in your house anyway, and won't, per- 
 haps, for a long time. What difference will that make ? 
 It isn't so, anyway." So Lucier went with him, and 
 Oregon was "saved." 
 
 Matthieu, who was then living with Lucier, says his 
 only windows consisted of openings in the logs, which 
 
i8-2 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 were covered with panther skins, carefully scraped so 
 thin that they served the purpose very well. 
 
 "But you couldn't see out," I suggested to Mr. Mat- 
 thieu. 
 
 "No," he replied quickly, "but nobody could look in, 
 either!" 
 
 At intervals, for many years after Mr. Matthieu set- 
 tled on his splendid farm on French Prairie, he shot 
 deer from his front porch, but a few hundred yards 
 from where the electric cars running from Portland to 
 Salem now pass every hour at the rate of forty miles 
 an hour! 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 About the middle of December, 1899, the Oregon 
 State Historical Society held its annual meeting in Port- 
 land and in the course of its proceedings passed a reso- 
 lution deciding to appoint several committees of one 
 each to locate exactly the different points of interest con- 
 nected with the early history of the commonwealth — 
 such as the precise spot where Lewis and Clark wintered 
 near the mouth of the Columbia (Astoria) during their 
 great exploration nearly a hundred years before, the 
 spot where the Astor Fort was erected, and the par- 
 ticular place where the famous Champoeg meeting was 
 held in May, 1843. This latter duty was assigned to me, 
 since I was a native of Marion County and had spent 
 most of my life there. 
 
 Accordingly, on the morning of May i, 1900, I 
 mounted my bicycle — bicycle riding was a very popular 
 fad at that time — and proceeded toward Champoeg, 
 some thirty miles away. I had previously made an 
 appointment with Hon. F. X. Matthieu, who lived but 
 three miles from Champoeg and who even then was the 
 only man living who had participated in that meeting 
 in '43. The arrangement was for me to go to his home, 
 remain overnight, and in the morning, on the anniver- 
 sary of the day the event took place, go over with him 
 to the quiet little town and mark the spot where history 
 was made by a lot of earnest men. Hon. George H. 
 Himes, the secretary of the Oregon Historical Society, 
 had also promised to be present. 
 
 I shall never forget that beautiful ride from Salem 
 to Champoeg. It was a perfect day, with a firm north 
 breeze, not a cloud in the sky; the roads were in good 
 condition, the crops were growing splendidly, birds were 
 singing everywhere, seemingly to be in harmony with 
 
 1S3 
 
1 84 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Nature's glad mood — it was, in short, just that sort of a 
 day which is known in all its wealth of joy, beauty, and 
 inspiration only in the Willamette valley in the spring 
 and summer months. 
 
 I passed through the town of Gervais, where Joseph 
 Gervais settled in the early '30's. At his home one 
 of the meetings was held preliminary to the actual 
 organization at Champoeg. The little city rests upon 
 the bosom of the great French Prairie, now teeming 
 with prosperous farmers whose land is worth more per 
 acre now than a section was in the time of Gervais, and 
 the main street is where the old barnyard was located 
 in the days of Jason Lee. 
 
 Woodburn, the "metropolis of French Prairie," rail- 
 road junction and all-round pushing town, twenty miles 
 away, was passed in the early forenoon, and Hubbard, 
 four miles farther on, soon afterward. At this place a 
 detour to the west was necessary to strike the old "Cham- 
 poeg road" on which Father Matthieu lived. 
 
 Upon arriving at the celebrated old homestead I found 
 that Himes, with a Portland photographer, was already 
 there, but Mr. Matthieu was in Portland on business and 
 had, in fact, forgotten his appointment with us. A long- 
 distance telephone was brought into action and he replied 
 that he would take the evening train for home. A team 
 was sent to Aurora, the nearest station, and he arrived 
 in time for supper. 
 
 To while away the afternoon, Himes and I took a 
 long walk through the old woods, which encroach well 
 upon the house on the west — a grove of tall firs which 
 even to-day preserve much of their original beauty, and 
 which are full of unspoken reminiscences reaching back 
 to the days when Jo Meek, "Bob" Newell, Abernethy 
 and their confreres passed through them clad in buck- 
 skin, following Indian trails. 
 
 Upon our return to the barnyard Himes proposed 
 that we engage in a game of "horseshoes," the raw 
 material for the process hanging on a long peg on the 
 wall of the oats bin. This was agreed to, with the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON i8 
 
 
 
 declaration on the part of each that he hadn't pitched a 
 horseshoe for more than twenty years ; but I soon after- 
 ward had reason to suspect that the versatile secretary 
 of the Oregon Historical Society had forgotten his dates, 
 and that a careful inspection of his premises at home 
 would disclose a fully-equipped, up-to-date outfit for the 
 game of quoits not to be surpassed at any cross-roads 
 blacksmith's shop in the entire State ! In fact, the game 
 was so outrageously one-sided that, after a two-hours' 
 siege, I called the contest ( ?) off and adjourned to the 
 house, where I discovered that the beautiful lawn in 
 front of the pioneer's home needed some attention. I 
 intimated as much to the women folk, who were enjoy- 
 ing the ideal afternoon on the broad front porch, from 
 which one of the best views of Mt. Hood to be found 
 anywhere in western Oregon is afforded. I was at once 
 informed that a very good lawn-mower was in the 
 woodshed! Game to the last, I expressed my undying 
 fondness for pushing a lawn-mower — that in fact it 
 was one of my particular pleasures in life ; and to prove 
 rriy sincerity, I mowed something like a half-acre of 
 heavy blue-grass during the next hour and a half, much 
 to the enjoyment of the demon Himes, who thought he 
 saw an expression of regret on my face that I had been so 
 needlessly gallant. 
 
 But Himes was mistaken. I am very fond of run- 
 ning a lawn-mower, and compared with it, as a pleasant 
 pastime, pitching horseshoes is a dull, profitless, thank- 
 less, uninspiring and altogether foolish way of spending 
 one's time! Anybody can pitch horseshoes, but it takes 
 a positive genius to push a lawn-mower successfully — 
 and look pleasant about it. 
 
 The next morning Mr. Matthieu, Mr. Himes, the 
 photographer and I climbed into the carriage of our 
 host and drove over to Champoeg along the road that 
 had been familiar to Matthieu for all the sixty preceding 
 years. As has been stated before, for many years after 
 the pioneers met at Champoeg the town remained on the 
 banks of the Willamette River and was quite a shipping 
 
1 86 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 point for all French Prairie, but it was completely 
 washed away in December, 1861, after which it was 
 rebuilt a half-mile back from the river on a bench, 
 though the warehouse for the receipt of freight was 
 replaced. With the advent of the railroad in 1870, how- 
 ever, this was abandoned, and now boats seldom touch 
 at the historic old landing save for a passenger bound 
 for some down-river point. 
 
 Arriving at the river's bank, it was a poem and song 
 combined to see Mr. Matthieu as he stood taking in the 
 situation, the grounds and directions. The point where 
 the meeting was held had changed but little in the inter- 
 vening time. It was then a small prairie, some fifty 
 yards across, and had remained so, save that here and 
 there was an oak "grub" which had managed to escape 
 the interference of the settler's axe or the successful 
 tramp of wandering stock. To our host who had not 
 visited the spot for several years, the association ap- 
 peared to recall the "days of auld lang syne." He was 
 standing on the very spot where John McLoughlin had 
 come in the early days to locate another trading post — 
 McLoughlin who for thirty years was the Governor and 
 dictator of all the Northwestern territory; Jo Meek had 
 stalked across this little glade with all the impetuosity 
 of a Roosevelt and in a dramatic manner had decided 
 the fate of an empire; Lucier, the old friend of Mat- 
 thieu, had here stood irresolute, puzzled as he listened to 
 the call of his countrymen and his former associations 
 on the one side, and to the admonitions of a new duty 
 and the appeals of his strong-minded young friend on 
 the other — and these, with all the other fifty-one men, 
 had long years before passed through the Valley of 
 Death! 
 
 For several minutes the old hero neither spoke nor 
 gave answer to our questions ; he seemed utterly indif- 
 ferent to his surroundings. He was living in another 
 age — a former generation which had passed away was 
 receiving his attention and he was listening to other 
 voices. It was a moment when neither Himes nor I 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 187 
 
 felt disposed to talk. We let the old gentleman com- 
 plete his communion, knowing well that we formed no 
 part of the audience which was the background of the 
 picture created by Matthieu out of the boundless field 
 of memory. 
 
 Finally, turning around, he cast his eyes across the 
 river and looked admiringly at the beautiful hills, just 
 beyond which many of the first settlers had located and 
 over which they had ridden on horseback to attend the 
 meeting of May 2, 1843. By degrees he came to him- 
 self, and turning to us said: 
 
 "Pretty place, isn't it?" 
 
 Glad that he had completed his reverie, I asked him 
 where the meeting was held — the exact spot. He quickly 
 replied : 
 
 "Well, sir, it was held all around here. We didn't 
 hold it in a house where everybody had a chair and a 
 desk. We began it in a little room which the clerk of 
 the store had, but it was too small, so we went outdoors 
 and had it pretty much all over this prairie. But the 
 storehouse was about there" — pointing — "and Jo Meek 
 walked about there" — pointing again — "and we lined 
 up with him all around here" — stepping away a few feet. 
 "Why, sir, I can see him now, and almost hear him ap. he 
 said : 'Who's in favor of a divide — follow me !' " Mr. 
 Matthieu added that there could be no mistake what- 
 ever about the location being correct, for it was one that 
 time would not change; and, besides, he had seen it 
 every year or so since 1843 — sometimes oftener. 
 
 At the time of our visit there was a small shack on 
 almost the precise spot where the Hudson Bay Company's 
 old store stood, occupied by the family of a man who 
 was engaged in butchering cattle for the supply of the 
 surrounding country. Of the woman in charge I bor- 
 rowed an ax. With this I felled an oak tree about six 
 inches in diameter and, with four feet of its body, made 
 a stake. I then asked Mr. Matthieu to locate as best he 
 could the exact spot where Meek stood during that excit- 
 ing hour. After surveying the field for a minute, he 
 
1 88 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 said: "Well, drive it here." So, while I held it in an 
 upright position for him, Mr. Matthieu took the ax and 
 struck the first blow. After we had all taken our turn 
 at it, the stake was firmly driven where the monument 
 now stands. 
 
 The photographer took several pictures of the location 
 and surrounding country, one of which, representing 
 Himes, Matthieu and myself sitting on a point over- 
 looking the river, will be found in these pages. 
 
 In the following January the Legislature appropriated 
 a substantial sum for the purpose of erecting a granite 
 shaft at Champoeg to mark the historic spot, and it was 
 put in place in April. It has engraved on the four sides 
 the names of the fifty-two men who voted for organiza- 
 tion, together with a brief description of the great event 
 it commemorates. It was dedicated on the second day 
 of the following May, by appropriate exercises, in the 
 presence of two thousand people, among whom were 
 numbered many prominent men and women from all 
 parts of the State. Addresses were made by Hon. H. W. 
 Scott, editor of the Morning Oregonian, Hon. John 
 Minto, and several others who had assisted in the claim- 
 ing of the Oregon Country. 
 
 Each recurring May 2 since 1901 large assemblages 
 have gathered in an old-fashioned picnic style to listen 
 to the interesting story rehearsed by the old pioneers, 
 who greatly enjoy the reunions. 
 
2 ^• 
 
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CHAPTER XXV 
 
 From many points of view Francis Xavier Matthieu 
 is one of the most remarkable men now living in Oregon. 
 Although April 2 of this year he reached the great age 
 of ninety- three years, his mental powers are still entirely 
 unimpaired, and barring his failing eyesight, he is in 
 good form physically. He attended the celebration at 
 Champoeg on May 2, as usual — he has never failed to 
 be present — and was of course the guest of honor. His 
 memory is faultless as to dates and incidents in the 
 early life of the Oregon Country and especially is he 
 free from the tendency to forget the names of his former 
 associates, so noticeable in most people of advanced 
 years. 
 
 Mr. Matthieu was born in Canada, near Montreal, on 
 April 2, 1818, his parents being of French ancestry 
 though themselves born in Canada. When twenty years 
 old he took an active part in the Canadian rebellion, 
 for which, upon its suppression, he was sought by the 
 authorities. Not desiring an interview with them at the 
 time, he hied himself away to an uncle's home, about 
 sixty miles distant, where he remained a few months, 
 or until his part in the unpleasantness was partially for- 
 gotten and the local government was in search of larger 
 game. 
 
 When he felt comparatively safe, he had a call from 
 Albany, New York, which he answered by making the 
 journey, mostly during the hours between sundown and 
 sunrise — to avoid the heat. He secured emplo3mient as 
 a carpenter at Albany for a few months, then drifted 
 out to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, remaining a few days at 
 Fort Dearborn, the site where Chicago, with its more 
 than two millions of inhabitants, now stands. In 1840 
 it was nothing but a frontier post with a small garrison. 
 
 189 
 
igo FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 From there he went to St. Louis where he secured em- 
 plojmient with the American Fur Company, his par- 
 ticular duty being to sell whisky for furs to the Sioux 
 Indians in the Dakotas. He frequently sold one gallon 
 of whisky for fifteen buffalo skins — which in these days 
 would be likened to "taking candy from a baby." That 
 was a memorable trip, traveling from St. Louis with 
 twenty wagons, drawn by forty mules, carrying two 
 barrels of whisky to the wagon. 
 
 Mr. Matthieu remained with the Indians during one 
 winter and it is surpassingly interesting to listen to his 
 narration of his experiences. As a matter of personal 
 safety he lived with the Indians much as they lived, for 
 by following this course he avoided all trouble. He told 
 me once that the only experience he had that even threat- 
 ened to cause any difficulty was on the occasion of a 
 feast of some sort which they observed with much pomp 
 and attention to detail. 
 
 "They had prepared a dish of boiled dog," said Mr. 
 Matthieu, "in fact, it was the only dish they had, and 
 all hands sat around a kind of table while the fragments 
 of dog meat, floating in a soup which was furnished in 
 most liberal quantities, were served in huge bowls, most 
 of which had been carved out of soft stone. 
 
 "Of course this was not a very appetizing meal for 
 me, especially as I was perfectly familiar with the kind 
 of dogs they raised and had seen their repulsive and 
 lousy bodies around the camp for months. I had found 
 I could do, in a sort of way, almost everything the 
 Indians had required of me without a great deal of diffi- 
 culty and thus had retained their good will; but I had 
 to balk at this dog feast. And yet they were so im- 
 pressed with the solemnity and importance of this par- 
 ticular ceremony that a refusal to partake with every 
 show of appreciation would have been a plain affront. 
 
 "The fact was I was 'up against it' — I simply couldn't 
 eat the dog meat or drink the soup, though the Indians 
 were gulping it down with the same relish with which 
 I would drink a cold lemonade on a warm day. And this 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 191 
 
 fact proved my salvation. I pretended to be busy eating 
 the floating delicacy, but in reality had not swallowed 
 anything. The happy thought occurred to me to pro- 
 pose to the Indian by my side that if he would eat my 
 bowl of soup I would give him a whole plug of tobacco. 
 As an Indian is always hungry, he very eagerly accepted 
 my offer and within a very short time he had surrounded 
 both rations and still looked and acted hungry. I slipped 
 him his plug of tobacco, and though it was worth two 
 dollars in gold, if there had been any there, I thought it 
 was the best trade I had ever made." 
 
 In the summer of 1842, being at Fort Laramie, Mr. 
 Matthieu joined a company of people who were on their 
 way to Oregon, making the trip with a few other young 
 men on horseback. Arriving where The Dalles is now, 
 about a dozen of them started for the Willamette valley 
 over the Indian trail which passed along the north side 
 of the base of Mt. Hood. On the evening of September 
 23 they camped near the snow line. During the night 
 it turned bitterly cold and a light snow fell, and when 
 morning arrived they discovered that several of their 
 horses had died from the exposure and their gradual loss 
 of vitality. 
 
 Mr. Matthieu's horse, however, had survived and in 
 company with three or four others he pushed on to 
 Oregon City, arriving on the afternoon of September 
 25. Even at that early date there was quite a settlement 
 at Oregon City. Among those who had homes was Rev. 
 A. F. Waller, of the immigration of 1840. True to the 
 spirit of Western hospitality, Mr. Waller insisted that 
 the new arrivals should have supper at his house, and, 
 although they endeavored to persuade him that they were 
 too ragged and untidy generally to go into a home, would 
 take no refusal. They went to his house, the kitchen 
 and sitting-room being one, and sat by a huge open fire 
 while Mrs. Waller prepared the meal. 
 
 In relating this experience Mr. Matthieu said : 
 
 "Of course I was interested in Mr. Waller's descrip- 
 tion of the new country we were in and of its prospects, 
 
192 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 but I noticed that Mrs. Waller was cooking some very 
 large potatoes — the first I had seen for two years. And 
 when their aroma arose and filled the room, I forgot 
 all about Waller's story as to what the Willamette valley 
 offered to newcomers and was only interested in the 
 perfection which potatoes appeared to reach in its appar- 
 ently marvelous soil. 
 
 "Finally supper was ready and we took our places 
 around the table, in the midst of which was a large dish 
 filled and piled up with the finest potatoes I had ever 
 seen, with their skins on and their white sides exposed in 
 a way that was tempting beyond endurance. 
 
 "But the experience of the next few minutes was the 
 hardest to bear. We were ready for the fray, or at least 
 I was — when, to my disgust, I am ashamed to say — Mr. 
 Waller leaned forward and began to 'say grace.' This 
 I had not expected, and while it did not, perhaps, last 
 longer than fifteen minutes it appeared to me that he 
 prayed for everything from Adam to the missionaries 
 at Salem. I know it seemed the longest 'grace' I ever 
 heard, and the meal that followed was one to be remem- 
 bered for many a day." 
 
 Mr. Matthieu, who made many trips from Vancouver 
 to Champoeg by water, relates that in those days the 
 river banks where Portland now stands were lined with 
 such a dense growth of firs, willows, alder, vine maple 
 and thorn, much of it overhanging the water, that it 
 was impossible to land a canoe anywhere between Guild's 
 Lake and the old White House. 
 
 He was one of the first justices of the peace for 
 Champoeg County when its boundaries extended from 
 the Willamette River to the "United States," wherever 
 that mystical dividing line was, and he says that since 
 there was no appeal from his findings he feels that he 
 should have the pay allowed retired members of the 
 Supreme Court of the United States, though he does 
 not intend to test the matter through any sort of litiga- 
 tion. He has served as county commissioner of Marion 
 County, two terms in the State Legislature and for many 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 193 
 
 years was the agent of Dr. McLoughlin for the purchase 
 and shipping of wheat from the French Prairie country 
 to Oregon City. He still owns his beautiful farm, on 
 which he settled in 1846, soon after his marriage, but in 
 recent years has spent his winters with a son who lives 
 in Portland. He is the father of fifteen children, seven 
 of whom are living. 
 
 F. X. Matthieu has occupied a very important place 
 in the history of Oregon, his motives always being 
 patriotic and his judgment of the best. He is as good 
 an American as though native-bom and is now, in his 
 ninety-fourth year, as keenly interested in current events 
 as ever. He is entirely free from the tendency to become 
 childish, accepts the infirmities of age with surprising 
 philosophy and, in fact, has the best wishes of every 
 man and woman in the State, of which he may justly 
 be called a founder. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 The phrase "owning the earth" applied with almost 
 no exaggeration to those who came to Oregon in the 
 '40's. Not only were there no owners of the land indi- 
 vidually nor of the country as a whole, but there were no 
 boundaries, real or imaginary. Mexico was on the south 
 and Canada on the north. To the east there was no legal 
 obstacle until you passed over the Rocky Mountains, and 
 even then the farthest stretches of the Louisiana Pur- 
 chase were indefinite. 
 
 The first duty, therefore, which loomed large before 
 the Legislative Committee was to stake out a claim. Any 
 old boundary would answer the purpose and unquestion- 
 ably would meet with no opposition. The first section of 
 the organic law adopted by the people at Champoeg July 
 5, 1843, was as follows : 
 
 For the purpose of temporary government, the 
 Territory shall be divided into not less than three nor 
 more than five districts, subject to be extended to a 
 greater number when the population shall require it. 
 
 The law finally adopted provided as follows: 
 
 First District, to be called the Tualitan District, 
 comprising all the country south of the northern 
 boundary of the United States, west of the Willamette 
 or Multnomah River, north of the Yamhill River and 
 east of the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 Second District, to be called the Yamhill District, 
 embracing all the country west of the Willamette 
 or Multnomah River, and a supposed line running 
 north and south from said river, south of the Yam- 
 hill River, to the parallel of forty-two degrees north 
 latitude, or the boundary line of the United States 
 and California and east of the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 194 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 195 
 
 Third District, to be called the Clackamas District, 
 comprehending all territory not included in the other 
 three districts. 
 
 Fourth District, to be called the Champoeg Dis- 
 trict, and bounded on the north by a supposed line 
 drawn from the mouth of the Haunchauke River, and 
 a supposed line running due east to the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, east of the Willamette or Multnomah River, 
 and a supposed line running due south from said 
 river to the parallel of forty-two degrees north lati- 
 tude, south by the boundary line of the United States 
 and California, and east by the summit of the Rocky 
 Mountains. 
 
 The above districts to be designated by the name of 
 Oregon Territory. 
 
 It is interesting to know that, in order to keep within 
 their "jurisdiction," if they had any, and in order, also, 
 that they might not contract any entangling alliances 
 with foreign nations, the following oath was prescribed 
 and taken by the members of the Legislative Committee 
 and other officers : "I do solemnly swear that I will 
 support the organic laws of the provisional government 
 of Oregon, so far as the said organic laws are consistent 
 with my duties as a citizen of the United States or a sub- 
 ject of Great Britain, and faithfully to demean myself 
 in office, so help me God." On June 5, 1845, under the 
 requirements of the amended organic law, George Aber- 
 nethy was chosen the first Governor of Oregon and was 
 re-elected in June, 1847, serving until the territorial gov- 
 ernment was established by Act of Congress and Oregon 
 became a part of the United States. 
 
 It is worth observing, in passing, that the organic law 
 adopted July 5, 1843, ^t Champoeg was passed upon by 
 "the people of the Willamette valley in mass convention," 
 thus inaugurating the "Oregon System" of the initiative 
 and referendum, as it is known to-day in all parts of the 
 country, at "the first rattle out of the box." Consider- 
 ing that we had a pure democracy here at the very begin- 
 ning it is not difficult to understand how easily we accept 
 
196 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 the principle of "direct legislation" whenever it is pre- 
 sented to us for consideration. 
 
 The first session of the Legislature under the pro- 
 visional government was held in the house of Theopholis 
 McGruder, and convened December 2, 1845. Robert 
 Newell was chosen speaker, J. E. Long, clerk and the 
 owner of the house was elected sergeant-at-arms. The 
 provisional Legislature consisted of but one House. 
 
 No matter what may be alleged of the extravagance 
 of modern Oregon Legislatures, it must be admitted 
 that the earliest of their predecessors was thoroughly 
 imbued with the spirit of economy. For instance, on 
 December 19, 1845, Governor Abernethy approved a 
 law which contained this section: 
 
 Section 2. The Governor of Oregon is hereby au- 
 thorized to give public notice throughout Oregon, 
 either by publishing the same in the newspaper or 
 otherwise, that he will receive sealed proposals from 
 all who may desire to give donations to the govern- 
 ment for the purpose of erecting public buildings and 
 locating the seat of government — said proposals to 
 state the amount to be given and the kind of property 
 in which it is to be paid. 
 
 Even two years later, on December 7, 1847, when the 
 Legislature met at Oregon City, the record says that 
 Mr. Hembree, from the committee appointed to pro- 
 cure a room, reported that "the room now occupied by 
 Mr. Stephen Meek could be procured for one dollar 
 and twenty-five cents a day, which report was adopted." 
 But the record for the next day says that "upon the 
 motion of Mr. Nesmith, the report was rejected." 
 
 No reason is assigned for this apparently disrespectful 
 treatment of Mr. Meek's clever and patriotic offer, but 
 the House "adjourned to meet at the Methodist Church 
 in twenty minutes." The inference from this is that 
 the Methodist Church could be had for nothing, and 
 as there were no revenues except the money accumulat- 
 ing from voluntary contributions, the matter of saving 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 197 
 
 one dollar and twenty-five cents a day for the rent of 
 a Capitol was not to be lightly rejected. 
 
 It will be noticed that the call for sealed proposals 
 for donations for a Capitol were to be published in "the 
 newspaper." The truth of the matter was that at that 
 precise date there was no newspaper published in this 
 entire territory, but the prospectus for the Oregon 
 Spectator had been issued and it was understood that 
 there would be a newspaper in the near future. In fact, 
 the first number of the Spectator was issued on Thurs- 
 day, February 5, 1846. 
 
 At the beginning of the session of 1846 Mr. Meek 
 made the following statement : "Mr. Speaker, the com- 
 mittee appointed to procure a room for the Legislature 
 beg to report that they have discharged their duty 
 by examining a room proposed by Mr. Knighton at two 
 
 dollars a day and one by Mr. Card at a day. 
 
 Taking everything into consideration, we recommend the 
 former." 
 
 At the opening of the session of 1848, Mr. Craw- 
 ford, of Marion County, announced: "Mr. Speaker, 
 your committee, to whom was referred the procuring 
 of a house in which to hold the present session of the 
 Legislature, beg leave to report that they have examined 
 several houses and have decided in favor of the one 
 owned by G. W. Rice, which, together with the wood 
 for the session, may be had for five dollars a day in 
 scrip." 
 
 At least it may be said that here was a sign of 
 progress, since the lawmaking body was willing to pay 
 five dollars a day for the use of a Capitol — the wood 
 in those days amounting to very little for one room — 
 and Mr. Card was willing to accept the paper of the 
 government in liquidation of his bill. The government 
 was on the up-grade ! 
 
 On July 20, 1849, though the territorial government 
 was fully inaugurated, the resolution was introduced 
 "That a committee of two be appointed by the House, 
 to act in conjunction with a like committee to be ap- 
 
198 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 pointed by the Council, to inquire into the expediency 
 of the two Houses adjourning until after harvest." The 
 resolution was adopted, adjournment was had on the 
 28th and the two Houses re-convened August 20. It is 
 presumed that in the meantime the crops had been safely 
 garnered. 
 
 The journal for the session of the Legislative Com- 
 mittee, held on May 9, 1843, recites that "the House 
 adjourned by uniting in prayer" — a precedent that 
 should by all means be followed in these later days, in 
 many cases, accompanied by fasting, assuming always, 
 of course, that the efficacy of prayer is no longer a 
 doubtful proposition. 
 
 On June 30, 1845, ^r. Gray presented a communica- 
 tion from Rev. H. Clark, "resigning his position as 
 chaplain of the House," and on the following day Mr. 
 Garrison reported that "your committee appointed to 
 secure a chaplain have been unable to find any person to 
 perform the duties of that office." 
 
 The appropriation bill for the year 1845 amounted 
 to $1035, — $500 of it going to the payment of the 
 members, $40 to the clerk of the House and $20 to the 
 engrossing clerk. Incidentally, it may be remarked that 
 the sums expended for clerk hire during the recent ses- 
 sions of the Oregon Legislature have, in the main, some- 
 what exceeded this amount. 
 
 The annual session of the Legislative Committee met 
 at the house of J. E. Long, in Oregon City, December 
 16, 1844, when the territorial treasurer reported the 
 following state of finances: "Received from the col- 
 lector of taxes, $3,313.31; for license, two ferries, $40; 
 one fine, $5. Total receipts, $3,358.31. Expended for 
 stationery, $20.38; Judge Babcock's salary, $60; services 
 of secretary in House, $20. Total, $115.38." 
 
 Marion County, the home of Salem, the State capital, 
 was called Champoeg County until the territorial Leg- 
 islature changed it to Marion by a special act September 
 3, 1849. Oil August 28, the same year, it was resolved 
 that "the county seat of Champoeg County be, and the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 199 
 
 same is, hereby located at the town of Salem, in said 
 county." In the early records the word is spelled 
 "Champoeg," "Champoore," and "Champooick." 
 
 It is a matter to be regretted that the name of that 
 county was ever changed. It is an Indian name and 
 fully as euphonious as Multnomah, Clatsop, Clackamas 
 or Tillamook, and should have been preserved with 
 them as a link perpetually binding the State and its 
 landmarks with the early efforts and associations of 
 our fathers. Of course, the word has a permanent place 
 in Oregon history, not only by reason of the location 
 where the first organization for a local government was 
 held, but because the little town of Champoeg will grow 
 with the expansion of the State's population and will be 
 with us always. 
 
 The spelling of the word has since settled down to 
 plain "Champoeg," but the different ways of pronounc- 
 ing and printing it in the early days may be easily 
 accounted for. The fact is, the proper spelling of an 
 Indian word can never be determined, for the reason that 
 it belongs to a language that is spoken only. To attempt 
 to express such a word in the letters of the English lan- 
 guage that must be caught by the ear is futile. A "buck" 
 Indian with his blankets drawn about him, the upper 
 rim held on a level with his mouth, expressing his 
 thoughts in guttural sounds, is not an inspiration — or 
 would not be — to the short-hand reporter who wanted to 
 make an accurate transcript of the orator's deliverance. 
 
 On the Pacific Coast there are thousands of Indian 
 words which have been Americanized by their perma- 
 nent adoption as the names of places, but their spelling 
 has been settled by common usage only. Indeed, a 
 language that has no written expression is but a degree 
 superior in its intelligence to that of animals, and any 
 extended discussion of the question is wholly profitless. 
 
 By way of a slight digression, it may be here re- 
 marked that the gibberish employed by many of our 
 most noted actors and singers is little more intelligible 
 
200 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 than the grunts and "huh" of the blanketed Indians. 
 Much complaint is heard of the small audiences which, 
 in the United States, usually greet operatic companies 
 that "perform" in foreign languages, rendering beauti- 
 ful and famous compositions in German, French and 
 Italian, when the average man has a very natural desire 
 to understand the accompanying words and to get at 
 least some idea of the meaning of the production. In 
 order to appreciate intelligently the effort of the artist 
 it is necessary that an audience should have some inkling 
 as to whether the emotion portrayed by the singer is 
 the result of unrequited love, the death of a near relative, 
 or, mayhap, the excessive demonstration of joy over a 
 wedding, prospective or otherwise. 
 
 But all this is left to mere conjecture when the words 
 employed are Greek to the listeners, who are wondering 
 why it was not all avoided in the first place, since it has 
 caused so much difficulty and misunderstanding. It 
 leaves the astonished auditor to speculate as to whether 
 the singer is controlled by fear, joy or rage, and obliges 
 those of the assemblage who are Americans to watch 
 their neighbors of foreign extraction to get the cue 
 before they can summon the proper emotion for the 
 occasion. 
 
 But while this is true, did you ever consider that we 
 are practically in the same dilemma when we attend 
 church and attempt to follow the choir in the rendition 
 of the words accompanying the songs? As a rule, not 
 one word in a dozen can be distinguished, and as to 
 "following" the sentiment which it is assumed they are 
 conveying, it is out of the question. We do not mean 
 to say that the singing by our church choirs is not 
 highly appreciated, for, with due deference to the pro- 
 ductions of our able and eloquent pastors, the singing 
 is one of the very best features of the average church 
 service, but it leaves much to the imagination — except, 
 of course, the splendid harmonies, the rich crescendoes 
 and diminuendoes, the high C's and pretty hats, which, 
 happily, do not succeed in fully eclipsing the faces of the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 201 
 
 female singers, beautiful and otherwise. But as for 
 the song itself, it might as well be rendered in Italian, 
 since the congregation must rely altogether upon the 
 trusted singers to execute that only which it is proper 
 for churchgoers to hear. 
 
 The truth is that we accept many things in this life 
 on faith, after all. The frenzied actor who, rushing out 
 on the stage, pours forth a torrent of incoherent 
 words at the rate of seven hundred a minute, simply 
 stupefies his audience; and the situation is not a whit 
 relieved by the assurance that he is raving in English, 
 for a fit thrown in French would probably be more ap- 
 propriate, and certainly as intelligible. 
 
 This tendency toward the use of gibberish, with the 
 assumption that it fully gratifies the desires of an ex- 
 pectant public, is apparently one of the settled features 
 of our civilization. The brakeman pokes his head into 
 the rear door of his car and shouts to the passengers 
 that the next station will be "Scat-Zip," and the average 
 person has no more idea what the next station will really 
 be than if the said brakeman were an Alaskan totem 
 pole. And an interesting phase of the brakeman's stunt 
 is that he appears to be satisfied that he has performed 
 a duty imposed upon him by his superiors, and the 
 question whether or not the passengers have received 
 any information seems to be a side issue wholly un- 
 worthy of consideration. 
 
 So it does not matter so much, after all, whether we 
 sing in German, French or Italian, or whether we under- 
 stand it at all, or spell it Champoeg or Champooick, 
 since most of the things done and attempted in this 
 life leave us with a guess coming anyway. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 General Joseph Lane became the first Governor of the 
 new Territory of Oregon by Presidential appointment, 
 his commission being dated August i8, 1848. He was 
 a resident of Indiana, had served with distinction in 
 the Mexican War and also a term in the Legislature of 
 the Hoosier State. He was born in Buncombe County, 
 North Carolina, December 14, 1801. 
 
 He came to Oregon during the winter of 1848, travel- 
 ing by way of New Mexico, Arizona and California, 
 and arrived at Oregon City, the territorial capital, 
 March 2, having pulled an oar part of the time en route 
 from Astoria. On March 3 he wrote and issued his 
 proclamation, and on March 4, the last day of Presi- 
 dent Polk's administration, was sworn in and assumed 
 his new duties. 
 
 From that day until his retirement from his short 
 service in the United States Senate on March 4, 1861, 
 no man was better known or had wider influence in the 
 Territory than he. In fact, there was no time that he 
 was not holding an important public position, either by 
 Presidential appointment or by the suffrage of the 
 people. Whatever "J°" Lane wanted was his for the 
 asking. 
 
 On June 18, 1850, he resigned his position as Gov- 
 ernor, assuming that he had been superseded by the 
 appointment of a Whig, since General Taylor had been 
 elected in November, 1848, and it was not a part of 
 General Lane's make-up to be caught napping. But 
 for once his anticipations were ill-founded and there 
 was an interim during which the secretary of the Terri- 
 tory acted as the Governor. 
 
 On June 2, 185 1, General Lane was elected as the 
 delegate to Congress. After serving one term he was 
 
 202 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 203 
 
 again appointed Governor by President Pierce, but after 
 qualifying and serving for three days, resigned to 
 become again the Democratic candidate for Congress. 
 He was elected and was continued in that position until 
 his election as one of the first United States Senators 
 under the State Constitution. He served in this position 
 from February 14, 1859, until March 4. During the 
 summer of i860 he had been nominated by the pro- 
 slavery wing of the Democratic party for Vice-presi- 
 dent, as the running mate with Breckinridge, but was 
 defeated. After the expiration of his term in the Senate 
 he retired to his farm in the Umpqua valley, which had 
 been his home during all his residence in Oregon, and 
 there died April 19, 1881, aged eighty years. 
 
 I saw General Lane at the State Fair grounds at 
 Salem during the Pioneer Meeting, in 1879, where, 
 upon the invitation of the people who were present, he 
 delivered a short address. I remember that even at his 
 advanced age he exhibited that same nervous spirit 
 which had characterized him through life, whether lead- 
 ing a charge in the mountains of Mexico or planning a 
 convention of delegates. 
 
 I am disposed to incorpate here an extract from an 
 address by Colonel Nesmith, in which he gives a most 
 interesting account of a meeting with the Rogue River 
 Indians at the close of the war with them in 1853, the 
 purpose being to agree upon terms of peace. It not 
 only throws an interesting side-light upon the character 
 of General Lane, but presents another instance of the 
 dangers which the early settlers encountered in the 
 transformation of Oregon into a peaceful and pros- 
 perous State. Colonel Nesmith said in his address : 
 
 The accession of Captain Smith's company, with 
 my own, gave General Lane a force sufficient to cope 
 with the enemy, then supposed to be about seven 
 hundred strong. The encampment of the Indians 
 was still on the side of the mountain of which Table 
 Rock was the summit, and at night we could plainly see 
 their camp-fires, while they could look directly upon 
 
204 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 us. The whole command was willing and anxious to 
 fight, but General Lane had pledged the Indians that 
 an effort should be made to treat for peace. Super- 
 intendent Palmer and Agent Culver were upon the 
 ground. The armistice had not yet expired and the 
 loth was the time fixed for the council. 
 
 On the morning of that day General Lane sent for 
 me and desired me to go with him to the council 
 ground, inside the Indian encampment, to act as inter- 
 preter, as I was master of the Chinook jargon. I asked 
 the General upon what terms and where we were to 
 meet the Indians. He replied that the agreement was 
 that the meeting was to take place within the encamp- 
 ment of the enemy, and that we should be accom- 
 panied by ten other men of his own selection, un- 
 armed. Against those terms I protested, telling the 
 General that I had traversed that country five years 
 before and had fought those same Indians; that they 
 were notoriously treacherous, and in early times had 
 earned the name of "Rogues" by never permitting 
 a white man to escape with his scalp when once within 
 their power ; that I knew them better than he did, and 
 that it was criminal folly for eleven unarmed white 
 men to place themselves voluntarily within the power 
 of seven hundred well-armed hostile Indians, within 
 their own encampment. 
 
 I reminded him that I was a soldier in command 
 of a company of cavalry, and was ready t6 obey his 
 orders to lead my men into action or to discharge any 
 soldierly duty, no part of which, however, was to go 
 into the enemy's camp as an unarmed interpreter. 
 
 The General listened to my protest and replied that 
 he had fixed the terms of meeting the Indians and 
 would keep his word, and that if I was afraid to go I 
 could remain behind. When he put it upon that 
 ground I replied that I thought I was as little ac- 
 quainted with fear as he was, and that I would accom- 
 pany him to what I feared would be our slaughter. 
 
 Early on the morning of September lo, 1853, we 
 mounted our horses and set out in the direction of 
 the Indian encampment. Our party consisted of 
 General Joseph Lane, Joel Palmer, superintendent of 
 Indian affairs, Samuel P. Culver, Indian agent. Cap- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 205 
 
 tain A. J. Smith, and several others. After riding 
 a couple of miles across the level valley we came to 
 the foot of the mountains, where it was too steep for 
 horses to ascend. We dismounted, hitched our horses, 
 and after scrambling up for a half a mile over huge 
 rocks and through brush, found ourselves within the 
 Indian stronghold, just under the perpendicular cliff 
 of Table Rock, surrounded by seven hundred fierce 
 and well-armed hostile savages, arrayed in all their 
 gorgeous war-paint and feathers. 
 
 Captain Smith had drawn out his company of dra- 
 goons and left them in line on the plain below. It was 
 a bright, beautiful morning and the Rogue River 
 valley lay at our feet like a panorama ; the exact line 
 of dragoons, sitting statue-like on their horses, with 
 their white belts and burnished scabbards and car- 
 bines, looked as if engraved upon a picture, while a 
 few paces in our rear the huge perpendicular wall of 
 Table Rock towered frowningly many hundred feet 
 above. 
 
 The business of the treaty commenced at once. 
 Long speeches were made by General Lane and Super- 
 intendent Palmer, which had to be translated twice. 
 When an Indian spoke the Rogue River tongue it was 
 translated by an Indian interpreter into Chinook for 
 me, when I translated it into English. When Lane or 
 Palmer spoke the process was reversed. This double 
 translation of long speeches made the labor tedious and 
 it was late in the afternoon when the treaty was com- 
 pleted and signed. 
 
 In the meantime, an episode occurred which came 
 near terminating the treaty, as well as the representa- 
 tion of one of the "high contracting" parties in a 
 sudden and tragic manner. About the middle of the 
 afternoon a young Indian came running into camp 
 stark naked and with the perspiration running from 
 every pore. After making a brief harangue he threw 
 himself upon the ground, apparently exhausted. As 
 his speech had created a great tumult amongst his 
 tribe, General Lane told me to inquire of the Indian 
 interpreter the cause of the commotion. The Indian 
 responded that a company of white men on Applegate 
 Creek, under the command of Captain Owen, had that 
 
2o6 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 morning captured an Indian known as Jim Taylor, tied 
 him to a tree and shot him to death. The hubbub and 
 confusion among the Indians at once became intense 
 and murder gleamed from each savage eye. The In- 
 dian interpreter told me that the Indians were threat- 
 ening to tie us up to trees and serve us as Owen's 
 men had served Jim Taylor. I saw some Indians 
 gathering up lasso ropes, while others drew the skin 
 covers from their guns and wiping-sticks from their 
 muzzles. There appeared to be a strong probability 
 that our party would be subjected to a sudden volley. 
 
 I explained as briefly as I could what the inter- 
 preter had communicated to me, and in order to keep 
 our people from huddHng together and thus making a 
 better target for the savages I used a few English 
 words not likely to be understood by the Indian inter- 
 preter, such as "disperse" and "segregate." In fact, 
 we kept so close to the savages and so far separated 
 from one another that any firing must have been nearly 
 as fatal to the Indians as to the whites. 
 
 While I admit I thought my time had come and hur- 
 riedly thought of wife and children, I noticed nothing 
 but coolness among my companions. General Lane sat 
 on a log with one arm bandaged in a sling, the lines 
 about his mouth rigidly compressing his lips, while his 
 eyes flashed fire. He asked brief questions and gave 
 sententious answers to what little the Indians said to 
 us. Captain Smith, who was prematurely gray-haired 
 and was afflicted with snappy eyes, leaned upon his 
 cavalry saber and looked anxiously down upon his 
 well-formed line of dragoons in the valley below. His 
 eyes snapped more vigorously than usual and muttered 
 words escaped from under the white mustache of the 
 old dragoon that did not sound like prayers. His 
 squadron looked beautiful, but, alas ! they could render 
 us no service. 
 
 I sat down on a log close by old Chief Joe, and hav- 
 ing a sharp hunting knife under my shirt kept one 
 hand near the handle, determined that there should be 
 one Indian made "good" about the time the firing 
 commenced. 
 
 But in a few moments General Lane stood up and 
 began to speak very slowly and distinctly. He said: 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 207 
 
 "Owens, who has violated the armistice and killed Jim 
 Taylor, is a bad man. He is not one of my soldiers. 
 When I catch him he shall be punished. I promised 
 in good faith to come into your camp with ten other 
 unarmed men to secure peace. Myself and men are 
 placed within your power; I do not believe you are 
 such cowardly dogs as to take advantage of our un- 
 armed condition. I know that you have the power to 
 murder us and can do so as quickly as you please ; but 
 what good will our blood do you? Our murder will 
 anger our friends and your tribe will be hunted from 
 the earth. Let us proceed with out treaty, and instead 
 of having war have lasting peace." Much more was 
 said in this strain by the General, all rather defiant and 
 nothing of a begging character. The excitement grad- 
 ually subsided after Lane promised to g^ve a fair 
 compensation for the defunct Jim Taylor in shirts and 
 blankets. 
 
 The treaty of September 10, 1853, was completed 
 and signed, and peace restored for the next two years. 
 Our party wended its way down the rocks to where our 
 horses were tied and mounted. Old A. J. Smith gal- 
 loped up to his squadron and gave a brief order. The 
 bugle sounded a note or two and the squadron wheeled 
 and trotted off to camp. As General Lane and party 
 rode across the valley, we looked up and saw the rays 
 of the setting sun gilding the summit of Table Rock. I 
 drew a long breath and remarked to the General that 
 the next time he wanted to go into a hostile camp un- 
 armed he must hunt up some one besides myself to act 
 as his interpreter. With a benignant smile he re- 
 marked : "Bless you, sir, luck is better than science." 
 
 On account of his extreme sympathy with the South 
 through the war General Lane was bitterly hated by 
 many of our people during that period. His advocacy 
 of slavery had divided the Democratic party in Oregon 
 for several years before the affair at Fort Sumter, 
 which resulted in his downfall politically. One of his 
 most influential opponents in his own party was Colonel 
 Nesmith himself, his successor in the United States 
 Senate, but long before he died former animosities were 
 
2o8 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 forgotten and he and Nesmith were the same cordial 
 friends as of yore. 
 
 Lane was a born general and politician, at home either 
 in the field of diplomacy or where shot and shell were 
 laying their victims low. It was said at the time he 
 secured the passage of the enabling act which admitted 
 Oregon into the Union that the representation of the 
 extent of our population, notoriously below the legal 
 requirement, was so "manipulated" by him, having in 
 view his election to the Senate as a consequence, that his 
 constituents, although rejoicing in his triumph, were 
 ashamed to look one another in the face for a full year 
 afterward. I distinctly remember hearing my father 
 and his neighbors discussing the wonderful feat and de- 
 nouncing Lane, whom they disliked, since they had 
 "split" with him on the slavery question. 
 
 His opponents used to enjoy relating the following 
 story at his expense, to illustrate his vein of diplomacy 
 in the political realm. 
 
 He was returning to his home in the Umpqua valley, 
 after an absence of a year in Congress, when he stopped 
 at a house but three miles from his own to exchange 
 greetings — for he was a candidate for re-election. Mrs. 
 Smith was at home, and in the course of conversation 
 told him of a new variety of cucumbers she had raised 
 the year before, giving him a handful to take home for 
 his own planting. With that engaging politeness which 
 he always exhibited, especially toward the women, he 
 accepted them and thanked her profusely, after again 
 inquiring after the welfare of the men folks, who were 
 out in the field. 
 
 When he arrived within a mile of home, passing 
 another neighbor's house, he stopped to show his good 
 will and the great esteem in which he held the family — 
 for there were three voters who belonged there — and 
 as he started away he said : "By the way, Mrs. Jones, 
 here is a package of cucumber seeds which I brought all 
 the way from Washington for you folks, and they are 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 209 
 
 said to be the best variety known and remarkable for the 
 great amount they yield." 
 
 Mrs. Jones accepted them with expressed pleasure, 
 saying: "Well, I declare, if these seeds aren't done up 
 in a piece of calico just like that dress Polly Smith had 
 last summer!" 
 
 But the old General, who was solicitously inquiring 
 about Tom and Ben, pretended not to hear the remark 
 about the singular coincidence. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 One morning in the spring of 1859, when our home 
 was in Silverton, twelve miles east of Salem, as I was 
 playing in a thicket of hazel bushes back of the 
 barn in company with the Wolfard children — we were 
 trying to locate the nest of some wrens which were 
 flying about and filling the air with their musical chat- 
 tering — we heard a cannon booming in the direction of 
 Salem. Perhaps I should have said the cannon, for 
 I have understood since that there was but one in Salem 
 at that time. At once I ran into the house and in an 
 excited manner inquired of my mother why the cannon 
 was being fired, for at other times we had heard it at 
 Salem and had learned that it always meant the hap- 
 pening of some event out of the ordinary. 
 
 My mother replied that Oregon had been admitted 
 to the Union, and that hereafter it would not be a 
 territory but a state. As I remember it now, I under- 
 stood what the difference was, in a vague sort of way, 
 having been studying the matter in my geography 
 lessons, but I do not recall that I had any knowledge 
 of the effort to effect the change. I remember very 
 well, however, that immediately I asked my mother what 
 the new name of the Territory would be — seeming to 
 have the notion that the transition of a territory into 
 a state had something of a .nature of a matrimonial 
 affair, in which the bride comes through with an entirely 
 new name. And I also recall distinctly the feeling of 
 disappointment I felt when I was told that its name 
 would not be changed at all. I resumed my quest for 
 the nest of the elusive wrens in a decidedly despondent 
 frame of mind — of temporary duration, however — over 
 the evidence I had had that the birth of a state was an 
 event without significance and entirely void of interest. 
 
 210 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 211 
 
 The Constitutional Convention had met in Salem on 
 August 17, 1857, in accordance with the provisions of 
 an act of the territorial Legislature, passed on the 
 twelfth day of the preceding December, authorizing 
 a convention to be held. It was a body of remarkable 
 men — all in their intellectual and physical prime, full of 
 laudable purposes and the determination to accomplish 
 them. When the Convention was called to order, A. L. 
 Lovejoy, one of the founders of Portland, was elected 
 temporary president, on motion of Mathew P. Deady, who 
 himself was afterwards made the permanent president. 
 
 Mr. Deady was afterwards appointed United States 
 District Judge for the State of Oregon and for twenty 
 years occupied that exalted and responsible position — 
 until his death, indeed — acquiring a reputation for a 
 profound knowledge of the law and distinguished by the 
 upright discharge of the <5nerous duties resting upon 
 him. 
 
 The next motion was made by Lafayette Grover for 
 the choice of a secretary. Mr. Grover's career, notable 
 because of the many high positions he afterward held 
 in the new State, has already been noticed in these 
 pages. 
 
 The third motion was made by Hon. Reuben P. Boise, 
 providing for the appointment of a credentials com- 
 mittee. Mr. Boise lived to be ninety years of age, 
 serving the people of Oregon almost continuously for 
 fifty years in either the Circuit or Supreme Court, and 
 only retired when he was past eighty-five years of age, 
 full of honors and bearing the esteem of all our people. 
 
 The fourth motion was made by Hon. George H. 
 Williams, referring to the allotment of seats. Judge 
 Williams afterwards served the people in the United 
 States Senate, and for four years afterwards was At- 
 torney General of the United States in the Cabinet of 
 President Grant. He lived to be eighty-seven years 
 of age and passed away in 19 10. During the last twenty 
 years of his life he was universally known as "Oregon's 
 grand old man." 
 
212 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 The fifth motion was made by Hon. James K. Kelly, 
 a lawyer of great learning, who afterward served a 
 term in the United States Senate and lived to a ripe 
 old age. He was at one time a member of the State 
 Senate, declined an appointment as United States 
 District Attorney, offered him by Attorney General 
 Jeremiah S. Black, and was afterward Chief Justice of 
 the Oregon Supreme Court. 
 
 These five motions having been made and disposed 
 of by the Convention, that body adjourned until the 
 following morning. It was an official gathering of sixty 
 men whose pioneer methods were in evidence at all 
 stages of their proceedings. It was soon resolved that 
 the daily sessions should begin at eight o'clock in the 
 morning, and this resolution was carried out to the 
 letter. 
 
 Before the first week had elapsed the question of re- 
 porting the proceedings of the Convention came up for 
 consideration. The expense of it was a stumbling- 
 block, for, be it remembered, it was but ten years 
 previous that the territorial Legislature had refused 
 to appropriate money for the purpose of building a jail, 
 for the reason that the "state of the finances would not 
 permit it." 
 
 A committee was appointed to confer with a compe- 
 tent reporter as to the expense of such work, which, 
 by Hon. Delazon Smith, chairman, reported as follows : 
 
 Mr. Pearne proposed to your committee that he 
 would report speeches and other proceedings of this 
 body one-third of the time of its sittings for the period 
 of thirty days for the sum of three hundred dollars. 
 To the application of your committee Mr. Malone re- 
 turned the following answer in writing: Both Mr. 
 Pearne and Mr. Malone, if employed by the Conven- 
 tion to report its proceedings, expect and agree to 
 look for their compensation to the sources specified 
 in the resolution under which your committee was 
 appointed. 
 
 This report was adopted, when David Logan, after- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 213 
 
 ward three titnes the Repubhcan candidate for Con- 
 gress, but on each occasion defeated by a very small 
 margin, ofifered this substitute : 
 
 Resolved, That it is inexpedient to have the proceed- 
 ings of this Convention reported at the expense of 
 either the Territory or the State. 
 
 Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed 
 to employ competent persons to report the proceed- 
 ings and debates of this Convention; 
 
 Provided, Said reporters shall receive no compensa- 
 tion except such as may be paid by the Federal Govern- 
 ment or by the individual members of the Convention ; 
 
 And provided further. That in case such expense 
 is paid by the members of the Convention, each mem- 
 ber shall pay in proportion to the amount or bulk re- 
 ported for him, to be estimated by the reporter and 
 approved by the Convention. 
 
 Mr. Smith then withdrew his motion and Mr. Logan 
 his proposed substitute; but it should be said of this 
 last proposition by Mr. Logan that, if adopted and en- 
 forced in some Oregon Legislatures I have known, many 
 members would have emerged from their experience 
 hopelessly bankrupt — ^no matter what the condition of 
 their personal exchequers. 
 
 How the question was settled is not given in the 
 proceedings. It has always been a matter of deep re- 
 gret that the debates in that distinguished body were 
 not reported, if not in full, at least in some measure, 
 for in after years matters of far-reaching importance 
 have been the source of disturbing differences between 
 the people and of vexation in the courts because of the 
 lack of any definite information as to the intention of 
 the framers of the Constitution concerning them. 
 
 For instance, the question of salaries of State officers 
 has caused discussion, since the Constitution plainly says 
 that the Governor "shall have a salary of one thousand 
 five hundred dollars per annum"; but for the past 
 twenty years that officer has been allowed more than 
 twice that sum by indirection, the method pursued being 
 
214 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 to allow him additional amounts for his services as a 
 member of different boards, whose duties are plainly 
 a part of his constitutional obligations as the chief 
 executive officer of the State. 
 
 Most of the other State officers, including the mem- 
 bers of the Supreme Court, were subject to this pro- 
 vision, but the amount was so glaringly insufficient that 
 an easy construction of the clause has been to the effect 
 that it meant the Governor should have at least one 
 thousand five hundred dollars a year. He should have 
 that much, said the Constitution, and, by inference, as 
 much more as the Legislature might see proper to 
 allow. 
 
 Recently, however, the entire matter of salaries has 
 been adjusted by the enactment of a "Flat Salary Law," 
 by the terms of which the question has finally been 
 placed beyond the pale of cavil. 
 
 Taken as a whole, however, the Constitution formed 
 by the Fathers of Oregon in 1857 has stood the test 
 well. There has never been a constitutional conven- 
 tion held since, and it was not amended in any par- 
 ticular for more than forty years, though several 
 attempts to do so were made. Until recent years the 
 people have shown a sort of reverence for the old in- 
 strument that in some instances has been quite remark- 
 able. Even to-day it contains a clause which prohibits free 
 negroes living in the State, and this requirement was 
 so palpably absurd since the Civil War amendments 
 to the Federal Constitution were adopted, that a proposi- 
 tion was made about ten years ago to rescind this sur- 
 vival of the days of slavery; but the people refused by 
 an overwhelming majority to abolish the free negro 
 clause. It stands to-day, notwithstanding the broad 
 scope of the "Oregon System" in the matter of "doing 
 things" to the Constitution of the State. 
 
 The only record of the proceedings of the Oregon 
 Constitutional Convention in existence, or which was 
 ever made, consists of a small pamphlet of one hundred 
 pages, containing but a bare recital of the motions made 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 215 
 
 and their purport. The opinions of the men who were 
 its framers are seldom given, even in brief. It is 
 recorded, however, that when the Convention tried for 
 several days, without success, to settle satisfactorily the 
 matter of salaries, Mr. Watkins, of Josephine County, 
 offered this resolution: 
 
 Resolved, That in the opinion of this Convention, 
 twelve dollars and fifty cents is an ample salary for 
 the Governor, provided that after the good old school- 
 master fashion, he boards around, and that the com- 
 mittee of the whole be instructed so to report. 
 
 But the effort of Mr. Watkins in the interest of public 
 economy was defeated and the question was submitted 
 for further consideration. 
 
 The Convention adjourned sine die on the afternoon 
 of Setember 18, having been in session just thirty days. 
 The delegates constituted a body of especially able and 
 level-headed men, many of them lacking education, but 
 endowed with a remarkable sense of justice and moved 
 by a sincere desire to give their posterity an organic law 
 which should successfully stand whatever strain might be 
 put upon it in years to come. 
 
 After the lapse of nearly fifty-four years, as these 
 lines are written — May 31, 191 1 — William H. Pack- 
 wood, a member of that body from Curry County, now 
 a resident of Baker City, alone survives. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 My parents were married at the home of my mother 
 on Howell's prairie, seven miles east of Salem, on 
 October 14, 1848. My father was one month past 
 twenty years of age and my mother lacked a month of 
 being fifteen. But the reader should not be too free 
 in his denunciation of such a proceeding, for, really, my 
 mother was getting along in years — approaching the 
 period of old maidhood, in fact — when compared with 
 many of the girls who married in Oregon in those days. 
 
 It was not unusual for a girl to enter the married 
 state at the age of twelve, and I recall one instance where 
 the parents of a girl of ten years consented to her mar- 
 riage to a man ten years her senior ( ! ) and the cere- 
 mony was duly celebrated. Congress had passed the 
 Donation Land Act in September, 1850, by the terms 
 of which every man and his wife were permitted to "take 
 up" a mile square of land — six hundred and forty acres 
 — and it was this incentive which induced so many 
 youthful marriages. In the case to which I have re- 
 ferred, an agreement was made by the groom to permit 
 the wife to remain with her parents until she had arrived 
 at the age of womanhood, say twelve years ; but the fact 
 was he took her home with him within a year after the 
 marriage — and "they lived together happily ever after- 
 ward." Indeed, many of their children were my school- 
 mates in after years. 
 
 Immediately after their marriage my parents settled 
 on a claim just across the Willamette River from Cham- 
 poeg, where my father worked much of the time during 
 the next two years at cutting logs and rafting them 
 down the river to Oregon City. When the Donation 
 Land Act was passed, however, he decided to take ad- 
 vantage of it. He at once went to the Waldo Hills, in 
 Marion County, and located a claim two miles south- 
 
 216 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 217 
 
 east of the homestead of Daniel Waldo, the first settler 
 anywhere in that section, after whom that famous part 
 of Oregon was named. 
 
 Here my father proceeded to build a small house, in 
 which, four months afterward, my eyes first saw the 
 light of day. Not in any region of the United States 
 is there a more beautiful country than the Waldo Hills. 
 Diversified with rolling, scattering groves of oak, ash, 
 fir and other timber, with abundant streams of running 
 water for every farm, fertile soil adapted to the pro- 
 duction of nearly every article of food known to this 
 zone, with the Cascade Mountains on the east and the 
 Coast Range on the west forming the horizon in either 
 direction, and the great peaks, Hood, Ranier, Adams 
 and Jefferson always in view, "The Hills" never fail 
 to charm the visitor and furnish a picture enchanting 
 to those fortunate enough to reside there. 
 
 This is a good time and place to say a few words 
 about Daniel Waldo, one of the best known of the very 
 early Oregon pioneers, and a man of great force of 
 character. He was born in Indiana, but when barely of 
 age, moved down to Missouri, where he engaged in the 
 sawmill business for a few years. There he married 
 and soon afterward went to southwestern Missouri, to 
 what was popularly known as the "Platte Purchase," 
 where he engaged in stock raising and general farming. 
 
 He had left Indiana on account of the prevalence of 
 the fever and ague, btit he discovered, after acquiring 
 a splendid tract of two thousand four hundred acres in 
 the Platte Purchase, that the dread scourge flourished in 
 that section with an effect equally deadly. After suffering 
 from the debilitating ravages of this most relentless 
 enemy of humankind, the winter of 1842 arrived, bring- 
 ing with it an active discussion of the opportunities 
 offered in far-away Oregon for rich lands and a more 
 salubrious climate. The advisability of going to 
 Oregon in the spring had been considered by the family 
 and the decision made to join the company which was 
 about to form for the great westward journey. 
 
2i8 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 One day in January, 1843, Mr. Waldo, upon his 
 return from the little store where the neighbors were 
 accustomed to congregate occasionally, announced to his 
 wife that he had about decided to abandon his intention of 
 going to Oregon — that they had been discussing the 
 matter at the store — that there were no roads out that 
 way, no bridges, on which to cross the rivers, hostile 
 Indians were on every hand, ready to murder them — 
 in short, most of the boys had about decided to post- 
 pone the trip for a few years, at least, until the prospects 
 were more encouraging, etc. 
 
 To all of this Mrs. Waldo listened without offering 
 any interruption, the while washing the supper dishes. 
 When he had finished, and assumed that he had dis- 
 missed the case, his wife poured out the dishwater, and 
 while she dried the pan with a cloth, using more speed 
 and vigor than usual, she said: 
 
 "Well, Dan Waldo, if you want to stay here another 
 summer and shake your liver out with the fever and 
 ague, you can do it; but in the spring I am going to 
 take the children and go to Oregon, Indians or no 
 Indians. They can't be any worse than the chills and 
 fever!" 
 
 The result was that the matter of going to Oregon 
 was "compromised" between husband and wife and the 
 trip was pulled off according to schedule. 
 
 In the company of the Applegates, who were their 
 neighbors in Missouri, the Waldos made the trip to the 
 Willamette valley in the summer of 1843, being mem- 
 bers of the first train that ever brought wagons across 
 the Cascade Mountains. Upon his arrival Mr. Waldo 
 at once proceeded to the Mission below Salem, for in 
 those days there was no other place to go. He had 
 brought with him about one hundred head of cows — 
 a fortune in itself at that time — and was in search of 
 grazing and farming lands. 
 
 The Mission was on a river bottom, a location which 
 suggested fever, chills and quinine to Mrs. Waldo, and, 
 not understanding that the ague is not known in Oregon 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 219 
 
 in any altitude, the thought of locating there was re- 
 jected at once. But it was a large country, with almost 
 the earth to choose from. The next morning after his 
 arrival Waldo, seeing through the smoky atmosphere a 
 low range of hills off to the eastward, after his break- 
 fast mounted a horse and rode in that direction. For 
 the first three miles he traveled over a level prairie, but 
 after that he rode into the foothills, where a land which 
 suggested the "flowing of milk and honey" was spread 
 out before him. He rode on until, by a singular coinci- 
 dence, near where the town of Aumsville now stands, he 
 found a man named Burroughs whom he had known in 
 Missouri, living in a tent and trapping beaver. After a 
 little talk, Burroughs told Waldo that a few miles to 
 the north there was a location in the midst of a natural 
 amphitheatre, with a spring of water coming to the 
 surface at the root of a huge fir tree, with mighty oaks 
 near by, and thousands of acres of rolling land stretch- 
 ing in every direction, covered everywhere with native 
 grass, knee high. And to this they went, Waldo de- 
 ciding at once that it was the very place for which 
 he had been searching since he was a boy. 
 
 In the summer of 1844 Mr. Waldo built the log house 
 which served as his home until 1853, when he built 
 the substantial frame structure which is a well-preserved 
 farmhouse to-day. This log house, however, still stands 
 just as it was built sixty-seven years ago. Not long 
 since I stood within its sacred walls and, with uncovered 
 head, listened in imagination to the voices of the past. 
 Around the hospitable fireplace — of which the generous 
 aperture in the logs still remains as a mute reminder — 
 Nesmith and Applegate, Minto and Burnett, and scores 
 of others had often gathered for the discussion of the 
 problems of an incipient civil government. 
 
 Like many another pioneer of the early '40's, the old 
 log house is settling to the earth; but with the true 
 loyalty of a native son. Judge John B. Waldo several 
 years ago placed under its eaves strong fir posts, eight 
 inches in diameter, so that after two generations of 
 
220 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 faithful duty the venerable fir logs, taken from the forest 
 sixty-seven years ago, are literally going on crutches, 
 supported by a younger generation of their own kind. 
 
 Standing on the dirt floor, leaning wearily against one 
 of the walls, is the old front door, which has not seen 
 active duty for over fifty-eight years, but whose latch- 
 string was always found hanging on the outside. The 
 nails used in its construction were hand-made, and their 
 huge, battered heads still bear the marks of the son of 
 Vulcan who forged them. He fully earned his wages, 
 no matter what his charge. 
 
 The old house, protected from the winter storms by 
 a separate roof and sides, is now used for an implement 
 shed. When I was there last, lying on the ground at 
 the feet, so to speak, of the latest improved twine-binder, 
 was an old wooden-axle wagon-hub, with broken spokes 
 of different lengths projecting in every direction, which 
 had rolled its weary way, two thousand miles, from 
 Missouri to Oregon, in 1843. There it rests, with its 
 "lynch-pin" attachment, a helpless, discarded outcast, 
 jeered at by a gorgeous array of steel binders, rotary 
 pulverizers and gang-plows — an eloquent reminder to 
 the younger generation of the world's rapid progress. 
 
 In the summer of 1845 a log schoolhouse was built 
 near the Waldo home and school was taught in it during 
 the following winter by a man named Vernon, who 
 soon afterward went to California and was never heard 
 of in Oregon again. This was probably the first public 
 school ever taught in Oregon and was composed chiefly 
 of the children of Daniel Waldo and William Taylor. 
 
 Even in those early days the customs of civilization 
 were becoming well established in the young commu- 
 nity. A man whose sons are to-day well-known citizens 
 of Marion County lodged a complaint against a 
 neighbor, charging him with acquiring possession of a 
 mutton, yet alive, without the knowledge or consent 
 of its rightful owner. The case was tried before Dan 
 Waldo, who was, by common consent, the acting squire 
 for the neighborhood, his jurisdiction extending from 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 221 
 
 the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains — and then 
 some, if desired — and the oppposing attorneys were 
 James W. Nesmith and Peter H. Burnett. My infor- 
 mant was a boy then, but he remembers seeing the 
 jury retire behind the house, in the absence of a room 
 in which to assemble, and, while seated on some logs 
 by the woodpile, each whittled a formidable heap of 
 shavings while the merits of the case were discussed 
 according to "the law and the evidence." 
 
 Dan Waldo was a member of the last Legislative Com- 
 mittee which met before the organization of the pro- 
 visional government. It held its sessions "at the house 
 of Mr. Hathaway," in Oregon City, in June, and again 
 in December, 1844. Among his seven colleagues were 
 numbered Peter H. Burnett, M. M. McCarver, A. L. 
 Lovejoy and Robert Newell — all men of sterling char- 
 acter, in whose integrity no man failed to place the 
 fullest confidence, and fitted by nature as well as by 
 experience to accomplish great things. 
 
 Mr. Waldo at an early day engaged in many branches 
 of business which had for their object not only his own 
 financial gain, but the development of the country. 
 Chief among them was the Willamette Woolen Mills 
 Company which, established at Salem in 1857, was the 
 first business of its kind in the Northwest. The last 
 few years of his life were spent in Salem, where he 
 died about 1880, after a painful and lingering ill- 
 ness. He lives in the memory of Oregonians as one of 
 the best and most enterprising of her early pioneers, 
 a splendid type of the frontiersman. His youngest son, 
 John B. Waldo, served one term of six years as a 
 member of the Oregon Supreme Court and two years as 
 its Chief Justice. Another son, William, still lives in 
 Salem, a bachelor, is eighty years of age and has served 
 the people as president of the State Senate and as Judge 
 of Marion County. He was a boy of twelve years when 
 his father crossed the plains, and well remembers that 
 when the family started with their teams and cattle from 
 the Old Mission to the Hills on that October morning 
 
222 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 in 1843, the little prairie now known as Willson Avenue, 
 extending from the magnificent Marion County court- 
 house to the State Capitol, was a field of oats, yet 
 uncut, while its owner, L. H. Judson, whose house stood 
 where Reed's Opera House was afterward built, was 
 "tramping" out wheat with cattle in a pen made for that 
 purpose. 
 
 The Waldo wagon was the first that ever "rolled a 
 wheel" anywhere in Oregon east of Salem, and one of 
 the first that ever came to the Willamette valley. The 
 Waldo homestead, consisting of a thousand acres, is 
 now the property of the daughter and only child of 
 Judge John B. Waldo, whose death occurred three years 
 ago. With the passing of William, the family name 
 will become extinct in Oregon, save as it is imperishably 
 linked with the beautiful chain of hills in whose bosom 
 Daniel Waldo settled when his nearest neighbor was 
 eight miles distant and there was no public schoolhouse 
 nearer than the Missouri River! 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 Most of us can, I presume, recall without difficulty 
 the first deep impression made upon the memory. 
 Nothing is clearer to my recollection to-day than that 
 event in my own life, though I remember absolutely 
 nothing of what occurred the day before. 
 
 Architecture in those days differed somewhat from 
 the style in vogue at present, and especially was ventila- 
 tion based on a system generous in the extreme. Cer- 
 tainly the fathers were what would be termed "fresh air 
 fiends" in these days, without intending, however, to 
 pay especial attention to hygienic laws. The first thing 
 my father did on his Donation Land Claim was to build 
 a house ten by twelve feet, with a kitchen extension two 
 sizes smaller. In the floor of the kitchen, the possibili- 
 ties of ventilation between the puncheon boards of which 
 it was made were so ample that my sister, who was two 
 years younger than I and just able to crawl, acquired 
 the very annoying habit of dropping our spoon through 
 one of those cracks at least once every day. We had a 
 knife and fork also, but they were regarded as dangerous 
 weapons and were kept on a shelf beyond our reach. 
 
 To make diurnal visits under that floor and rescue 
 that spoon was exacted from me at the tender age of 
 three years, and it is the first thing that I can remember. 
 The space was about six inches above the ground, as I 
 recall it, and at least eight feet square, but it was 
 perfectly dark and my youthful imagination peopled it 
 with all the hideous monsters known to zoology, geology 
 or mythology. 
 
 But my mother was inexorable, my sister, even at that 
 tender age, maintained the reputation of her sex for 
 persistency, and the exploration of that dark cavern 
 
 223 
 
224 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 was as regularly my delegated task as was the coming of 
 the noonday hour. 
 
 Another of my very early recollections is that my 
 father had a band of sheep which he occasionally salted 
 on the hillside, and that at his call they would appear from 
 every direction, coming at a full gallop and filling the air 
 with such a terrific bleating that I thought it meant certain 
 death to him unless he should run for cover, which to 
 my surprise he never did. His escape with his life 
 always seemed to me little short of miraculous. 
 
 Another event which occurred while we lived on the 
 Hills farm v/as the appearance at times of Waldo's 
 cattle — perhaps a hundred head or more — coming in a 
 run in search of water, which was to be found in a 
 small stream near by. To my childish imagination there 
 seemed to be at least ten thousand of them. There 
 were few fences in the country then and the cattle would 
 sometimes divide into two herds as they swept by the 
 house, bent, as I thought, upon the destruction of the 
 earth itself. Their occasional appearance, as they 
 rushed down the hillside, must have been the greatest 
 dread of my life, since to escape it I would have con- 
 sented willingly to crawl under the kitchen floor after 
 the family spoon. 
 
 How mysterious are the opening years of a child's 
 life anyway! A baby knows less at its birth than any 
 other young animal. It only knows enough to breathe. 
 It only knows what it sees and hears, and grows in 
 usefulness through the advancing years by reason of 
 its natural tendency to imitate. A child born of Ameri- 
 can parents if put with a Chinese family at birth, and 
 permitted to hear no language save Chinese, would begin 
 talking like a Chinese baby and would have no more 
 idea of the English language than if its parents had 
 been Esquimaux. And all these wonderful unfoldings 
 from the Land of Nowhere cause many more hours of 
 serious conjecture in the minds of very young children 
 than we are apt to realize, unless, recurring to our own 
 experiences, we go back to the very beginnings of 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 225 
 
 memory and recall the things that first made an indelible 
 impression upon it, — for memory does not begin with 
 life ; it is an after-growth and, indeed, a miracle. 
 
 Strange as it may appear, I distinctly remember being 
 very unhappy one afternoon when, although I was but 
 four years old at the time, I was left alone in our little 
 house. Of course I do not recall how it happened, but 
 the one thing I have never forgotten was that we had 
 a clock — a tall one, with a long pendulum which ticked 
 very slowly. Doubtless my mother had exacted my 
 promise not to go away while she went to a neighbor's 
 house for an hour or two; but under no circumstances 
 would I have ventured out of doors anyway, with 
 Waldo's cattle likely to come rushing over the hills at 
 any minute, and those wild animals huddling, in 
 a starving condition, under the kitchen floor. I was 
 very miserable. I wondered why anybody had been 
 born, how long it had been since the beginning of things, 
 and the very stillness of the house was appalling and 
 oppressive. There was no sound anywhere of anything 
 except the ticking of the clock and the apparently far- 
 away buzzing of some house flies, circling about the 
 ceiling immediately above my head. The stillness was 
 so very pronounced that each alternate tick of the clock 
 produced a faint ringing sound, which died away grad- 
 ually as its successor came in its place. 
 
 This, combined with the buzzing of the flies in musical 
 but lonesome cadence, joined to my apparent desertion 
 and the hopeless solitude, produced within me a feeling 
 that I had then lived about long enough, though I do 
 not think I had at that time ever heard of such a thing 
 as death. 
 
 In the succeeding years I have met with my share of 
 disappointments and discouragements — along with my 
 share, also, of happy days and appreciated successes— 
 but I have never felt an hour of lonesomeness which 
 caused me such real distress as that particular summer 
 afternoon in 1855, and the impression it made on my 
 mind was so very deep that to this day there is nothing 
 
226 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 which is more likely to produce within me the feeling 
 of absolute loneliness — that, perhaps, friends are not only 
 not very plentiful, but still less dependable — than to sit 
 in a room by myself on a warm, drowsy day, where there 
 is no sound save the ticking of a clock and the humming 
 of the flies in an unvaried monotone. 
 
 In the fall of 1855 my father sold his six hundred and 
 forty acres of land and moved to Silverton, a new town 
 just springing into existence about seven miles away. 
 I am not sure what he received for his land, but I think 
 it was a yoke of oxen, a pair of tongs and a quarter of 
 beef. I know it was regarded as a good trade in those 
 days, for there was more unoccupied good land in the 
 country than anything else. (The same tract of land, 
 now divided into several splendid farms, is easily worth 
 one hundred dollars an acre.) But men cannot foresee 
 the result of these moves on life's checker-board, and 
 it is probably best, else everybody would soon be rich and 
 the human race would die of starvation through the lack 
 of sufficient labor to produce enough food to sustain 
 life. 
 
 To-day Silverton is one of the most thriving towns 
 in Oregon, having a population of about two thousand. 
 When my father moved there in 1855, however, it con- 
 tained but one house, and that was on wheels, or log 
 rollers, having just arrived from the town of Milford, 
 two miles above, on Silver Creek — and when that house 
 started away, it being a small mercantile establishment 
 owned by Ai Coolidge, Milford was entirely depopulated 
 and has been ever since. 
 
 It was in Silverton that I attended my first school. 
 The "master" was Paul Crandall, a pioneer of the earlier 
 days, at one time well known over the State. Another 
 teacher was F. O. McCown, afterward a prominent attor- 
 ney in Oregon City, who died several years ago. 
 
 In Silverton my father engaged in the nursery busi- 
 ness and for several years supplied the farmers of the 
 surrounding country with most of the apple, pear and 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 227 
 
 plum trees which formed the first orchards of the Wil- 
 lamette valley. In connection with this he started quite 
 a pretentious poultry industry in 1859 and hauled the 
 "finished product" to Portland, fifty miles away, which 
 was the only market of any consequence in the country. 
 To deliver the poultry he constructed a doubled-decked 
 coop the size of a wagon-bed, in which he could take 
 several dozen chickens at one trip. In the fall of that 
 year he made the journey several times, each requiring 
 five days, and as I had importuned him unceasingly to 
 allow me to go with him — for to see Portland in all the 
 magnificence with which his accounts had invested it 
 was the highest aspiration of my life — toward the last 
 of October, after a particularly persistent appeal, he 
 allowed me to accompany him. The cup of my joy 
 was full to overflowing. Only a few things, however, 
 especially impressed themselves upon my mind, the first 
 being our arrival at Aurora, then universally called 
 "Dutchtown," about five o'clock in the afternoon, where 
 we were to camp for the night. We unhitched the team 
 on the banks of Pudding River, and while my father 
 attended to its wants, I dragged a lot of dry sticks from 
 some near-by brush and we soon started a camp-fire. 
 And how delighted I was! What a pity little things 
 cannot give as much pleasure in after years as they 
 do in childhood. We fried ham and eggs over the fire 
 and made some coffee, and the delicious odor arising 
 from the three articles of food — always good at any 
 time, in any country — I have never forgotten. It was 
 a memorable evening — for it was thirty miles from 
 home, and I was going farther! 
 
 The next morning, after traveling an hour or so, we 
 came to the Willamette River, which we crossed at 
 Boone's Ferry, a well-known pioneer landmark, quite 
 as old as the first settlements and yet bearing the same 
 name — and in use. The Willamette River I had heard 
 of since my first attention to things I had not seen, and 
 here it was — and here / was! As we drove into the 
 boat, but little larger than the wagon and team, I 
 
228 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 wondered if it was possible ever to reach the other side 
 — so far away was it — but a look into my father's face 
 inspired me with confidence that all was well, so I began 
 to enjoy the novel situation. I had never before seen 
 a stream larger than Silver Creek, where we crossed ii 
 on the covered bridge that Homer Davenport has made 
 famous, and I fell into a deep consideration of the 
 possibility of the Pacific Ocean being any larger than 
 the Willamette, while I wondered how the boat could 
 cross the river by hanging to a rope which stretched 
 from bank to bank. 
 
 That afternoon we came up over the divide, just 
 south of Portland, and I had my first glimpse of the 
 great city. Singularly enough, I do not recall any of 
 the circumstances connected with the stay there, but 
 the appearance of the city as we first came in sight of 
 it is as plain to me now as it was at the time. I 
 distinctly remember that at frequent intervals there were 
 very lall fir trees growing on the bank of the river, so 
 close to the water's edge that many of them were lean- 
 ing out from the land, and I wondered why they did not 
 fall. I also remember that on the rear end of a build- 
 ing which projected over the water was the sign, "S. 
 Arrigoni," in very large letters, and that father said, 
 when I called his attention to the phenomenon, that there 
 was where we would get our supper, and that he was 
 the man who would buy the chickens. I also remember 
 passing the territorial penitentiary, just south of the 
 town, and I was duly impressed by means of a little 
 fatherly moralizing that it was not a good place to 
 be — that bad boys, as a rule, made bad men, and that 
 bad men were sent there to live and were not allowed 
 to have much to eat, nor to get away. Sometimes they 
 were shot, and that served them right. I listened to 
 my father's detailed description of the awful place, coin- 
 cided fully in his conclusions, and gave him a verbal 
 guarantee on the spot that I would so gauge my conduct 
 that there would be nothing doing in that line in my 
 case — or words to that efifect. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 229 
 
 The return home was without particular interest, but 
 for about a month afterward I was the hero of Silver- 
 ton among my little chums, who, by the way, appeared 
 to have lost much of their prestige in my estimation. 
 Since they had never been in Portland, I wondered 
 what they found in life worth striving for anyway! 
 By degrees, however, I resumed my normal place in the 
 little world in which I moved and I was once more on 
 a level with the Brown and Wolfard and Dudley and 
 Barger and other children in my "set." 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 In the spring of 1861 my father sold his place in 
 Silverton to Ai Coolidge, who owned it and made it his 
 home until his death, less than one year ago; it is still 
 owned by his daughter. This was a great event in my 
 life, at the time, one full of joyful anticipations but 
 tinged, withal, with a pang of sorrow — a small sorrow 
 it must have been, but I was a small boy, and it was as 
 difficult to bear as if it had been a larger disappointment 
 to be borne by a full-grown man. 
 
 This change of residence cruelly severed the ties I 
 had formed with the children of Silverton, among whom 
 was a pretty little miss of eleven summers, with rosy 
 cheeks, curly brown hair and killing eyes. This little 
 creature had completely won my heart, and in the midst 
 of it all I was about to be ruthlessly transplanted to what 
 seemed to me a land of exile! It was at the very time 
 of the firing on Fort Sumter and the different States 
 were not only "dissevered, discordant and belligerent," 
 but the land was being "drenched in fraternal blood." 
 I can remember how men were troubled and excited, 
 but I could not understand that there was any cause for 
 sorrow, when, so far as I knew, none of them had recently 
 been separated, as I was about to be, from the only 
 object on earth that could give any interest to life. 
 
 We were to start about ten o'clock, and as it was not 
 far to the schoolhouse, I stole away, picked one of the 
 prettiest wild rosebuds that I could find, and intercepted 
 the little beauty — who shyly confessed herself a little 
 disturbed at the turn of affairs — and with immeasurable 
 sorrow, tempted by my joy in meeting her, gave her 
 the rosebud and tearfully hurried away. I had just 
 reached the tender age of ten years, and had no doubt I 
 was undergoing extreme anguish ; but so great were my 
 
 230 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 231 
 
 recuperative powers that within three weeks my bereave- 
 ment was forgotten and I was again basking in sunshine 
 and roses. The last I heard of my youthful charmer 
 she was living on a sheep ranch in Idaho, the mother 
 of eleven children, and was doing as well, perhaps better, 
 than if my father had remained in Silverton. 
 
 In 1854 W. K. Smith, a druggist and to-day a well- 
 known capitalist of Portland, had the only store in his 
 line of business in Salem. He had then been there one 
 year and was making so much money that an opposition 
 company was formed, of which the late General C. A. 
 Reed was the leading member. They erected a two- 
 story frame building on the east side of Commercial 
 Street and at the north end of the bridge which crosses 
 South Mill Creek, or "Battle Creek." Within one year, 
 however, the new firm sold its stock to W. K. Smith, 
 building and all. Smith's store had been located one 
 block west of this point, where, indeed, all the first 
 buildings erected in that part of Salem were located. As 
 the town grew toward Commercial Street, he concluded 
 to move his storeroom around on a lot he owned imme- 
 diately opposite where the Willamette (now the Marion) 
 Hotel has been for the last thirty-five years. By the 
 time he had reached the west side of Commercial Street, 
 however, the men in charge had broken every available 
 rope in Marion County. Smith made a trip to Portland 
 after a chain, but not finding one sufficiently strong, he 
 bought the lot on which he had met defeat and rested 
 from his labors permanently. He was selling goods en 
 route, however, and after buying out the opposition, 
 transferred the stock to his own store. 
 
 This two-story house which was built for Reed is 
 standing to-day, and is still occupied, being among the 
 oldest in Salem. It was into this house — the upper 
 story — that we moved upon reaching Salem, the first 
 floor being occupied by B. M. DuRelle, owner of the 
 steam sawmill in Salem, which was entirely washed 
 away in the following December. The first night in 
 Salem I staid with my Grandfather Eoff in the old Ben- 
 
232 FIFTY YEA'RS IN^DREGON 
 
 nett House, as he was a member of the jury and was 
 spending the week there. 
 
 Although I had been born near Salem and had reached 
 the age of ten years I had never been there; the trip to 
 Portland had been such a concession to my ambition 
 that I had not had the courage to mention my longings 
 to see the State capital. But here we were, and to remain 
 permanently. My heart was satisfied, and the bound- 
 less opportunities for sightseeing occupied all my waking 
 hours, which at this time were about eighteen out of the 
 twenty-four. The next Sunday my sister and I were 
 sent to the Methodist Sunday-school. My mother was a 
 member of the Christian Church, but the Methodists had 
 the largest school and it was convenient. I had never 
 6efore been to Sunday-school, since Silverton had not 
 yet reached the stage of development which demanded 
 such an institution. 
 
 I well remember that David Rutledge was the Metho- 
 dist pastor at that time and Thomas H. Crawford, yet 
 living and until recently the secretary of the Board of 
 Regents for the Oregon Agricultural College, was the 
 superintendent. The latter led in the singing, which I 
 thought was as near perfection as could be expected this 
 side of the New Jerusalem, of which I had heard some 
 accounts more or less satisfactory even then. There 
 was a sort of drill in the singing of the principal song, 
 and though it is exactly fifty years this month since that 
 practice, so impressed was I with the splendor of the 
 surroundings and the novelty of the delightful experi- 
 ence, that I have never forgotten the words of the first 
 verse, which were: 
 
 Jesus shall reign where'er the sun 
 Does his successive journeys run; 
 His kingdom spread from shore to shore, 
 Till moons shall wax and wane no more. 
 
 It was great. We went home, after becoming mem- 
 bers of the children's class, with a lesson of ten verses, 
 which we were to commit to memory for recital on the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 233 
 
 next Sunday. Before night of that same day we had 
 them all down "pat," and recited them at home at least 
 twenty-five times every day during the ensuing week. 
 The first of these verses was: "Search the Scriptures, 
 for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are 
 they which testify of me." The lesson was somewhere 
 in St. John, I remember, but have forgotten the chapter. 
 (It would, perhaps, be a good exercise for the reader to 
 look it up.) 
 
 That summer, as already observed, I attended the 
 Central School and my father built a home on Com- 
 mercial Street nearly opposite where the Willamette 
 Hotel now stands. In the fall he bought the apples, on 
 the trees, in the orchard belonging to George H. Jones, 
 one of the pioneer settlers in Salem, and, by the way, it 
 was one of the first orchards planted in the State. Asso- 
 ciated with him in this enterprise was Samuel Headrick, 
 soon afterward elected sheriff of Marion County, and a 
 son of a well-known pioneer family on Howell's prairie. 
 They gathered the apples, packed them and shipped them 
 to the San Francisco market. They made some money 
 out of the undertaking, but my clearest impression of it 
 all was that perhaps no more disagreeable work can be 
 devised than gathering apples on such wet, foggy morn- 
 ings in November as are sometimes known in the Wil- 
 amette valley — especially if you are a ten-year-old boy, 
 compelled to engage in it, and with other "stunts" in 
 view, as I had, offering a far more attractive outlook. 
 
 Some time in the early spring of 1862 my father went 
 to the mines in British Columbia, drifting from there 
 into eastern Oregon and Idaho, and my mother, with my 
 brother and sister, went to California to live. She and 
 my father never saw each other afterward, though they 
 both lived to be seventy-five years of age. It is not a 
 subject to be discussed here, save as it is necessary to 
 refer to it in explanation of the conditions by which I 
 was often confronted. It is sufficient to say that one 
 was no more to blame than the other, and that there 
 was nothing which could not have been removed by the 
 
234 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 exercise of a little diplomacy — ^but they were far apart, 
 and no serious attempt at reconciliation was made. It 
 was a great misfortune for them both and it fell heavily 
 on me, as I was but eleven years of age at the time and, 
 with neither home nor parents within a thousand miles, 
 was thrown entirely on my own resources. 
 
 I lived with my Grandfather Eoff on his farm, seven 
 miles east of Salem, from the spring of 1862 until Sep- 
 tember of the following year, when my father returned 
 to the Willamette valley and made arrangements, as I 
 have already said, for me to enter the Willamette Uni- 
 versity. I had then not seen him for more than eighteen 
 months, nor had I seen my mother for a year. Indeed, 
 I did not see her again until the summer of 1885, twenty- 
 three years later, when she made a visit to my. home in 
 the Waldo Hills, though we maintained a correspondence 
 during all that time. 
 
 Like a great majority of miners, my father had not 
 succeeded very well and consequently could not afford 
 to pay for my board; as a result I was to do "chores" 
 and render assistance in various ways to offset my 
 "keep." By dint of much maneuvering I managed to 
 remain in school until the spring of 1865, eighteen 
 months, when I was compelled to abandon further 
 efforts in that direction and to go to work for a living — 
 at fourteen years of age. 
 
 I began my school experience in September, 1863, by 
 boarding at the home of Sam Headrick, just mentioned, 
 a very close friend of my father. It was a very agree- 
 able place to stay, but he made a change in his house- 
 keeping affairs in the spring of 1864, having been elected 
 sheriff of Marion County, and I was thrown upon my 
 own resources. By the assistance of Daniel Jones, 
 another Silverton friend, I found a place in a restaurant 
 conducted on Commercial Street by a man named Chase. 
 Mr. Jones, who had a tailor shop, allowed me to sleep 
 on and under two pairs of blankets under the counter of 
 his shop, but I had no sooner become settled in my new 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 235 
 
 position — and my blankets — than Chase failed in busi- 
 ness and his establishment was closed. 
 
 Upon this sudden change in affairs I thought I had 
 reached the end of my rope in my effort to continue in 
 school, and was seriously considering the necessity of 
 returning to the country and working for my grand- 
 father when "Walt" Smith, a merchant who had a few 
 years before worked for my uncle Ralph Geer on his 
 farm in the Hills, offered me a place in his home until I 
 could find another. By this time I was attending school 
 in Professor L. J. Powell's department, and to him I 
 told my troubles, adding that I feared I would have to 
 abandon altogether my struggle for an education. To 
 this he seriously objected, saying that I could come to 
 his home and work for my board until I could secure a 
 permanent place. This I did, remaining until the middle 
 of the winter of 1864, when his wife became ill and I 
 was compelled to move again. 
 
 Luckily, at this point Mr. Jones, to whom I went with 
 all my disappointments, said he felt certain he could find 
 me a good home with George Beale, who kept a saloon 
 on the corner where the Willamette Hotel now stands, 
 as he had heard him say he wished he could get a boy 
 to do the chores around the house, being away much of 
 the time. 
 
 This proved an ideal place to live. There was little 
 to do and there were no children. But, alack and alas! 
 I had been there but a couple of months when he was 
 arrested on a charge of murder, found guilty, and paid 
 the penalty on the gallows. 
 
 Balked again in my pursuit of knowledge, I decided 
 I would call it a bad job all around and go to work. And 
 why not? The fates seemed against me at every turn. 
 Every time I found a place to stay, the man of the house 
 either failed in business, changed his vocation, moved 
 away or was hanged; so I hied myself to the country, 
 rolled up my sleeves and worked a full year for my 
 board and clothes at the home of my cousin Cal Geer, 
 
236 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 in the Waldo Hills. At the end of the year I agreed to 
 work four months for another cousin, L. B. Geer, for a 
 four-year-old mare valued at one hundred dollars. 
 
 When this contract was fulfilled in the fall of 1866, 
 my father had concluded to get married again and to 
 locate in the Cove, a most attractive place on the east 
 side of the Grand Ronde valley, which was then begin- 
 ning to be settled. Having decided to enter the nursery 
 business, he wrote to me of his plans, matrimonial and 
 otherwise, and requested me to make arrangements to 
 live with him. He wanted me to secure a large quantity 
 of apple and pear seeds, as well as roots for grafting. 
 After having employed a month at this task, just before 
 Christmas, 1866, I bade farewell to boyhood scenes and 
 friends and, with an enormous trunk full of fruit seeds 
 and roots, left for my new home in a new country in 
 eastern Oregon. 
 
 It will be well to devote a page or two to that trip 
 from Salem to Grand Ronde valley in 1866 as affording 
 a lesson to those who are too prone to conclude that "the 
 old times" are the best times, and that the condition of 
 mankind is now less conducive to comfort than formerly. 
 Let us see how it is by contrast. 
 
 I left Salem one morning before daylight on a steam- 
 boat for Portland, and it required all day and until after 
 dark to reach that city. The only other way to make 
 the journey was by stage, which required fully as much 
 time and cost more. The next morning I started for 
 The Dalles by boat and did not reach that place until 
 dark. The third day, long before daylight, I boarded a 
 portage railroad that ran to Celilo, some fifteen miles 
 up the river, at which place we arrived while it was yet 
 dark. Here we boarded a waiting steamboat and trav- 
 eled all day to reach the Umatilla Landing and there we 
 remained all night. The fourth day, starting long before 
 it was light, we reached by stage what was called the 
 Twelve Mile House before breakfast. It was bitterly 
 cold and by the time we reached the station my feet were 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 237 
 
 nearly frozen. My good Aunt Mary Geer had given 
 me several extra pairs of new socks which she herself 
 had knit, insisting that when I began my stage journey 
 in "that dreadfully cold country" I should put on two 
 pairs of them. This I did that morning at the Landing, 
 and it was all I could do to pull my boots on over them. 
 Of course, the result of this was that the cold was 
 doubled in its effect and by the time we had traveled 
 half the distance to the station I was in danger of having 
 frozen feet. The driver declared it impossible to take off 
 my boots in that sort of a storm, so I endured my misery 
 until we arrived at the inn. Here it was not long until 
 I had stripped my feet to one pair of socks, and my first 
 lesson in dressing for cold weather was learned. 
 
 We crossed the Umatilla River where the city of Pen- 
 dleton now stands, but there was nothing there then 
 but a stage station and a toll-bridge. At sundown we 
 reached Warm Springs, since known as Bingham 
 Springs (I believe it is the same place). The next morn- 
 ing we passed over the Blue Mountains, through Sum- 
 merville, and soon after noon reached Hendershott's 
 Point, my destination, December 23. 
 
 As will be seen, this trip occupied nearly five days and 
 parts of two nights and was attended with much dis- 
 comfort, besides costing fully three times as much as the 
 fare now charged in a luxurious Pullman coach. One 
 can leave Salem, in these "degenerate" days, in the 
 afternoon and arrive at La Grande within twelve hours 
 from Portland! 
 
 "Do the world move?" It do — and in the right 
 direction. Though at times, it is conceded, the progress 
 is somewhat slow, it is getting there all the time! 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 It so happened that I lived in Salem during the precise 
 period of the Civil War, and I was old enough fully to 
 understand its meaning and to appreciate the nature of 
 the struggle. Boys of my age were as enthusiastic over 
 the contest as were the men, and as anxious for the 
 success of the side they espoused. Of course the sym- 
 pathy of the people of Oregon was overwhelmingly for 
 the Union, but there was quite a large and outspoken 
 percentage which hoped for the success of the South. 
 Indeed, public expressions of sympathy for the Southern 
 army resulted in many personal encounters on the streets 
 of Salem, and it was seldom that the voicing of such 
 sentiments was not chalien.s^ed on the spot. There was 
 one man in Salem, in particular, who had several fistic 
 encounters on the street — several of which I saw — ^be- 
 cause of his shouting, "Hurrah for Jeff Davis !" 
 
 Soon after the commencement of hostilities between 
 the two sections a local militia company was organized 
 in Salem known as the "Marion Rifles," ofificered by 
 prominent men in business and public life. It was splen- 
 didly equipped and was on duty whenever there was any 
 occasion for a demonstration justifying its appearance. 
 It was especially unpopular with the Southern sympa- 
 thizers and always drew from them expressions of con- 
 tempt. Most of the boys with whom I associated be- 
 longed to it, but they were older than I and therefore 
 eligible for membership. In the summer of 1864 I grew 
 very anxious to become a member of the "Rifles." Being 
 only thirteen years old I was too young to be accepted, 
 but as I was larger than many of the members who were 
 several years my senior, my size served to annul the 
 impediment and I was admitted. 
 
 The armory was in the second story of the Moores 
 
 23S 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 239 
 
 building, situated on the northwest corner of Commercial 
 and State streets. It continued to be used until the 
 summer of 191 o, when it was demoh'shed to make room 
 for the first steel, five-story structure to adorn the capi- 
 tal city. 
 
 During the fall of 1864 those who were opposed to 
 the war and were especially hostile toward President 
 Lincoln — and they were in sufficient numbers to create 
 a great deal of noise — frequently boasted that they would 
 interfere with the orderly process of the election in 
 November. Indeed, it- was greatly feared that there 
 would be a riot, as those who were openly giving sym- 
 pathy to the Southerners threatened that there "would 
 be something doing" on election day. It was thought 
 by a great many people that there would be rioting even 
 during the night preceding the election. This seems 
 strange at this distant day, but it will be recalled easily 
 by the older mem.bers of the community who were here 
 then that at one time in the early stages of the war there 
 was a well-grounded fear that an attempt would be 
 made to efifect the secession of the Pacific Coast States. 
 Of course this rash step was never undertaken, but the 
 sentiment which caused the apprehension was active 
 until the very last days of the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 This situation created grave anxiety in Salem dur- 
 ing the days immediately preceding the election in 
 1864, and it was this unrest which decided the officers 
 of the Marion Rifles to prepare for any possible emer- 
 gency. On the night before the election the company 
 met in response to a special call in the armory, and after 
 discussing the situation made all the arrangements in 
 detail for meeting and suppressing any outbreak on the 
 part of those who had threatened to interfere with the 
 election. 
 
 In the process of the discussion it was agreed that it 
 would be dangerous to meet in the armory, in case of 
 trouble in the night, as it would afford a trap in which 
 we might be cornered and even captured. It was agreed, 
 therefore, that in case we had to assemble, a designated 
 
240 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 officer, who remained up all night, was to hurry to the 
 Methodist church and give a certain number of taps 
 with its bell, which would be the signal for the members 
 of the company to gather immediately at the church for 
 orders. 
 
 Every member took to his home that night his musket 
 and a belt full of ammunition, prepared for the worst. 
 At that time I was living in the family of Prof. L. J. 
 Powell, whose house stood on the northeast corner of 
 State and Twelfth streets (the house still stands on a 
 lot fifty feet to the north and is owned and occupied by 
 Gideon Steiner). Here, on a chair by my bed, I laid 
 my belt of cartridges, with the musket leaning against 
 the wall, expecting to hear the familiar sound of the old 
 church bell at any hour ; but no call came and the election 
 "passed ofif quietly," as elections are wont to do. This 
 was the beginning and ending of my military service. 
 
 There were a great many boys attending the Univer- 
 sity who were too young to join the Marion Rifles and 
 who were handicapped by their size as well as their 
 age; but this did not serve to lessen their ardor or to 
 diminish their admiration for anything that smelled of 
 war. These boys formed a company of their own and 
 manufactured their guns out of any old board they could 
 find that was an inch thick and long enough to look like 
 a musket. From a board like this a boy would "carve 
 out" a gun that had all the outlines of a rifle or shotgun, 
 and with this outfit would march around with distended 
 chest and erect bearing, only regretting that his gun 
 didn't carry a deadly bullet and that he was not con- 
 fronted by some man on mischief bent. Thus equipped, 
 about fifty University boys formed a military company 
 and, with a full list of officers, employed much of their 
 leisure time in maneuvering on the University campus. 
 In a little while they understood the manual of arms in 
 all its ordinary requirements, and often would march 
 up and down the principal streets of Salem. 
 
 I remember, however, that this was too tame for some 
 of the boys. They wanted to enjoy the smell of real 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 241 
 
 blood. It was too much make-believe to answer their 
 cravings for gore. Among the students of that age 
 there were three, and three only, who were openly for 
 McClellan, and they were regarded by the "army" boys 
 as enemies of their country and fit subjects for severe 
 punishment. One of the favorite practices of the com- 
 pany was a double-quick march, terminating in "charge 
 bayonets." This last, usually given as the bell rang for 
 the school session, was a great favorite with the boys. 
 As the three "dissenters" did not belong to the company, 
 it was thought the proper thing to regard them as the 
 enemy, and it was a common proceeding to surround 
 them in the double-quick march toward the building and 
 shove them around in great form with the ends of the 
 "muskets." This they took in good part — it was good 
 diplomacy to do so — and all usually ended well. 
 
 But Sam Driver, a son of Rev. I. D. Driver, one of 
 the ablest preachers the Methodist Church has ever 
 known on the Pacific Coast, was not satisfied with so 
 tame a proceeding. Ferociously anxious to go on the 
 war-path, it occurred to him one evening after he went 
 home that he would improve on his gun. Accordingly, 
 he took a ten-penny nail, filed the small end to a sharp 
 point, inserted the other end by some means firmly into 
 the "muzzle" of his gun and took it to school next morn- 
 ing. The company had its usual drill before school 
 hours, and when the bell rang the charge was made on 
 the imaginary enemy in double-quick. Usually at this 
 point in the drill the three opponents of good govern- 
 ment managed to disappear, but this particular morning 
 Lafe Williams, who had several times invited and jus- 
 tified the infliction of the severest form of physical pun- 
 ishment by declaring his preference for McClellan for 
 President, was caught in the sweep of the march. Sam 
 Driver made a "bee" line for him. To reach him before 
 he escaped it was necessary to leave his place in the 
 ranks; but this he did, and with his latest "improved" 
 musket began to push the enemy along vigorously. He 
 was literally "wild-eyed," imagining that he was prod- 
 
242 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 ding the Southern Confederacy, incarnate in Lafe Wil- 
 liams. But he overdid the matter decidedly. His bayo- 
 net, and his use of it, proved his undoing. Lafe 
 was larger than Sam, and after about six prods of the 
 ten-penny nail he turned on his charging adversary with 
 a belligerent expression, reinforced with a pair of 
 "dukes," that instantly changed the entire trend of 
 events. The first pass Sam was sent sprawling, and the 
 pummeling he got in the next two minutes was complete 
 in its every detail. Nothing was lacking, especially from 
 the standpoint of the erstwhile soldier. 
 
 The fact was, the boys, to whom Sam had shown his 
 latest model of firearm when he first arrived at school, 
 did not approve of his threat to use it on one of the 
 "secesh" boys, as he called them, and when Lafe finally 
 "went for him, thar and then," the outcome was in per- 
 fect harmony with the wishes of the majority. Sam's 
 face showed the results of his "Bull Run" charge for a 
 week and he didn't drill any more with the boys for a 
 month — and he enjoyed his furlough very much, indeed. 
 
 Sam Driver's father lived in Eugene, and in order 
 that the son might attend the great Methodist school 
 he had come to Salem and was making his home with 
 the family of Rev. Gustavus Hines. He and I became 
 very chummy during my attendance at the University, 
 but when I left it in the spring of '65 I did not see him 
 again for twenty years. Occasionally I heard of him, 
 and in about 1875 I learned that he was an "ordained 
 preacher in the Methodist Church. Afterwards I heard 
 that he was the presiding elder of a district in Idaho. 
 It all sounded like a fairy dream that he could, with his 
 overcharged electrical battery, attain and maintain the 
 necessary poise for a minister of the Gospel. 
 
 One wintry morning. in 1885, I think it was, I found 
 myself in the town of Union, unable to start for Salem 
 on account of delayed trains. It was Sunday, and not 
 until the church bells began to ring did I recall that Sam 
 Driver, my old college chum, was located in that very 
 town as the local Methodist preacher. I had not intended 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 243 
 
 to go to church, but at this thought I at once changed 
 my plans and decided to hear Sam preach. The very 
 idea seemed ludicrous. Not that he had been a bad boy, 
 for he really had many good qualities, but his tempera- 
 ment seemed the very opposite of that which one looks 
 for, and rightly, in a man who follows that profession. 
 
 And I was embarrassed, too, at the thought of appear- 
 ing before him while in the pulpit, for I imagined that if 
 in the midst of his discourse, he should suddenly recog- 
 nize me, after a separation of twenty years, it might 
 prove disconcerting to him. So I entered the church 
 and took a seat where the huge stove-drum was in a 
 direct line with the pulpit. Sam was standing near the 
 platform, but with his back toward the congregation, 
 engaged in conversation. But I knew his back — the dear 
 old boy! — broad-shouldered and erect. He soon entered 
 the pulpit, announced the song and led in the singing. 
 After this he began his prayer, and the way he impor- 
 tuned the Throne of Grace for mercy toward all sinners 
 fairly jarred the walls of the building. 
 
 When he began his sermon I shrank down in my 
 seat so that I could see him through the space between 
 the stove and its drum — so much afraid was I that a 
 recognition of me would shatter his composure. But 
 this did not happen and he preached a really good 
 sermon. All the while my thoughts were not uninter- 
 ruptedly centered on either the text or his deductions 
 from it, for memory was busy recalling Lafe Williams' 
 charge and dozens of other incidents of the old days 
 when Sam's principal characteristic seemed to be a ten- 
 dency to torment somebody or something. 
 
 After the sermon, as he came down the aisle shaking 
 hands right and left, he approached me. As I extended 
 my hand he instantly saw I was a stranger, and almost 
 as quickly recognized me. Then with both hands he 
 grasped one of mine and held it like a vise for several 
 minutes, asking me meanwhile a thousand questions. I 
 went home with him for luncheon and we had a most 
 splendid visit. I went away on the evening train and 
 
244 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 never saw him again. After experiencing different sorts 
 of vicissitudes he died a few years ago in California. 
 
 Among the public men I have known in Oregon none 
 has had the dynamic force and ready fighting qualities, 
 coupled with great ability, that characterized Rev. I. D. 
 Driver, Sam's father. He was disputatious to a won- 
 derful degree on theological questions and had pro- 
 foundly studied them, with all their related problems. 
 He was elected to the State Senate from Lane County 
 in 1896 and was a member of that body in the famous 
 "Hold-up" session in 1897 — also in the extra session 
 called by Governor Lord in October, 1898, and in the 
 regular session in the following January. In the role of 
 legislator Mr. Driver was a positive force, but did not 
 take front rank as in his ministerial work. 
 
 Frequently, however, some Senator ran afoul of him 
 and uniformly received as good as he sent, frequently 
 getting some "boot" in the exchange. One day in Feb- 
 ruary, 1899, I dropped into the Senate for a moment, 
 just in time to hear the best part of a debate between 
 Driver and a Multnomah Senator, when the latter, 
 piqued at a hot remark by the Senator from Lane, re- 
 proached him for losing his temper, though a minister 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 Not only as "quick as a flash," but a trifle quicker, 
 Driver shouted : "I'd have you know that I began get- 
 ting mad a long time before I began preaching, — it's the 
 oldest privilege I've got!" 
 
 Mr. Driver was born in Ohio in 1824 and came to 
 Oregon in 1853. He was married to Miss Rebecca 
 Crumley in 1848, to Miss Mary Hardenbrook in 1852, 
 to Miss Leanna lies in 1867, to Miss Anna Northnip in 
 1875 and to Miss Mary E. Williams in 1877. His first 
 four wives died, and three of them are buried in Lee 
 Mission Cemetery, near Salem, side by side, with one 
 tombstone doing service for them all. The story it nar- 
 rates is not only unique but mutely pathetic. Beside 
 them now rests Uie form of the husband, who died some 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 245 
 
 three years ago, well past eighty, but vigorous mentally 
 and ready to the last for a discussion of religious ques- 
 tions. Only a few months before his death, in the course 
 of a luncheon which he and I took together in Portland, 
 he related many interesting incidents of his early min- 
 istry in Oregon. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 There is no truer statement than that we are all vic- 
 tims of circumstances — "Man proposes but God dis- 
 poses." It is all very well to say that the real live man 
 makes his own circumstances, but in most cases he does 
 not. The very circumstance he appears to make was 
 possible for him on account of some favorable condition 
 with which he had nothing whatever to do. An event 
 which in itself amounts to little will change the entire 
 career of a man or woman, and it will always be so. 
 It may not be Fate — probably is not — but random hap- 
 penings which apparently are not based upon any plan 
 necessarily lead to others, and the result is the endless 
 variety of changes and combinations which makes up 
 the daily life of mankind. 
 
 For instance, the creation of Union County, by detach- 
 ing it from Baker in 1864, was the cause of my living in 
 that part of Oregon for ten years of my life. Under 
 the provision of the act authorizing it, the Governor 
 appointed the first set of officers and Governor Gibbs 
 selected my father's brother, Isaiah, as its first sheriff. 
 At that time my father had become discouraged in his 
 mining enterprises and was ready to accept the proffered 
 position of deputy sheriff. He at once went to La 
 Grande, the county-seat, and took a position in the 
 sheriff's office. The sheriff himself lived in the little 
 town of Oro Dell, situated where the Grand Ronde 
 River rushes out of the Blue Mountains and starts on 
 its sluggish journey across that most beautiful valley on 
 the Pacific Coast, using one hundred and ten miles of 
 its length in reaching a point opposite, only twenty miles 
 away. 
 
 At that time Oro Dell was a town of some pretensions, 
 W. J. Snodgrass, lately deceased, having a grist-mill 
 
 246 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 247 
 
 there then, as well as a mercantile establishment carry- 
 ing a large stock of goods. Here, also, was where the 
 overland stage line emerged into the valley, as the famous 
 Meacham toll road, over which all the immense freight 
 traffic for the Idaho mines from western Oregon was 
 carried from Umatilla Landing, ran this way. But with 
 the development of the country Oro Dell was absorbed 
 by La Grande, which to-day is one of the best towns in 
 eastern Oregon, extending to and including the buildings 
 of its former rival. 
 
 Doing the housework for the sherifif's family at that 
 time was a young woman who had come recently from 
 Missouri, Miss Eliza Duncan, whose father had been 
 obliged to leave that State in the spring of 1864 on 
 account of his espousal of the side of the Union in the 
 unpleasantness then distracting our unhappy country. 
 Miss Duncan was a comely woman, thirty years of age. 
 My father was a widower and boarded with the sheriff's 
 family, Naturally, the two single persons became 
 acquainted. By the middle of the summer of 1866 
 some plans had been perfected between them, strange to 
 relate, which led to a wedding on October 14. This led 
 to my locating in the Grand Ronde valley, as already 
 mentioned, in the following December — all on account 
 of the notion of some people in 1864 that Union County 
 should be created, and because Governor Gibbs was a 
 personal friend of Uncle Isaiah. Otherwise, I might 
 have, — but I didn't! 
 
 The ten years spent in the Cove, Union County, were 
 delightful years. I was at the right age to enjoy life — 
 between fifteen and twenty-five — was in the best of 
 health and, like all other persons at that age, had most 
 of my life, at least in prospect, before me. It was a new 
 section, however, and we were confronted with all the 
 difficulties and inconveniences which always accompany 
 the first years of a country's settlement. In 1866 much 
 of the flour used in the Grand Ronde valley was freighted 
 from Walla Walla, though two or three local grist-mills 
 had already been erected and the famous Mt. Fanny 
 
248 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON ^ 
 
 Mills, of the Cove, built by S. G. French and Henry & 
 Hailey, were in process of construction. 
 
 Much of the valley was yet unfenced and, indeed, 
 most of the fertile land which constitutes that garden- 
 spot, the Cove, was out in the commons. Nothing was 
 produced but wheat and barley, aside from the stock- 
 growing industry, which was the chief reliance for local 
 revenue. By degrees the beauty and unusual natural 
 advantages of the section attracted the attention of out- 
 siders; it became densely populated and to-day is one 
 of the most prosperous parts of the Pacific Coast. Indeed, 
 I believe that the Grand Ronde valley is one of the best 
 and most fertile bodies of land to be found anywhere, 
 since all its acres can be put to profitable use and the 
 climate is favorable to the growth of a marvelous variety 
 of products which reach a perfect state of maturity. 
 
 When I arrived at the Cove in 1866 there was a store 
 and hotel at Hendershott's Point, a stage station where 
 the high range of hills which begins several miles to the 
 east and which separates the Cove from the valley proper 
 toward Union, through a gradual lessening of altitude 
 dwindles to a point and is lost in the level valley itself. 
 The store was owned by the firm of Frank & Bam- 
 burger and was doing an immense business, while the 
 hotel was conducted by James Hendershott, at that time 
 one of the best known men in the State. He had moved 
 there from Salem in 1862, but had previously lived in 
 Josephine County, of which he was at one time sheriff. 
 He was elected to the lower House of the State Legis- 
 lature from Union County in 1866 and to the State 
 Senate in 1868. He was afterward register of the State 
 Land Office at Union and was for several years a very 
 influential lobbyist at the different sessions of the Legis- 
 lature. He was a man of most generous impulses, ex- 
 tremely hospitable, always public-spirited and aided much 
 in developing the agricultural and horticultural resources 
 of the Grand Ronde valley. \?\'^hen nineteen years of 
 age he married Miss Harriet Vincent, in Iowa. Mrs. 
 Hendershott is now living at the age of eighty years, 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 249 
 
 with her only child, Mrs. Minerva Eaton, wife of John 
 Eaton, one of the State tax commissioners. Mr. Hen- 
 dershott died in 1899 at the age of seventy years. 
 
 I will relate one incident that happened in the Cove in 
 the winter of 1868 which well illustrates the nature of 
 "Jim" Hendershott. At that time the population was so 
 sparse that no one church could afford to maintain a 
 separate organization and building, so there was organ- 
 ized what was called the "Union" Sunday-school in the 
 Cove, and to it people of all beliefs and all shades of 
 belief, as well as many of no belief, came from every 
 part of the valley. J. R. Kellogg, a well-to-do farmer 
 living but two miles from La Grande, twenty miles from 
 the Cove, was chosen superintendent, and as he was a 
 singing-school teacher as well it was considered a very 
 fortunate thing that his services could be secured. He 
 had served in the Union army during the war and was 
 a splendid fifer, having acted in that capacity in his 
 company in the South. In almost every public event, of 
 whatever kind, which took place in the Grand Ronde 
 valley for thirty years, J. R. Kellogg participated, and 
 with an accompanying drum could be heard and seen 
 marching along the principal street, in his element while 
 arousing the cheers of the multitude. 
 
 Mr. Kellogg never missed that summer in his attend- 
 ance at the Cove Sunday-school. He was always cheer- 
 ful and his optimism was contagious. The last time I 
 saw him was in the summer of 1905, at a public gathering 
 in Newport, where he was taking a vacation. Being 
 called upon for a song by those who knew his capa- 
 bilities, he responded by singing that old ballad, "For 
 Uncle Sam Is Rich Enough to Give Us All a Farm." 
 And he did it well for a man eighty years of age. The 
 next year he passed to that land of which he sang during 
 a long lifetime. 
 
 People came to that Sunday-school from all directions 
 and it was the most popular institution the valley had 
 ever known. No discussion of denominational subjects 
 was permitted — only "Christ and Him crucified." W. T. 
 
250 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Wright, then a young, unmarried man living in Union, 
 where he still resides, was a regular attendant. He 
 belonged to the choir which led the congregation, but 
 was suspected of having an attraction there (it usually 
 appeared in a calico dress and pretty sunbonnet), aside 
 from his devotion to the faith. 
 
 As a rule, families brought their luncheon in huge 
 baskets and when the Sunday-school was over every- 
 body repaired to some convenient, shady spot where a 
 meal fit for the gods was served, those not provided with 
 their own luncheon being invited to partake of their 
 neighbors'. Nobody went hungry and no meals were 
 paid for. At three o'clock the singing-school was opened 
 in "Dixie" schoolhouse, where all public meetings were 
 held, and for two hours all the old-time hymns and glee 
 songs were rendered by everybody present in a manner 
 which left nothing to be desired in point of — ^lung power 
 and enthusiasm. And perhaps those crude efforts were 
 more uplifting than much of the music furnished by the 
 church choirs of to-day, paid for at so much per. 
 
 There was a Bible class in the Sunday-school composed 
 of a dozen of the older men in the community — one man 
 being a Universalist, another an avowed agnostic, sev- 
 eral Methodists, Baptists and United Brethren. Here 
 all phases of religion were discussed freely and no feel- 
 ings hurt. This unusual association, which made for 
 good fellowship and neighborly amity, often is recalled 
 by those now surviving, though after forty-five years 
 the list is small. 
 
 In all this "Jim" Hendershott was in his element. 
 Although he did not belong to any Church, he was 
 deeply religious when under the influence of religious 
 excitement, and when the "invitation song" was being 
 sung at a camp-meeting — of which there were many 
 during those years in the Cove — ^his voice could be heard 
 above any other, and he really seemed to feel sincerely 
 the efifect of his surroundings — ^but he never joined the 
 Church. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon in the fall of r868 the matter 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 251 
 
 of providing funds for the Sunday-school was under 
 consideration. It was finally decided to give an enter- 
 tainment at the close of the season — for that kind of a 
 Sunday-school did not and could not thrive in bad 
 weather. It was estimated that the sum of twenty dollars 
 was wanted and voluntary contributions were called for, 
 it being stated that if all the men present, or if even 
 most of them, would give fifty cents each the necessary 
 amount could easily be raised. 
 
 This was at a time when partisan feeling between 
 political parties was well defined, for Appomattox then 
 was but three years past. Between Hendershott, a lead- 
 ing Democrat,' and Mc. Rees, the most prominent Re- 
 publican of the place, there was much good-natured riv- 
 alry. Both were most generous in the matter of giving 
 money toward any public enterprise. When contribu- 
 tions were called for Rees was the first on his feet, 
 announcing that he would give as much as any one man 
 present. Hendershott immediately arose and said he 
 would give twenty dollars, — as much, it was thought, to 
 embarrass Rees as for any other purpose, and thinking 
 no doubt that the result would be a proposition on the 
 part of the latter to compromise. But Rees at once pro- 
 duced his money and gave it to the chairman, Hender- 
 shott, always game, following his example. 
 
 This, of course, created great laughter. It was finally 
 proposed that they cut their donations in half, but neither 
 would listen to it, so they paid all the expenses of the 
 entertainment — and enjoyed the experience immensely. 
 
 That summer Uncle Dan Elledge, a well-known and 
 popular Christian minister of the old school, a man who 
 thought Alexander Campbell the greatest man since 
 Christ, but who resented calling his denomination "Camp- 
 bellites," carried on a protracted meeting with great suc- 
 cess. Uncle Dan was a man of great energy and natural 
 ability; everybody liked him and everybody went to hear 
 him preach. As Dixie schoolhouse would not hold half 
 of his ordinary congregation, he would stand on the out- 
 side of the building, in the shade of an umbrella, and 
 
252 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 "dispense" the Gospel without money and without price. 
 At this meeting Hendershott was always present — so 
 was everybody else — and was the leader in the singing. 
 He was great at "starting" a song in church. I can now 
 hear him, by the aid of memory's ear, leading one of his 
 favorite songs : 
 
 This world is beautiful and bright, 
 Oh, scarce one cloud has dimmed my sky ; 
 And yet no gloomy shades of night 
 Are gathering 'round me, though I die. 
 
 Not a very cheerful song, it is true, but it was thought 
 especially appropriate in those days for the awakening 
 of the indifferent sinner. 
 
 As the interest in the meeting increased, it was thought 
 best to have evening services, to help to maintain the 
 fervor aroused during the afternoons. Everybody being 
 in favor of the proposition, the question of providing 
 lights was presented. Tallow candles were in general 
 use then and several offered to contribute a certain num- 
 ber each night. It was decided, however, that it would 
 require a great many to light the room sufficiently, and 
 another effort was made to increase the donations. At 
 this juncture Hendershott, who had hitherto remained 
 silent, arose and said : 
 
 "Well, I am not a member of this church, but I have 
 enjoyed Uncle Dan's preaching and I want the evening 
 meetings. To have a successful time we want this room 
 well lighted, and tallow candles, no matter how many 
 you get, will not answer the purpose. The more you 
 get of 'em the less you can see. I will buy a box of 
 sperm candles and present them to the congregation as 
 my contribution. Besides, Uncle Dan Elledge is not a 
 tallow candle preacher!" 
 
 After life's fitful fever, James Hendershott sleeps 
 well on the beautiful hillside in the Cove cemetery, over- 
 looking that splendid panorama of rural homes, lovely 
 gardens and fruitful orchards, the literal fulfillment of 
 the prophecy of the immigrants of 1847 — a veritable 
 Land of Promise. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 The Presidential campaign of 1868, the first after the 
 close of the Civil War, was a very exciting one through- 
 out the country, with General Grant as the Republican 
 candidate and ex-Governor Horatio Seymour, of New 
 York, his opponent. Public interest was intense in the 
 Cove and party feeling ran very high. Democrats and 
 Republicans alike were profoundly distrustful of the 
 honesty of those differing from them in politics and cer- 
 tainly had little faith in their good citizenship. In the 
 Cove the Republicans were outnumbered four to one by 
 the Democrats, who — it was a popular thing to say, and 
 it had some truth in it — ^had belonged to "Pap" Price's 
 army in Missouri and had largely overrun the Grand 
 Ronde valley. 
 
 At that time there had never been a paper printed in 
 Oregon east of the Blue Mountains, but the Democrats 
 had made arrangements to start one in La Grande about 
 the first of May in order more successfully to spread the 
 gospel of Democracy. E. S. McComas, the county clerk, 
 — a good writer and sound in his Democracy, — ^had been 
 engaged to do the editorial writing for the new "organ." 
 
 The Republicans, not to be outdone, by a little hus- 
 tling and much sacrifice on the part of a few, succeeded 
 in obtaining a sum of money sufficiently large to pur- 
 chase a press of their own, upon which they announced 
 they would print a Republican paper in "the near future." 
 George Coggan, a merchant and stockman, and M. Baker, 
 at that time the leading lawyer in eastern Oregon, con- 
 stituted the firm which furnished the financial backing 
 for the paper. 
 
 By some delay in the matter of freight delivery, the 
 Democrats were unable to issue the first number of their 
 paper, the Democratic Sentinel, until its Republican rival, 
 
 253 
 
254 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 the Blue Mountain Times, had presented itself and taken 
 the prize as the first newspaper venture in eastern 
 Oregon. This was very humiliating to the Democrats, 
 but they made the fur fly in great style a few weeks 
 afterward. 
 
 There had been a debating society in the Cove during 
 the previous winter in whose proceedings I had ven- 
 tured to take some part, and political questions had not 
 only not been tabooed, but were preferred as subjects for 
 discussion. Before the campaign opened we had disposed 
 of the long-mooted question as to whether fire was more 
 destructive than water, and were, therefore, in good 
 trim to grapple with any debatable problem that appeared 
 to be aching for a definite solution. 
 
 To add to the troubles of the Republicans, the Demo- 
 crats had a habit of inviting W. W. Baker, of La Grande, 
 to come over occasionally and address the people on "the 
 political issues of the day," and Baker had a way that 
 was particularly exasperating to the Republicans — who, 
 by the way, always went to hear him — in that he was 
 sarcastic, somewhat abusive and was a fluent talker. 
 And, then, he was a Democrat. But the establishment 
 of a paper gave us abundant opportunity for setting 
 forth the iniquities of Democracy and they were not 
 neglected. In the general discussion participated in by 
 those who were active in both parties, and that included 
 nearly the entire body politic, it appeared to me — I was 
 then just past seventeen years of age — that the Repub- 
 licans were not accomplishing enough. More should be 
 said and it should be said in a better and more effective 
 way. I was disappointed, and felt that I ought to come 
 to the rescue of my beloved party and all that it stood 
 for as the bulwark of Liberty in this country and the 
 hope of free institutions — or words to that effect. 
 
 I was in this apprehensive state of mind when, provi- 
 dentially for the party and the country, the Blue Moun- 
 tain Times appeared and the opportunity was given me 
 to remedy the shortcomings of my fellow Republicans 
 and to show up the Democratic party as its wickedness 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 255 
 
 richly deserved. The second number of the paper had 
 been printed, but it fell far short of that spirit of destruc- 
 tion of the opposition which should have characterized 
 it. There were so many things left unsaid which should 
 have been said, in the first two issues, and the editorials 
 were so shamefully tame and tolerant of a monstrous 
 evil, that my decision was soon formed. I would write 
 a communication to the Times that would open the eyes 
 of the public to the dangers which would certainly follow 
 the success of the Democratic party — and it was a crisis 
 when any unnecessary delay might prove disastrous. I 
 would show up the enemy in print! 
 
 The second issue of the Times had been printed on 
 Saturday, April 25, and had been received at the Cove. 
 The next day my father and mother went on a visit, to 
 be gone the entire day. While they were getting ready 
 for the trip it suddenly occurred to me that, since I was 
 to be alone for several hours, I would employ the time 
 in writing my communication in defense of Republican- 
 ism and the country. The opportunity was propitious 
 and the motif lofty, while there could be no doubt as 
 to its efifect. I would warm it to 'em! 
 
 As soon as I was left alone, therefore, securing the 
 family pen and pad of paper, I sat down and began the 
 work. It proved very agreeable, for I could clearly see 
 the enemy falling behind the breastworks as I fired 
 charge after charge of unanswerable logic. I had no 
 pity, since there was no excuse for the existence of the 
 Democratic party anjrway. Having completed my 
 broadside, I read it over, pronounced it good and put 
 it away, for not for the world would I have had my 
 father know what I had done. I didn't know what 
 degree of excellence was required in a newspaper com- 
 munication and, therefore, had some misgivings as to 
 its acceptance. I read it over several times and with 
 each succeeding perusal it seemed to lose some of its 
 biting sarcasm. I began to wonder why I had not made 
 it more scathing. But there was no time for revision 
 and it must stand on its merits — or demerits. 
 
256 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Those were great days in the Cove. As there was no 
 post-office, all the mail intended for its people was sent 
 to Union and by common consent "Jim" Hendershott 
 was authorized to carry it both ways. Outgoing letters 
 were left at the home of S. D. Cowles, and while Hen- 
 dershott's trips to Union might be, and usually were, 
 irregular at the first of the week, he never failed to 
 bring the mail down on Saturday afternoon. Early on 
 Monday morning, after writing my communication, I 
 went down to the residence of Mr. Cowles and deposited 
 it in the receiving box, while nobody was looking, and 
 hied myself away. 
 
 The ensuing week was a very trying one for me. I 
 was in constant torture lest my letter should not be 
 printed, and at the same time suffering distressing pangs 
 lest it should. By Thursday I had completely lost my 
 appetite and was heartily wishing I had never entered 
 the newspaper business. I could not understand why 
 I had not let well enough alone — why I hadn't left the 
 defense of the Republican party to others, to those who 
 liked a fight. My father noticed my gradual wasting 
 away and questioned me closely; on Saturday he sug- 
 gested that a doctor be sent for, but I assured him that it 
 was only a temporary attack and would most certainly 
 disappear that day. 
 
 After dinner I went, as usual, for the mail. It was 
 the custom on Saturday for the people within a radius 
 of several miles to assemble at the Dixie schoolhouse 
 and wait for the arrival of Hendershott. S. D. Cowles, 
 a splendid old fellow who was afterwards postmaster 
 at the Cove for ten years, always took the mail out of 
 the sack and called out the names, while the eager crowd 
 stood around and reached for the letters and papers as 
 their names were called. On that particular afternoon 
 Hendershott was late and I praised the Lord for it — 
 the delay deferred for a time my knowledge of the fate 
 of my effort and I felt better. But I didn't mix with the 
 people, an unnatural thing on my part, and I am sure 
 that I must have looked guilty — of something. If there 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 257 
 
 had been any officers there looking for suspects, I should 
 have been arrested without any inquiry. A countenance 
 such as I carried that day, if it at all reflected my inward 
 feelings, would send a man to jail, notwithstanding the 
 most vigorous protestations of innocence. 
 
 When Hendershott arrived, I took my place in the 
 outer circle of the crowd, and when Mr. Cowles picked 
 up the package containing the Times I leaned against 
 a window-sill and prepared myself for the worst — still 
 undecided whether I wished the letter printed or not. 
 When my father's name was called I was unable to 
 respond or to reach forth my hand, but a man standing 
 near, recognizing me, placed the paper in my hands and 
 I at once hurried out of the house. 
 
 Having escaped, I did not know which way to go, 
 seeing that the goods were on me, as it were. Finally, 
 I went behind the schoolhouse and with trembling hands 
 opened the paper — and there was my letter, graphically 
 portending the fall of the Democratic party! 
 
 I didn't stop to read it. My first consideration was 
 to get away, for I assumed that within a few minutes 
 every man there would have read that scathing arraign- 
 ment of the only menace to the progress of the Re- 
 public and would at once suspect me as being its wicked 
 author. The first thing for me to do was to place myself 
 beyond the reach of the infuriated mob. 
 
 So I hurried up the hill toward home, but after I had 
 reached a place of probable safety I could no longer 
 repress my longing to see how my production looked 
 and to know what it sounded like. I therefore seated 
 myself in a corner of old man Martin's fence and read 
 the letter through. This relieved me somewhat, and I 
 proceeded on my way until I fell the victim of an over- 
 weening desire to read it again, when I sat on a rock 
 by Sam Colwell's fence and gave it a second perusal! 
 This satisfied me until I reached home, when I handed 
 the paper over to my father. He at once saw the com- 
 munication from the Cove, read it, pronounced it a 
 good thing, and wondered "who in Sam Patch wrote it." 
 
258 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 He had me read it aloud, asking my opinion as to who 
 its author could be. We suggested several well-known 
 men as the guilty parties, but finally gave it up as a 
 riddle too difficult for us to solve. 
 
 This, my first effort in the field of newspaper writing, 
 which occupied the leading place on the editorial page 
 of the Blue Mountain Times, issued May 2, 1869, was a 
 full column and was signed "Ram Pant," printed in 
 capital letters. The general tenor of the letter may be 
 inferred from the nom de plume which I selected. 
 
 Having crossed the Rubicon without any mishap, and 
 having heard my production spoken of approvingly by 
 my father, who was a fairly competent critic, it was 
 astonishing how rapidly my health was restored. In 
 two hours I was perfectly well, to all appearances, and 
 as I asked for two helpings of every dish we had for 
 supper that night, I was told by the head of the family 
 that in justice to the cook I ought to have given some 
 notice of such an abnormal development of appetite. 
 
 Having broken the ice successfully, I continued to 
 send letters to the Times for several months without 
 being suspected of their authorship, which, by the way, 
 occasioned much speculation even among the Repub- 
 licans. Of course, I told my father, as it was impossible 
 to do the work without his knowledge. Having gained 
 the necessary confidence to push forward, I soared into 
 the realms of poetry, made incursions into the Bible, 
 quoted from Shakespeare and did all sorts of foolish 
 things, enjoying the experience immensely. I recall that 
 later in the campaign I paid a great tribute to the Repub- 
 lican party as the savior of the country and the hope 
 of posterity, closing with this declaration : "With Gen- 
 eral Grant elected President and the Republican party 
 in full power, the country will be stronger than the 
 bonds of Orion and benigner than the sweetest influ- 
 ences of the Pleiades." Of course I do not know what 
 that means any more than I did then, but it sounded 
 good and I supposed it would make the Democrats 
 mad — which helped some. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 259 
 
 But I met my Waterloo in September. In some way 
 it was discovered that the "Ram Pant" letters were 
 written by me — a seventeen-year-old boy with flaxen 
 hair, of whom such a thing was never suspected. At 
 once I was made the object of numerous attacks by 
 different writers in the Sentinel, but none of them hurt 
 until Judge E. C. Brainard, of Union, fired a "poem" 
 at me. It consisted of a dozen verses of doggerel, 
 written in a vein of caustic ridicule, of which he was 
 a master, and to this I was never able to make a satis- 
 factory reply. For several years I kept this production 
 of his stowed away in a dark corner of an old trunk, 
 from which it was brought forth at long intervals for 
 inspection; but it has been lost, else I would take great 
 pleasure in reproducing it here. After expressing his 
 fear for my safety, if permitted to repeat my trips into 
 the Pleiades unattended, he besought the Lord to 
 
 Bring Soaplocks back to earth again, 
 
 and counselled a cessation of hostilities until 
 
 Forest Cove, on oats and grass, 
 Recruits her panting. Ram Pant ass. 
 
 I have since had many hard jolts in the political field, 
 and time and again have felt the power of the solar 
 plexus in newspaper controversies, but I never received 
 a blow that cut deeper and hurt longer than that thrust 
 of Brainard's at the time when I had concluded I had 
 things my own way and that there was none to dispute. 
 After that I was ashamed for anybody to see me. and 
 my father said I had not put in so many days on the 
 farm in any one month for a year as during that Sep- 
 tember ! 
 
 In that first letter I dubbed W. W. Baker "Wonder- 
 ful Wearisome," which I supposed would serve to 
 eliminate him permanently from the list of public 
 speakers, but it did not seem even to discourage him. 
 In fact, he visited the Cove soon after that and addressed 
 
26o FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 the people. I did not attend his meeting, as I knew he 
 would severely arraign the writer of the letter and I 
 feared my countenance would betray its authorship, 
 but I learned afterward that he committed a flagrant 
 violation of common politeness by making no reference 
 to it whatever. 
 
 In after years I often regretted that I had not saved 
 that first attempt at newspaper writing, but did not think 
 it probable that a file of the Times had been kept even 
 by its publishers. Jasper Stevens, of La Grande, was 
 one of the first printers on the Times, and when I visited 
 the old town in the summer of 1903, he and I were talking 
 over the experiences of early days, when I expressed my 
 regret that I had not saved as a curio that first literary 
 production of mine, 'way back in 1868. He remembered it 
 well, and suggested that it might be found in the attic of 
 his home, where many bundles of the Times were in 
 storage. A short search discovered several copies of 
 the early numbers of the pioneer paper of the Blue 
 Mountain region, and among them was that one which 
 set forth the apprehensions entertained for the safety 
 of the country by a "Ram Pant" writer whose home 
 address was the Cove. 
 
 That merciless dissection of the Democratic party — 
 considered the standing menace of good government 
 and composed of real bad men — is now in the custody 
 of George H. Himes, secretary of the Oregon His- 
 torical Society, along with the old hand-looms, primitive 
 wagon-hubs, rusty Kentucky rifles and other junk, 
 valuable only as curiosities of the past. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 The Union County pioneers in these latter years have 
 their annual meetings, at which they take the same 
 pleasure in recounting their early experiences and hard- 
 ships as do those of western Oregon who crossed the 
 Great Plains in the '40's. And, indeed, they should, 
 for their privations, in a sense, were similar to those 
 of their predecessors two decades before. In i860 
 Union County was as near being in a "state of nature" 
 as Marion County was twenty years before. It is true 
 that it was possible to obtain the necessaries of life in 
 those days, if one had the means, but the majority of 
 the people were very poor; coming generally from the 
 Mississippi Valley, they arrived with little money and 
 had a full year to struggle before any returns could be 
 expected. 
 
 I remember that for several years sugar and nails were 
 selling for sixteen cents a pound — six pounds for a 
 dollar being the fixed price. The result was, of course, 
 that sugar was used very sparingly. The only fruits 
 growing wild were gooseberries and elderberries. The 
 exorbitant price of sugar made the cooking of goose- 
 berries almost an impossibility, except to such scions of 
 the rich as had drifted into the country, but elderberries 
 were in great demand, especially during harvest time. 
 
 Let not the epicure elevate his nose at the mention of 
 an elderberry pie, for I well remember that at those 
 harvest dinners, where the men had appetites like a cir- 
 cular saw, the struggle for a piece of pie was worth 
 seeing. The demand was greater than it was always 
 possible to supply from the scattering bushes to be found, 
 and there was no other pie to be had. Besides, a pie 
 made from elderberries, liberally seasoned with spice, 
 cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, cream, butter, lemon, orange 
 
 261 
 
262 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 peel, cloves and sweet cider, well cooked and not too 
 many berries used, makes a very good substitute for a 
 better one, the only drawback being the number of seeds 
 (unless one uses the berries sparingly) and the circum- 
 stance that they have a very insipid taste anyway. 
 
 In the mountains, however, huckleberries grew to 
 perfection in many sections and parties were frequently 
 formed for the purpose of making raids on this deli- 
 cious fruit, joining the pleasure of an outing with the 
 more practical result of securing food for the winter 
 larder. 
 
 For two years after my marriage, in 1870, I bought 
 what coal-oil I used of the local merchant and always 
 carried it home in a quart bottle, the same bottle each 
 time, and paid thirty-seven and one-half cents for it. 
 This was at the rate of seven dollars and fifty cents for 
 a five-gallon can! The fact was that coal-oil was so 
 very expensive that we always did our reading by the 
 light of pine knots, which were saved up for that pur- 
 pose. In the winter of 1869-70 I read all of Josephus' 
 works and the whole of the Old Testament by this sort 
 of light, and, not expecting anything better, was quite 
 content. 
 
 When company came to spend the evening, a requisi- 
 tion was made on the coal-oil bottle and the additional 
 illumination of the house seemed like a bonfire. How- 
 ever, I can well remember that when we lived in Silver- 
 ton we made all our candles from tallow, "run" in a set 
 of molds which turned out a dozen at a time. I recall, 
 also, the first sperm candles I ever saw. My father, 
 on his return from one of those wonderful trips to 
 Salem — it always seemed to me that he had been to and 
 returned from fairyland — brought with him a box con- 
 taining six dozen sperm candles. These were used only 
 when we had company, and if one of them was em- 
 ployed to light the room during the progress of the 
 evening meal, the novelty of the situation was sufficient 
 to take away the appetite of my sister and myself, so 
 intent were we in admiring the magnificent spectacle. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 263 
 
 Indeed, if we had used sperm candles regularly, we 
 would have been talked about by the whole neighborhood 
 as scandalously extravagant and intolerably "stuck up!" 
 
 Conditions were so primitive in Union County for 
 several years after I went there that very few men 
 could afford to own a good wagon. A man came from 
 Iowa in 1872, bringing with him a new Studebaker 
 wagon, which excited the envy and admiration of every 
 one. Practically all the wood used in the Cove for 
 the first ten years after its settlement was hauled from 
 the adjacent mountains by the use of the two hind wheels 
 of a wagon. At that time dead pine trees were to be 
 found standing in the woods everywhere and they 
 made the very best of fuel. A man would take his two 
 wheels, with a false tongue attached, go into the moun- 
 tains when the snow was a foot deep, or any other 
 sufficient depth, and by "skidding" one end of a log 
 two feet through and sixty feet long on to the axle, 
 easily pull :t to his farm, no matter how far away it 
 was, since the Grand Ronde valley is shaped like a basin 
 and every farm in it is lower than the nearest timber 
 line. In those days a man could easily secure enough 
 wood of the best quality, by making a few trips to the 
 mountains, a few miles distant, to answer all purposes 
 for a year. 
 
 There were many farmers who did all their "teaming" 
 on the two- wheeled affair I have described. I myself 
 had been married several years and was the proud father 
 of two children before I invested in a wagon of any 
 kind. I had an opportunity to trade a horse for a wagon 
 with four wheels (!). It had been driven across the 
 plains the year before from Missouri, and had seen hard 
 service there since the days of Tom Benton. The 
 wheels were "dished," each after a plan of its own, and 
 the tracks they left in the road so little resembled 
 parallel lines that an attempt to follow them for a mile 
 would produce an incurable case of cross-eyes. Never- 
 theless, the wheels would revolve and couldn't get off 
 the axles, so the relic proved a mighty good servant and 
 
264 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 I was extremely proud of it, although I remember that 
 when I took my family to church the next Sunday after 
 the memorable purchase I was ashamed to face the 
 crowd, which always remains outdoors at a country 
 church until the singing commences, in order that noth- 
 ing may escape its observation. I knew my step 
 upwards in the line of material progress would cause 
 general comment, and from that I modestly shrank. I 
 had made a "buckboard" out of two planks, each a foot 
 wide, and upon these my wife and I sat with our feet 
 dangling in the air, with our backs to each other — she 
 holding the two babies and I driving the team. It was 
 a distinct triumph over the distressing poverty which had 
 until then hampered me, and after I had once faced 
 my neighbors, I found it easier to appear in company 
 with a vehicle having four wheels in evidence. 
 
 The first summer I was in the Cove, 1867, my father 
 "hired me out" to a Mr. Mcl>aughlin, who owned a 
 sawmill on Mill Creek, two miles away. We had moved 
 on a piece of land consisting of forty acres, perfectly 
 new, and had obtained the lumber for a very cheap 
 house from Mr. McLaughlin, agreeing to pay for the 
 greater part of it as we could. It was partly to dis- 
 charge this obligation that I became his helper for a 
 couple of months. It was the only sawmill within a 
 distance of ten miles and the only one of its kind on 
 the Pacific Coast — I should hope. It was driven by an 
 "overshot" wheel twenty- four feet in diameter and 
 thirty inches in width, which required three minutes to 
 make one revolution, and the machinery was so geared 
 up that every time the wheel revolved once the sash- 
 saw would be raised and lowered at least ten times. 
 The cog gearing was made of fir blocks and would 
 wear out after one week's service, necessitating the re- 
 placing of one every hour or two, while the only belt 
 was the one reaching to the drum to which the sash was 
 attached. This belt, made of cow skins, with the hair 
 still on one side, would stretch to such an extent that 
 when we were not making a new block for a cog we 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 265 
 
 were taking up the slack. We made a new one one day 
 which measured forty feet. The first afternoon we 
 used it we cut out a surplus foot four times, and by the 
 time it was worn out — it lasted a week — we had fifty 
 feet of surplus hide and still forty feet of belt. There 
 was no waste material about the mill anywhere ! 
 
 My special task in this work was to "offbear" the 
 mill's output, to do which, however, was not difficult. 
 The logs were delivered on a hillside just above the 
 mill by a team of oxen, and we could easily saw one 
 every half -day. When we wanted a new log, we cleared 
 the mill of all obstructions and removed the "chunk" 
 which retained the "boom" on the hillside. This done, 
 the log would surrender to the law of gravitation and 
 with great velocity roll into the mill, usually taking its 
 place on the carriage without assistance. In fact the 
 speed made by the logs in this operation was the only 
 rapid motion ever seen about the mill, and was an event 
 to which we looked forward twice a day with great 
 interest. 
 
 But the one feature about that mill which I enjoyed 
 to the full was the progress of the carriage, as it pushed 
 the log into that saw. It was a constant struggle as 
 to which would surrender. Sometimes the saw would 
 give up, and as the carriage endeavored to proceed 
 against the dead saw, the mill would shake and tremble 
 for a moment and all motion would cease, while the 
 water would pour over the stationary wheel until the 
 extra force would cause the belt to slip, when the wheel 
 would turn half over, empty out its buckets and again 
 come to a standstill. Sometimes a cog in the carriage 
 gearing would break while the saw was savagely eating 
 its way through a pine knot and, having no resistance, 
 the remaining machinery would virtually run away with 
 itself until the excited "foreman" succeeded in shutting 
 off the water. Oh, there were times when things were 
 exciting in that old mill! 
 
 But when ever3d:hing was running smoothly it was 
 great fun. Having "set" the log and started the works 
 
266 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 going, there was a good long rest in store until the saw 
 reached the further end. There was nothing unseemly 
 about the gait of the carriage. It was deliberate a 
 part of the time. With the screws turned, the "dogs" 
 firmly driven in and the water turned on, as soon as the 
 big wheel became filled, the picnic began. Mr. Mc- 
 Laughlin was a devoted reader of the Weekly Ore- 
 gonian, and after he had satisfied himself that the belt 
 was not going to slip on that trip, he would settle him- 
 self on the log and begin reading one of Mr. Scott's 
 editorials, for which he had great admiration. Sitting 
 on a gunny sack filled with straw, which he used as a 
 cushion, his happiest moments I am sure were those 
 which found him deeply buried in the columns of the 
 Oregonian, the music of the saw, mingling with the 
 splash of the pouring water, indicating to his sub- 
 conscious mind that all was well, that the gait he was 
 traveling was not transcending the speed limit, and that 
 sometime before dinner there would be another con- 
 tribution to the world's lumber supply. 
 
 Of course, in a mill of this character, it was utterly 
 impossible to saw lumber accurately. Nearly all planks 
 which were intended to be an inch thick were two inches 
 at one end and a half inch at the other — often a mere 
 feather in the middle. For this reason the house we built 
 was a foot wider at one end than at the other and was 
 narrower in the middle than at either, and for the same 
 reason we had great difficulty in making a roof that 
 would force the water to run from its comb to the 
 eaves. 
 
 One day a cottonwood log was brought in from the 
 woods and Mr. McLaughlin concluded that, as it was 
 soft material, it would be a good thing to saw it up into 
 thin stufif, a half-inch thick, to be used probably for 
 making boxes of some sort. This was done, or rather, 
 attempted. On account of the uncertain "cut" of the 
 saw, it usually used up an inch of material as it went 
 hammering its way through a log, and to get a half- 
 inch board from this process was not only a fearful 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 367 
 
 waste of raw material, but the precise result to be 
 obtained was a matter for the wildest conjecture. How- 
 ever, we sawed up that cottonwood log, three feet in 
 diameter, got seven thin boards — and a wagon-load of 
 sawdust. I stacked them out in the sun in a loose pile 
 to season, and within three days they had warped 
 themselves out of the lumber yard and were found in 
 a neighbor's corral, a mile down the creek! 
 
 In 1870 Mr. McLaughlin sold his mill and moved to 
 the Willamette valley, settling on the Abiqua, near 
 Silverton, where he died soon afterward. Two years 
 ago, when on a visit to the Cove, I sauntered across to 
 the old mill site, but there's no sign anywhere that there 
 was ever a mill there — that the hum and buzz of a great 
 manufacturing establishment ever disturbed the local 
 quiet by its sporadic efforts to supply the local market 
 with local produce. All was changed and there was 
 in the place of the old mill a pretty garden in front of 
 a cozy cottage, with two children playing where the logs 
 used to rumble down the hillside. 
 
 And while I sat on an old pine stump which had been 
 bereft of its top, doubtless in answer to the demands of 
 McLaughlin's mill, and indulged in a half-hour's reverie 
 of my own, I remembered that I was some forty years 
 older than I had been "once upon a time." 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 Perhaps in no county in Oregon has there been more 
 bitterness injected into poHtical contests or more lasting 
 enmities caused by their outcome than in Union. And 
 the origin of most of them lay in the county-seat con- 
 test, which began in 1872. In the session of the Legis- 
 lature two years before, Hon. James Hendershott, then 
 State Senator, secured the passage of a law providing 
 for a vote on the re-location of the county-seat. It was 
 the beginning of a contest longer drawn out and provok- 
 ing more animosity than any other in the history of 
 Oregon. 
 
 Upon the creation of Union County in 1864 by setting 
 off the northern part of Baker, the county seat was 
 located at La Grande, which is on the extreme western 
 edge of the Grand Ronde valley, and therefore far from 
 the center of population. But it was the largest town 
 in the valley, was on the line of the stage coaches from 
 Umatilla Landing to the Idaho mines, and was for that 
 reason selected. But within a few years the town of 
 Union, on the opposite side of the valley, which was 
 also on the stage line and centrally located in a magnifi- 
 cent agricultural section, becoming ambitious, began 
 clamoring for a vote on the re-location of the county- 
 seat. The unrest and aspirations of Union became con- 
 tagious and the outcome of the agitation was the enact- 
 ment of the enabling law referred to, which provided 
 that at the Presidential election in November of that 
 year a vote should be taken on the proposition, and that 
 five towns, La Grande, Union, Cove, Island City and 
 Summerville, should be candidates for the coming 
 honor. If no one of these secured a majority of all 
 the votes cast, a subsequent election should be held at 
 which the two highest contestants should have a final 
 tryout. 
 
 268 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 269 
 
 The outcome of the election gave La Grande the 
 highest vote, but it v^ras less than a majority. An in- 
 teresting question here arose, however, as to which 
 aspirant should be the second contestant. In the earlier 
 days Cove was officially designated "Forest Cove," but 
 its name had been changed by the Post-Office Depart- 
 ment to "Cove" in order to prevent the frequent mis- 
 carriage of letters in the mails resulting from the sim- 
 ilarity of the names "Forest Cove" and "Forest Grove." 
 
 But the change had not become familiar to some of 
 the early settlers when the county-seat vote was taken, 
 and in the returns there were six votes for "Forest 
 Cove." It happened that the vote between the Cove and 
 Union was so close that the counting of these six votes 
 for Cove would put that town in the second place; but 
 if they were counted separately, it would give Union the 
 privilege of contesting with La Grande. Naturally it 
 gave rise to much feeling, for it was soon discovered that 
 all the Wilkinson family in High Valley, old settlers and 
 numbering six voters, had inadvertently voted for 
 "Forest" Cove. In the wrangle which at once arose 
 between Union and Cove, the former, of course, insisted 
 upon its rights according to a strict construction of the 
 returns, but Cove proposed to contend for those six 
 votes, which were admittedly intended for itsell though 
 technically cast for another locality. 
 
 A meeting was held by the citizens of Cove to con- 
 sider what was best to do and I was chosen to take 
 up the legal phase of the matter with Hon. James H. 
 Lasater, of Walla Walla, all the lawyers of Union 
 County at that time residing in La Grande. I had 
 attended school under Mr. Lasater in Silverton when 
 but nine years old, and had known him later quite in- 
 timately. He counseled an acquiescence in the returns as 
 shown on their face, stating that the outcome of the 
 suit would be uncertain, and that it would certainly be 
 expensive, so the matter was dropped and the second 
 election gave the decision to Union. Had those six 
 votes for "Forest" Cove been counted for Cove, it 
 
270 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 would have put that place in the contest against La 
 Grande, and it would without doubt have been chosen 
 the county-seat. This would have surely affected ma- 
 terially the political history of Union County, as well as 
 the public careers of many of its prominent citizens, for 
 in the forty years following men have been voted up and 
 voted down and voted out with a beautiful disregard for 
 fitness or political afifiliation — the all-important question 
 being as to their stand on the fight between Union and 
 La Grande. For thirty-five years it raged with relent- 
 less fury, and after the first steps were taken 'way back 
 in the early days, boys were born, grew to manhood, 
 became candidates for office and were slaughtered, 
 whether Republicans or Democrats, sickened, died and 
 passed to their reward — but the old fight kept up with 
 unabated interest and with frequent stiletto thrusts, 
 followed by telling results. 
 
 Southeast of the town of Union is what has long been 
 known as the "Panhandle," a narrow strip of country 
 which runs out into the Cornucopia Mountains, forty 
 miles away, and which geographically belongs to Baker 
 County, but its attachment to Union County upon its 
 creation had given to Union its political strength, or, 
 rather, its balance of power in the struggle for the 
 retention of the county-seat. For years efforts were 
 made to have it joined to Baker County, as most of the 
 people, when obliged to go to Union on business of any 
 kind, went to Baker City, left their teams there and went 
 to Union by train. It was held that, since a trip to 
 Union necessitated going through Baker, they might 
 as well belong to that county and save this extra travel. 
 
 But the change was always stubbornly resisted by 
 Union, for obvious reasons. At the legislative session 
 of 1 90 1, however, a bill for that purpose was passed 
 after a most bitter contest. It was fathered by Senator 
 William Smith, of Baker, and the opposition was led 
 by Senator Wade, of Union. It had passed the House 
 without being seriously contested, it being the intention 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 371 
 
 of the Union people to center their efforts upon killing 
 the measure in the Senate. On the morning of the day 
 upon which it had been made a special order, Senator 
 Smith came into my office and said he had heard that 
 I intended to do what I could to defeat the "Panhandle" 
 bill in the Senate. I assured him that such report was 
 entirely unfounded, that I intended to keep my hands 
 off the contest, it being a local measure, and that the 
 winning side might rest assured that no executive veto 
 would interfere with the result of the final vote. Senator 
 Smith went away saying that that was all he asked. 
 
 Within an hour Senator Wade entered my office in 
 a somewhat excited state of mind and said the report 
 had reached him that I intended to assist the Baker 
 County people in their effort to wrest the "Panhandle" 
 from his county, upon which I gave him the same as- 
 surance I had extended to Senator Smith — which was 
 perfectly satisfactory to him. 
 
 After a debate which consumed much of the forenoon, 
 the vote was taken and Baker County won the "Pan- 
 handle." Personally, I regretted the result, since I had 
 been so closely connected with the people of Union in 
 my boyhood days, but it was not a case where there 
 would be any justification for interference and I per- 
 mitted the law to stand. 
 
 A strong effort was made, however, by the people of 
 Union to induce me to veto the measure, and they 
 secured a large petition — signed, it was said, by many 
 citizens of the Panhandle — but as my stand had been 
 taken and assurance given to the contrary, it was im- 
 possible to comply with their request. 
 
 Six years after this episode I was a candidate before 
 the people under the direct primary law for the Repub- 
 lican nomination for Governor, and came within some 
 two hundred and fifty votes of winning it. A more 
 complete scanning of the vote cast after the different 
 counties were heard from by precincts disclosed the in- 
 teresting, as well as significant, fact that of the two 
 precincts in the town of Union, the Republicans had 
 
272 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 cast about one hundred and fifty votes, and but three 
 of them had been given to me ! Always before, when 
 a candidate, I had received practically the unanimous 
 support of the Union Republicans, which, if accorded 
 me on the occasion referred to, would have given me 
 the nomination for Governor. 
 
 Immediately after the passage of the "Panhandle" 
 bill a vote was taken upon the re-location of the county- 
 seat in Union County, and La Grande won it from 
 Union by quite a decided majority. So far as I can 
 see, that solar plexus I received at the hands of Union 
 was the last exhibition of the bitterness which had been 
 raging in that county for thirty-five years as to the loca- 
 tion of the county-seat. 
 
 Union is a beautiful little city, in the midst of one 
 of the best agricultural sections in the West, has a 
 splendid water power, vast timber resources, a fine lot 
 of people of the substantial pioneer stock and is pro- 
 gressing rapidly in its development — even without the 
 county capital, and the rest from an eternal wrangle 
 which it is enjoying hath its compensations which are 
 not to be despised. 
 
 But a county-seat contest is surely noted for its 
 vitality. It has a faculty of staying "put." It usually 
 has nine lives, and one never knows when it is loaded. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 In the spring of 1874, when the State campaign 
 opened, there appeared to be more activity in political 
 circles than usual. The Republicans of Union County 
 were early in the field and, though in a hopeless minority 
 on a straight vote, always had that buoyant feeling that 
 alone keeps life in minorities. Two years before that 
 Samuel Hannah, a prominent merchant in Union, had 
 defeated James Hendershott for re-election to the State 
 Senate. It was on a local issue, however, involving the 
 re-location of the overland stage line over the Summer- 
 ville route — really a forerunner of the county-seat con- 
 test — but Hannah was a Republican and his party took 
 to itself all the glory of a purely partisan victory. 
 
 Sam Hannah was a man of high character, had close 
 connections with the people of Union County, which 
 gave him a strong prestige, and had the advantage over 
 Hendershott of never having been in political life — a 
 lever which many good men have discovered is worth 
 a great many votes in a political campaign. Often an 
 admittedly third-rate man will receive more votes for a 
 public position than his opponent, if the latter has oc- 
 cupied an important office where he has been obliged to 
 disappoint a dozen or two people in the selection of 
 an incumbent for some position carrying a salary of 
 three hundred per annum. 
 
 Incidentally this reminds me of a remark once made 
 to me by the late Senator John H. Mitchell, to the effect 
 that in his extended experience in disposing of public 
 patronage he had discovered that when you have a good 
 appointment at your disposal there will be, on an 
 average, ten aspirants for the job. In the performance 
 of your duty you are obliged to select one of the ten, 
 with the result that you have probably made nine 
 enemies and one — ingrate! 
 
 273 
 
274 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 However, Sam Hannah had every qualification for 
 his position in the State Senate and discharged his duties 
 in a very acceptable manner. For ten years or more 
 he filled a large place in the affairs of Union County 
 and died at his home in Union in the early '8o's. His 
 election marked the first break of the Republicans of 
 Union County into the solid ranks of the Democracy. 
 They had never been able to obtain any position, high 
 or lovvr, and the discovery that the thing was possible 
 came as a revelation where no hope had been entertained. 
 At that time one of the most outspoken Republicans in 
 the Grand Ronde valley was John W. Nerval of 
 Summerville. For several years there had been but 
 three Republicans in Summerville precinct, but at each 
 recurring primary meeting they always "assembled" and 
 sent their delegate up to La Grange to attend the Re- 
 publican county convention. Norval was the delegate. 
 With the regularity of a good clock, these three men 
 met every two years in the Summerville schoolhouse 
 and organized by the election of Norval as chairman 
 and the second man as secretary; the third would take 
 the floor and make the necessary motions. And it was 
 no ordinary affair for those three men who, through 
 good report and bad, held the citadel against the foes 
 of good government, for the primaries came only every 
 two years and the occasion was always used for the 
 passage of a string of resolutions denouncing the 
 Democratic party, which was longer and more com- 
 prehensive than an average national platform of either 
 of the parties. Usually these resolutions would recite 
 the origin of parties, show how, by degrees, the princi- 
 ples of the Republican party had become necessary to 
 the preservation of the national life and the progress of 
 mankind, vow eternal devotion to the glorious tenets of 
 the "grand old party," and close by promising the 
 unanimous support of the Republicans of Summerville 
 precinct to the tickets to be nominated. Incidentally, 
 Lincoln and Grant were mentioned frequently in the 
 body of the pronunciamento. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 275 
 
 Norval was an able man and the conditions then pre- 
 vailing in political life were conducive to intensity of 
 feeling. I do not recall that there was any criticism 
 from any Republican quarter of his radicalism, but, 
 rather, envy of his ability in that direction. 
 
 The election of a State Senator by the Republicans of 
 Union County in 1872 served to inspire hope in the 
 bosoms of several budding politicians that the miracle 
 might be repeated. The result was that there was an 
 unusual scramble for nominations in the county con- 
 vention, which met in La Grande. Among those who 
 were anxious to trust their fortunes to the electorate 
 were Norval and myself. I do not now remember whether 
 Norval was nominated, but it was conceded that the east 
 side of the valley should have one representative on the 
 ticket for the Legislature, but in the convention a man 
 named Ross, living in the Eagle Creek country, defeated 
 me by one vote and was successful at the ensuing June 
 election. His colleague was Dunham Wright, a Dem- 
 ocrat who had been a member of the previous Legisla- 
 ture. 
 
 The State campaign of 1874 was given an unusually 
 spicy flavor by the Independent movement, which put 
 a full ticket in the field as a protest against the regular 
 Republicans. Its chief interest centered in the three- 
 cornered congressional contest, the Republicans having 
 nominated Richard Williams of Portland, the Demo- 
 crats George A. La Dow of Umatilla and the Inde- 
 pendents T. W. Davenport of Marion. Williams at that 
 time was one of the best-known lawyers in the State, 
 as he is to-day; Davenport was a farmer, living in the 
 Waldo Hills, who had served several terms in the Legisla- 
 ture, was a man of unquestionable ability, but never in har- 
 mony with any organization whose numerical strength 
 was sufficient to enable it to accomplish its avowed pur- 
 poses. Davenport was always on the side of the opposi- 
 tion, no matter what the subject or occasion, and was 
 gifted enough to defend his attitude with a degree of 
 plausibility that was surprising. 
 
276 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 In the campaign of 1874 he and WilHams made a 
 joint canvass of the State, addressing the audiences by 
 dividing time, and it proved perhaps the most memorable 
 in the political history of Oregon. Williams was no 
 less resourceful as a campaigner than as a lawyer, but 
 he was put on his mettle, as he freely admits, in this 
 forensic encounter with Davenport, whose defense for 
 his eccentric course in politics rested on the general 
 idea embraced in Emerson's declaration that "con- 
 sistency is the deadly enemy of progress," and that he 
 would say just what he thought to-day, though it might 
 give the lie to all he said yesterday. 
 
 Davenport's first wife (the mother of Homer), the 
 daughter of Ralph C. Geer, was my first cousin. He 
 was two years older than my father and I had known 
 him intimately all my life. When the meeting with Wil- 
 liams and Davenport was held in La Grande, I went 
 over from the Cove, and as it was Saturday, he returned 
 with me to my home and remained over until Monday, 
 when we went to Union where the next meeting was 
 held. It was a treat to listen to such a war of words 
 between two such antagonists as they were. It was all 
 good natured — on the surface — but there was a deadly 
 undercurrent of sarcasm, ridicule, cutting repartee and 
 irony. Of these, of course, irony hurt the most. It 
 were well if we all followed the sage advice of an old 
 woman who observed this fact: "People should never 
 ironize !" 
 
 At La Grande Davenport had referred to a severe 
 criticism by Williams of one of his actions when a 
 member of the Legislature in 1868, and inquired why 
 he (Williams) had supported him for re-election in 1870 
 if he considered him so grossly culpable. As Williams, 
 in his reply at La Grande, paid no attention to Daven- 
 port's inquiry, at Union Davenport insistently repeated 
 his demand for an answer, his courage seeming to be 
 reinforced by Williams' attitude. He said : 
 
 "I should like Mr. Williams to tell this audience, here 
 and now, in my presence, why he supported me for 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 277 
 
 reelection in 1870 if my record in 1868 was so open to 
 censure." 
 
 Mr. Williams was sitting on the platform and there 
 was no escape. But as Davenport paused and turned 
 toward him, he arose, walked to the front of the stage 
 and, standing by the side of Davenport, said: 
 
 "Well, ladies and gentlemen, I confess that I had not 
 intended to explain this matter, rather preferring to 
 pass it by; but as Mr. Davenport has insisted upon it, 
 I may as well say that I supported him for reelection 
 for the reason that, incredible as it may seem, his Demo- 
 cratic opponent was a meaner man than he was." 
 
 The effect of this retort was sufficient completely to 
 unhorse Davenport, who had brought it upon himself, 
 and as Williams stood by his side a moment longer and 
 looked him in the face, while the entire audience shouted 
 with uproarious laughter, it presented one of the most 
 ludicrous scenes of a notable campaign. 
 
 George A'. La Dow, the Democratic candidate, re- 
 mained at his home at Weston, Umatilla County, while 
 this battle was waged by his more pugnacious rivals. 
 He was not known outside of his county, did not leave 
 it during the campaign — and was elected. Williams and 
 Davenport so divided the Republican vote that both were 
 defeated, though each gave the other "a run for his 
 money," and the people an intellectual treat of the first 
 quality. La Dow died before taking his seat, and at a 
 special election held in November, 1875, Lafayette Lane, 
 of Douglas County, a Democrat, was chosen to fill the 
 vacancy. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 One of the very pleasant experiences of my life in 
 eastern Oregon was a trip to the Wallowa valley and 
 to the wonderfully beautiful lake of the same name, in 
 August, 1875. That was several years before Wallowa 
 County was created by slicing off the northern half of 
 Union. At that time there were not more than a dozen 
 settlers in all that territory which is now included in 
 Wallowa County, and they had gone there in search 
 of range, it not being considered at that time suitable 
 for any other purpose. The fact is, at the beginning of 
 its settlement it was thought that only those went to 
 Wallowa who cared little for the advantages of civiliza- 
 tion and were willing to bid farewell to their friends, 
 if they had any, and embrace the life of a hermit. 
 
 But marvelous tales were borne to the Grand Ronde 
 valley of the opportunities it offered for hunting big 
 game — deer, elk and bear — while some of the fish stories 
 told by Sam Van Order and his father, who had made 
 the trip two or three times on packhorses, were accepted 
 as "figments of the imagination," intended only to excite 
 envy. But samples of the famous red fish, which they 
 said abounded in the lake in almost incredible numbers, 
 were brought out, and since "seeing is believing" they 
 created an irresistible longing on the part of many of 
 us to hie ourselves away to the land which produced 
 such wonders. 
 
 Accordingly, a party consisting of S. G. French, 
 O. P. Jaycox, Robert Eakin, Dr. J. W. Givens, Girard 
 Cochran, Alex Cochran, Lee Vincent and myself, with 
 Mrs. James Hendershott and Misses Allie Cochran, 
 Ella Cochran, Josie Cochran and Nellie Condon — 
 thirteen in number — left the Cove on the morning of 
 August 16, 187s, bent on a two weeks' outing, the 
 objective point being Wallowa Lake. 
 
 278 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 279 
 
 In the wagon we placed an old skiff — where it was 
 obtained I never knew — and in this, as well as around 
 it, was piled all the paraphernalia needed in a camping 
 outfit for such a crowd. Six of the party took riding 
 horses, and these were used, in turn, by all of us. The 
 second day, at noon, we reached the Wallowa River 
 at its junction with the Minem, where a toll bridge had 
 just been completed by A. C. Smith, of the Cove. The 
 second night we camped in the lower end of what is 
 known as the "lower" Wallowa valley in a meadow 
 owned by Mr. Bramlette, the first settler in that whole 
 region. His hay had been cut and was in the cock — 
 that is, it was in the latter condition when we arrived, 
 but the next morning, alas, as we broke camp and drove 
 away, about an acre of his meadow looked as though 
 a cyclone had passed that way. We learned afterwards 
 that the Wallowa valley is subject to violent winds and 
 that haying time is no exception. 
 
 The third day we reached the lower end of Wallowa 
 Lake and made our camp among a grove of magnificent 
 cottonwoods. The location is not surpassed for beauty 
 anywhere in the United States. Although thousands of 
 of our people go abroad each year and spend millions 
 of dollars in their quest for the scenic wonders of the 
 world, the results are dwarfed in comparison with the 
 lavish displays of Nature throughout the great North- 
 west. 
 
 In approaching Wallowa Lake one gets no hint that 
 such a body of water, or indeed any body of water, is 
 within a thousand miles until the road reaches the 
 summit of a small ridge, not a hundred yards from the 
 edge of this little inland gem. It is four miles in length 
 and one mile wide, surrounded on three sides by heavily 
 timbered mountains and modest foothills, which at that 
 time were covered with a magnificent growth of eastern 
 Oregon's famous bunch grass. The lake is fed by a 
 dozen small streams which rush from the adjacent moun- 
 tains in the greatest apparent glee in the enjoyment of 
 their new-found liberty, only to be lost in the calm 
 
28o FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 waters of the lake, whose depth in some places is known 
 to be eight hundred feet. 
 
 The only outlet of this surpassingly beautiful body 
 of water is at its extreme northwestern side and is known 
 as the Wallowa River, which flows with great rapidity, 
 but with gradual fall, through the entire length of the 
 Wallowa valley, thirty miles in distance, only at that 
 point to plunge into a narrow canyon, which it follows 
 for ten miles. It then receives the waters of the Minem, 
 which heads in the mountains immediately back of the 
 Cove. Some ten miles below this junction the Wallowa 
 is received into the Grand Ronde. 
 
 Our camp was located near the point where the river 
 leaves the lake, or, rather, where the river is formed. 
 As the tents were pitched and ever3^hing arranged by 
 four o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. French and Girard 
 Cochran insisted that we should laimch our skiff and 
 proceed to the upper end of the lake, four miles away, 
 and ascertain the particular percentage of truth there 
 might be in the fish stories we had heard. The boat 
 was, of course, a leaky tub, but we waited until the 
 absorption of water by the dry boards had expanded 
 the timber and reduced the cracks to their minimum 
 size, and reached our destination without any mishap; 
 but it required the ceaseless activity of Girard, bailing 
 out the water with a milk pan as fast as it ran in, to 
 keep us afloat. 
 
 Such astonishing results rewarded our efforts 1^a.t 
 from that day I have believed every fish story that has 
 been told me. As we had no way to fasten the boat 
 when we arrived, I proposed to sit in it to prevent its 
 drifting away while my two companions started on a 
 tour of investigation. None of the streams which feed 
 the lake is deeper than one foot in August, and at that 
 time of the day the fish were all in these streams. We 
 had been told that no tackle was needed to catch them 
 but only a club — that they were so thick in the water 
 one could almost pick them up by wading in where it 
 was little more than shoe-mouth deep. As my com- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 281 
 
 panions approached the bank of the stream, after land- 
 ing, I saw them jump into the water and begin striking 
 right and left. I had told them that I would not get 
 my feet wet for all the fish we might catch, and this 
 was my real reason for remaining in the boat. 
 
 But after two or three plunges one of the men made 
 a grab under the water and threw upon the bank a 
 speckled beauty at least twenty inches in length and as 
 red as a well-matured beet. The next thing I knew — 
 the next thing anybody knew — I was "in the midst" 
 of my two companions, striking at the red fish with an 
 oar which I had unconsciously taken as a weapon. 
 After landing two or three in as many minutes, I looked 
 for my associate anglers, only to see them sitting on the 
 bank roaring with laughter as they recalled my in- 
 sistence upon being permitted to sit in the boat while 
 they waded into the water. They soon recovered suf- 
 ficiently, however, to call my attention to the boat, which 
 was slowly drifting away, and I was compelled to rush 
 into the water nearly shoulder deep in order to rescue 
 our craft. 
 
 The real truth is that at that time it is likely no body 
 of water in the world of its size had such a large supply 
 of fish of equal quality as had Wallowa Lake. The red 
 fish has never been seen anywhere else and has for 
 several years been entirely extinct. Its average length 
 was about eighteen inches and it had the general ap- 
 pearance and flavor of the famous Chinook salmon of 
 the Columbia River. This lake had been the favorite 
 fishing resort for the Nez Perce Indians from time im- 
 memorial, and it was to retain possession of it and the 
 valley surrounding it, that Chief Joseph made his stand 
 against the white settlers in 1878. 
 
 The following days were spent in the enjojnuent of 
 the unequaled facilities which the place afforded for 
 a happy camp life — ^hunting, fishing, boat-riding, read- 
 ing, story-telling, attempts at singing, cooking and ex- 
 ploring the surrounding country. It was a most de- 
 lightful week. 
 
282 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 The second day after making our camp the entire 
 party went to the head of the lake, some by water, the 
 others taking the horses. There was a fair Indian trail 
 around the eastern side, generally maintaining a grade 
 some twenty feet above the edge of the water. When 
 a half-mile away from the upper end of the lake, the 
 surface of the water for several hundred feet from the 
 mouths of the small supplying creeks toward the deeper 
 water gave out a well-defined reddish cast, so many tens 
 of thousands of these fish were there, swaying in schools, 
 evidently feeding upon the deposits coming from the 
 mountains. Of course this sounds incredible, but con- 
 sidering the nature of the story and the subject with 
 which it deals I trust it will be accepted as the un- 
 varnished truth — which it is. 
 
 The wonderful abundance of the fish and the ease 
 with which they could be caught naturally suggested 
 taking home with us a supply large enough, at least to 
 corroborate our stories. 
 
 But, having been skeptics ourselves before making this 
 trip, we had disregarded the advice of those who had been 
 there ahead of us to provide barrels for packing, so we 
 were at a loss how to proceed. A detachment of our 
 party finally visited the home of a settler a few miles 
 away and succeeded in securing two sugar barrels, 
 which, as is generally known, are not made either for 
 durability or for holding liquids. 
 
 But they were barrels, and with these and a small 
 quantity of salt the entire party went to the head of 
 the lake again, on the day before we intended to start 
 home, on our last fishing trip. This was the process of 
 catching them: Since all the small streams were filled 
 with the desired game — if fish may be called game — 
 two men would enter the water at a given point; two 
 others were stationed fifty feet away, armed with sticks 
 large enough to stun a fish, and as they approached each 
 other the battle would rage fast and furiously, the net 
 result usually being at least a dozen victims within five 
 minutes, or even less time. We had with us a long- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 283 
 
 handled pitchfork, and as fast as the men would throw 
 the fish ashore, two others would string them on this 
 fork handle by running the end through one of their 
 gills — ^pushing them close together until there were at 
 least a dozen, leaving six inches of space at the end of the 
 handle to rest on a man's shoulder. With the fork 
 itself on the shoulder of the other man, the two would 
 carry the load to the temporary camp under some cotton- 
 wood trees fifty yards away. When the end of the 
 handle was dropped to the ground the fish would slip 
 off in a second — and in a huge pile — presenting a beau- 
 tiful prospect for the women folks, who, assisted by a 
 man or two, were dressing and packing the fruits of the 
 exciting raids. 
 
 Within less than two hours we had both barrels filled 
 to the brim. We were only sorry we had not more, for 
 the sport, while seemingly somewhat brutal, nevertheless 
 was such as one would never find elsewhere ; and as far 
 as we knew then the results could not be accomplished 
 by any other means. Besides, as there were many dead 
 fish here and there along the banks M'e decided that we 
 were only anticipating the ordinary course of nature 
 anyway. In fact, many of those we caught were in the 
 condition of a spawning salmon and were discarded. 
 
 However, on one of the creeks we discovered a method 
 of catching these fish which had been employed by 
 some one who had preceded us, perhaps by some Indians. 
 Where the stream had been inclined to spread out over a 
 rocky bar this inclination had been encouraged by the 
 construction of a dam made by placing small logs cross- 
 wise of the current, the water being less than a foot 
 deep, thus forcing it around the light obstruction and 
 into the small boulders, which under the circumstances 
 remained mostly uncovered. In other words, the stream 
 was made so wide that there was not sufficient water in 
 any one place to cover a red fish. With the creek so 
 arranged, a couple of men would go fifty yards above 
 this contrivance had cut off a lot of fish which had 
 reached the stream by means of another, which sepa- 
 
284 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 rated from it above and took its owii course to the late. 
 With the fish thus frightened, they would dash down 
 the stream with lightning rapidity and, coming to this 
 shallow water where it disappeared among the round and 
 well-washed boulders, would "scoot" out on the shore, 
 where all the angler had to do was to stoop over and 
 pick them up. 
 
 Just to try our hands at this sort of fishing, we scared 
 two "herds" of fish down onto this rocky bar and secured 
 a dozen each time, putting them back in the water, how- 
 ever, to prevent needless waste of life. 
 
 The next day after this interesting and exciting epi- 
 sode we broke camp and started for home, the entire 
 trip being declared by unanimous vote a gratifying suc- 
 cess from every point of view. We left the old skiff in 
 the lake, and since it was longer than the wagon bed, — • 
 I mean the boat, not the lake, — we had taken no "end 
 gate" with us. When we started home, after loading 
 our other goods and chattels, we placed the two barrels 
 of fish, each weighing nearly a hundred pounds, in the 
 extreme back of the wagon bed and secured them by 
 tying a piece of baling rope across from side to side. 
 We were somewhat afraid of this improvised "end gate," 
 but as there was nothing else available we trusted to 
 luck. 
 
 It has already been observed that at the time there 
 were no roads in that section and the team was travel- 
 ing across country, taking the general course of the 
 compass for a guide. Robert Eakin and I were following 
 the wagon on horseback at a distance of fifty yards, and 
 had proceeded about six miles when, just as we were 
 discussing the durability of that baling rope substitute, 
 we saw both barrels fall to the ground as the wagon was 
 crossing a shallow gulch. We at once hurried forward 
 and the sight that met our gaze was one never to be 
 forgotten. Those sugar barrels, with their slight hoops, 
 had collapsed completely, and every vestige of them was 
 buried beneath what appeared to be a ton of fish. Being 
 exceedingly slippery, the contents of the barrels had 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 285 
 
 spread over at least a square rod of ground — and were 
 still spreading. By vigorous shouting we managed to 
 call those back who were ahead, and with the entire 
 crowd assembled around the crimson-colored mass there 
 was a full half-hour spent in roars of unceasing laughter. 
 
 We tried to save a few of the fish to take home, but 
 each time we picked one up, the disturbed pile would 
 extend its boundaries in every direction until, when we 
 finally resumed our journey, it covered the greater part 
 of a half-acre of virgin prairie. This happened about 
 where the town of Enterprise, the county seat of Wal- 
 lowa County, stands to-day. We arrived at the Cove 
 with about a dozen fish, which we presented to our 
 friends as the strongest kind of evidence — having no 
 brine and it being August — that we had actually been to 
 the famous fishing grounds at Wallowa Lake. 
 
 I have felt some hesitation in relating this fishing 
 experience in Wallowa County in the early days, since 
 for some reason any description one may give in con- 
 nection with this sort of pleasure is usually accepted as 
 a product of the imagination, though, also, one is usually 
 easily forgiven for his departure from the truth while 
 telling a fish story. And, speaking of fishing experiences, 
 I am reminded of a story related once upon a time by 
 Justice Frank A. Moore, of the Oregon Supreme Court, 
 to a small crowd of us in the corridor of the State 
 Capitol. I am not certain whether he said he knew the 
 man or not, but at any rate this was the story : 
 
 "An old fellow," said Judge Moore, "of a kindly dis- 
 position and with plenty of both money and time on his 
 hands, came into possession of a beautiful live trout 
 about a foot long, and while admiring it happened to 
 recall that he had never heard of anybody trying to teach 
 a fish tricks of any kind. He decided, therefore, that 
 he would experiment with this unusually attractive and 
 lively specimen. 
 
 "So he prepared a small vessel about a foot high and 
 two feet across the top. This he filled with water and 
 put his fish in it. It would swim around and around and 
 
286 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 the man would stand by and talk to it in a reassuring 
 manner. It did not appear especially wild, and within 
 three or four days it became quite gentle and would stick 
 its head out of the water for food which he held in his 
 hand. 
 
 "One day, while circling around the tub at a great 
 rate, he gave an extra flop and fell out on the floor. The 
 man, frightened, hurriedly picked him up and replaced 
 him in the water. Discovering that he could escape in 
 this manner, he did it again within a few minutes. This 
 antic was repeated several times, until the man concluded 
 he would leave him out of the water long enough for 
 him to appreciate the necessity of being in it. 
 
 "To his surprise, however, the fish seemed rather to 
 like his new surroundings and his natural disposition 
 to wriggle soon taught him how to make progress across 
 the floor, much as a snake would. At this demonstration 
 of the apparent success of his experiment the man re- 
 joiced. He was making a valuable discovery. In a few 
 days the fish could get around the house with great ease, 
 and as the doorstep was but little above the ground he 
 soon learned to get out in the grass and took great 
 pleasure in wriggling around through it while catching 
 worms and bugs. 
 
 "One day, while he was thus enjoying his new sort of 
 life, the man saw a cow come into his garden, which 
 was just beyond a small stream that ran through the 
 yard in front of the house. Hurrying across a footlog 
 which spanned the creek, he was in the act of picking up 
 a stone to throw at the cow when, to his surprise, he saw 
 the fish following him, wriggling along the log. Fearful 
 lest he should lose his pet, he rushed back to the log, 
 'but,' said the owner of the piscatorial freak, in telling 
 of the strange incident, 'do you know that before I could 
 reach him, he had fallen into the water, and before I 
 could rescue him, I'll be d — d if that fish didn't drown 
 before my very eyes! Why, I wouldn't have taken a 
 thousand doll'ars for the derned cuss.' " 
 
 Notwithstanding all that has been ascertained as to 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 287 
 
 the habits of fish by scientific investigation, it is plain 
 that much is yet to be learned about them — as well as 
 about the men who say they catch them! 
 
 Of the thirteen persons making that trip to the Wal- 
 lowa country thirty-five years ago, all are living to-day 
 with the exception of S. G. French and Girard Cochran. 
 The girls have all married. Mrs. Hendershott is now 
 past eighty years of age and in good health; Eakin 
 is on the Supreme Bench of the State; Dr. Givens has 
 for fifteen years been superintendent of the Idaho Insane 
 Asylum; Jaycox is a prominent merchant in Walla 
 Walla ; Alex Cochran is a blacksmith in Union ; Vincent, 
 I have heard, is in the Philippines, and th's writer is 
 engaged in the pleasant pastime of telling how it all 
 happened. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 I have referred to the construction of the Mt. Fanny 
 Mill in the Cove during the summer and winter of 1866, 
 with S. G. French and Henry & Hailey as owners. Mr. 
 French, a wealthy member of an old New Jersey family, 
 came West in 1862 because of failing health. Drifting 
 to the Cove, the picturesqueness of the locality at once 
 appealed to him and he settled there, acquiring a large 
 body of highly fertile land. He at once stocked it with 
 horses and cattle and until his death, twenty years later, 
 was one of the wealthiest men in Union County and one 
 of the most valuable as a contributing factor to its mate- 
 rial progress. A devout Episcopalian, he built and en- 
 dowed a church at the Cove, furnished a rectory, secured 
 a minister from the East and established a school. His 
 health continued to fail by degrees, however, and he 
 passed away in the '8o's bearing the respect and esteem 
 of all the people in the Grand Ronde valley. 
 
 As his partners in the building of the Mt. Fanny Mills 
 he associated himself with two men from Missouri, 
 brothers-in-law to each other — Dave Henry and "Old 
 Man Hailey." They were very illiterate men, but had 
 a small fortune which they had amassed by the practice 
 of the greatest frugality (frugality is a very charitable 
 word to use in this connection as to their habits). They 
 had been slaveholders in Missouri and had brought with 
 them to Oregon two or three negro women who were 
 their housekeepers. 
 
 As an instance as to how they probably made their 
 fortune it may be noted that in the summer of 1869 Mr. 
 Henry wanted a milk-house built near his house on the 
 bank of Mill Creek, where the road crossed it leading 
 to the mill. He asked me one day if I would like to 
 undertake the job, explaining the size and plan he de- 
 
 2g8 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 289 
 
 sired, and I told him I could accommodate him. I made 
 out the bill of lumber and told him the number of pounds 
 of nails it would probably require. 
 
 "But," said he, "can't you make a house like that with- 
 out nails?" 
 
 "Not very well," I replied. "How could I build it 
 without nails ?" 
 
 "Take a brace and bit and use pins to hold it together 
 — wooden pins," he said. "I have built many a hog-pen 
 in Missouri with pins. There is no use of wasting 
 money on these jerkwater storekeepers who charge six- 
 teen cents a pound for nails when pins will do as well." 
 
 "But," I remonstrated, "it will take me twice or three 
 times as long to make it with pins as with nails, and it 
 will cost more than to pay even sixteen cents a pound 
 for nails." 
 
 "Can't you bore holes and make pins?" he inquired 
 with increased brusqueness. 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Well, I'll get the lumber here to-morrow and you 
 come next day and go to work. You will at least earn 
 your money, and these jerkwater counter-jumpers only 
 get deeper into your pocket all the time." 
 
 Accordingly, I made his milk-house without a nail, 
 and while it never shone very conspicuously as an archi- 
 tectural attraction, it stood there for many years — gradu- 
 ally showing its independence of the laws of symmetry. 
 But the pins held the contrary walls together long after 
 the plain evidences of their disagreement were visible 
 at a distance of a half-mile. 
 
 A few years afterward Henry & Hailey sold out all 
 their holdings in the Grand Ronde valley and moved 
 away, nobody ever seemed to know where. Mr. French 
 bought their half-interest in the mill, as it was evident 
 there was no congeniality between himself and his 
 partners. 
 
 The beautiful peak on the summit of the mountain 
 range east of the Cove is called "Mt. Fanny" in honor 
 
290 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 of Mrs. Fanny McDaniels, one of the first women to 
 settle in the Cove — in 1862 — and the first white woman 
 to reach its summit, which she did in June, 1863. 
 
 Like most other early settlements on the Pacific Coast, 
 the Cove had for its pioneers an unusually active and 
 public-spirited set of men. Among them I desire to 
 mention M. B. Rees, Fred Shoemaker, L. R. Bloom, 
 A. C. Smith, Fred Mitchell, James Cochran, James Hen- 
 dershott, F. W. Duncan, Thomas Babington, Samuel 
 D. Cowles, E. P. McDaniels, Otho Eckersley, John Phy, 
 Dunham Wright, Ed Payne, and a score of others de- 
 serving of notice, constituting a working force seldom 
 equalled in any community new or old. All these men 
 were there and actively engaged in business when I went, 
 and though I was but a boy fifteen years of age, they 
 welcomed me, each in his way, with cordiality. To many 
 of them I shall always owe a debt of gratitude for the 
 help and encouragement they extended. As in most 
 new communities, there were debating schools, spelling 
 schools, singing schools, writing schools, dancing schools, 
 entertainments and other social attractions that often, 
 in the winter, occupied every night in the week. 
 
 Those were the years when the Idaho mines. Rocky 
 Bar, Owyhee, Bannock, Silver City, Mormon Basin and 
 many others, were in their prime as producers, and men 
 who spent their summers there would come to Grand 
 Ronde valley for the winter. Many of these were young 
 men who had an abundance of money with which to 
 gratify their inclination for social pleasures, and from 
 the time of their arrival, usually in November, until the 
 snows were sufficiently melted for mining in the spring, 
 generally the first of April, "things were doing" in a 
 social way in the Cove. If there had been ten nights in 
 the week, all would have been used in "passing the time 
 away." Money was no object. Preachers, "fiddlers," 
 dancing teachers, etc., received for their pay practically 
 as much as they asked. There was more snow in those 
 days than now, it seems, and sleigh-riding was one of 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 291 
 
 the favorite pleasures. I remember one winter when 
 there were six weeks of sleigh-riding, without a sem- 
 blance of a thaw, and as there were no regular "cutters," 
 the ingenuity of men and boys was taxed to the utmost 
 in the construction of sleighs, sleds, "bobs" and other 
 freaks that would slide over the snow and hold up from 
 one to twenty-five people. 
 
 Of course it was not always smooth sleighing. They 
 were frequently breaking down on account of the rough 
 condition of the roads, and the horses used were prac- 
 tically all "cayuses" secured from the Indians, or their 
 progeny of the first generation — in either of which cases 
 the spirit of the Evil One was always in control. They 
 were noted for their habit of running away without 
 provocation, or suddenly taking a notion to "go across 
 lots" with the utmost indifference to the wishes of those 
 whom they were supposed to be serving. 
 
 I remember that in the spring of 1867, when the "boys" 
 had departed for the mines after a most strenuous winter 
 of good sleighing, for five miles square in the Cove the 
 fence corners, ridges, gulches, cross-roads and byways 
 were so strewn with wrecked sleighs (and their name- 
 sakes) that several families got together their next 
 winter's firewood by gathering up the debris. It looked 
 as though an Iowa cyclone had been taking liberties with 
 a million-dollar lumber yard. 
 
 In the fall of 1867 the older residents and permanent 
 settlers of the Cove organized a debating society which 
 tackled without the slightest hesitation the discussion of 
 many of the great questions then engrossing the atten- 
 tion of the country, and it is not straining the fact very 
 much — not more, indeed, than facts are accustomed to 
 being strained — to say that several of the speakers had 
 as clear a view of what was best to be done, and expressed 
 themselves quite as well, as many members of Congress 
 — and that is not conferring upon them any special 
 encomium either. 
 
 Of these men M. B. Rees was perhaps the best 
 
292 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 informed. He was especially well read in political and 
 religious matters and was a good speaker. His one 
 prominent characteristic was his fondness for disputing 
 and his impatience of opposition. Having formed his 
 conclusion as to a subject, he thought that every other 
 man who had access to the same source of information 
 should know enough to arrive at the same decision. And 
 this, after all, does not differ very much from the posi- 
 tion of most of us, after we have been dissected intel- 
 lectually by competent authorities. 
 
 Rees was very critical as to the proper use and pro- 
 nunciation of words, and never hesitated to pounce upon 
 an offender at the time the crime was committed. I 
 found this a great help to me, as it was to others, though 
 many took offense at his tendency without realizing its 
 actual benefit. He and I were seldom in conversation 
 five minutes without having recourse to the dictionary, 
 and the encounter generally served to steer us perma- 
 nently from the question originally under consideration. 
 
 When, after ten years, I returned to the Willamette 
 valley I wrote Rees a letter, and as a postscript inquired 
 how he and the dictionary were getting along since I had 
 come away. In his reply, after writing of other matters, 
 he said : 
 
 "As to the dictionary, after wrestling with it for fifteen 
 years and always yielding to its arbitrary notions, I have 
 decided that since nine times out of ten the d — thing 
 differs from me, I will have nothing more to do with it." 
 
 M. B. Rees is still living on his fine farm in the Cove, 
 which has been his home for nearly fifty years, and is 
 enjoying life at the age of eighty as a sage and philoso- 
 pher should. 
 
 Another leading citizen of the Cove in the early '6o's 
 was A. C. Smith, a man of very positive character, a 
 leading Democrat, who was usually pitted against Rees 
 in all public meetings where any sort of discussion was 
 in order, though they were always intimate personal 
 friends. Smith owned one of the best hay farms in the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 293 
 
 Grand Ronde valley, there being one body of two hun- 
 dred acres of natural hay that yielded four hundred tons 
 every year without any labor whatever, aside from cut- 
 ting and stacking. This land overflowed every winter 
 and spring, remaining quite soft until not long before 
 the cutting season. One day in May, 1869, a cayuse 
 pony, worth ten dollars, having found a weak place in the 
 fence surrounding this magnificent meadow, was seen 
 wending its way here and there, each track leaving a 
 hole a foot deep and playing havoc with the smoothness 
 of its surface. Seeing the condition of things, a.-d know- 
 ing that any eflfort to chase the intruder out by pursuing 
 him with a horse (and any other method was out of the 
 question) would only make matters worse, Smith took 
 his Winchester rifle, rested it across the fence and began 
 "pumping" at the offender some four hundred yards 
 distant, with the result that the fourth shot laid him low. 
 Smith explained that he saw no reason for destroying 
 fifty dollars' worth of hay in order to get a ten-dollar 
 cayuse out of his meadow! 
 
 Long years ago he sold his Cove farm and for thirty 
 years has lived in Wallowa County, where he has com- 
 bined farming with the practice of the law, his admission 
 to the bar having taken place some years after his resi- 
 dence in the Cove. 
 
 In the days to which I have been referring there was 
 no lawyer either in the Cove or in Union, ten miles away. 
 As there were many local difficulties which could not 
 be settled without some recourse to outside parties, the 
 justice of the peace had much to do and Smith and I 
 were often called upon to present the case to the court 
 from the respective viewpoints of the plaintiff and de- 
 fendant. This situation, agreeable to us, continued until 
 one day in the spring of 1875 it was announced that a 
 young lawyer had located in Union. The very next case 
 which came before the Cove justice of the peace, one 
 of the parties employed this newcomer, and as the other 
 was afraid to trust his side of the difficulty to either 
 
294 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Smith or myself, as against the real thing in the law, 
 he brought a lawyer from La Grande and the Cove bar- 
 risters were henceforth out of business. 
 
 The new Union attorney was Robert Eakin, of Eugene, 
 who not only won his first case, but afterward was Circuit 
 Judge of that district for many years and is now Chief 
 Justice of the State Supreme Court. I have always 
 thought it quite an honor to have laid the foundation for 
 such a successful career as Judge Eakin's has since 
 proved. 
 
 A. C. Smith was a pioneer in the Wdlowa valley and 
 built the first bridge across the Wallowa River in about 
 1874, when there were but few settlers in that magnifi- 
 cent section. In the early days in the Cove he was very 
 friendly to the Indians and I have frequently seen several 
 hundred camped near his farm while on their way from 
 Umatilla to Snake and Wallowa rivers on their annual 
 hunting and camping expeditions. He could talk their 
 tongue, no matter what the tribe, and as he usually wore 
 moccasins and white canvas trousers, his unique appear- 
 ance appealed to the red men and he could make almost 
 any sort of a potlatch bargain with them, to the satisfac- 
 tion, if not profit, of both parties concerned. 
 
 Of the men who were important factors in the Cove 
 life forty-five years ago all have passed into the land 
 of shadows except M. B. Rees, Randall Robinson, Otho 
 Eckersley, E. P. McDaniels and one or two others. That 
 beautiful little locality, about a township in area, nestling 
 upon the foothills which slope toward La Grande and 
 the Grand Ronde valley proper, has changed, not only 
 in the personnel of its people but in its business life. It 
 was formerly devoted exclusively to the production of 
 wheat, barley, hay and stock, but in later years intensified 
 farming has been adopted, and the farms of two hun- 
 dred acres have been, with a few exceptions, divided 
 into small orchards and gardens. Cherries and apples 
 are made a specialty and are grown to a marvelous state 
 of perfection. 
 
 A thousand recollections, mostly very pleasant, cluster 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 295 
 
 around the place for me, and the mention of its name 
 never fails to produce a reverie that recalls the experi- 
 ences attending the transition of boyhood into manhood 
 — the "heyday of youth" into the more serious aspects 
 of life, with its growing responsibilities — and the people, 
 scattered everywhere, who were my associates in the 
 days of "auld lang syne," 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 The campaign of 1876 will take its place in the history 
 of the United States as the most exciting, in the nature 
 of its final settlement, the country has known, to date, at 
 least. Only by the narrowest margin was an actual 
 revolution averted, which good fortune was due to the 
 horse sense of the American people, to their real capacity 
 for self-government. Many questions arose for settle- 
 ment which had never been presented before, for which 
 there was no precedent, and indeed for which there was 
 little excuse. Through a chance circumstance the per- 
 sonnel of the Electoral Commission was Republican in 
 its character, and all its findings were for that reason 
 favorable to that party. If the Commission had been 
 democratic in its majority, its decisions would have made 
 Tilden President of the United States, for they voted 
 as solidly as did the Republicans — ^partisanship ruling 
 every move made by every member. When possible, 
 most men see things as they wish them to look, not as 
 they really are — unless we take the other end of the ques- 
 tion and say that the aspect of most objects is deter- 
 mined largely by the coloring our own vision furnishes. 
 The world is bright to one man and dark to another on 
 the same day — though the world really presented but 
 one picture on that day! 
 
 Very few Republicans are to-day especially proud of 
 the way Hayes was seated; yet there seemed to be no 
 other action possible in that fearful crisis and they only 
 did what the Democrats would doubtless have done had 
 conditions been reversed. And it is said, anyway, that 
 all's well that ends well. 
 
 Locally, in Union County, in 1876, the Republicans 
 nominated John W. Norval and myself for Representa- 
 tives in the Legislature and W. J. Snodgrass, of La 
 
 296 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 297 
 
 Grande, for State Senator. We made such campaign 
 as we could in the face of adverse conditions, but of 
 course came out of the contest snowed under by the 
 normal Democratic majority in that county, at that time 
 about three hundred. Norval continued an active force 
 in Union County politics until 1888, whenhe was suc- 
 cessful in his campaign for a seat in the State Senate, 
 serving through the sessions of 1889 and 1891. I was 
 a member of the House from Marion County in both 
 these sessions, the latter year serving as Speaker. So, 
 "after many years," my old comrade and I met in the 
 legislative halls and exchanged many enjoyable reminis- 
 cences of the early struggles in Union County. The 
 time arrived when Norval had some assistance in his 
 local battles and his reward had come. His home was 
 about two miles from the railroad station on the line 
 running from La Grande to Elgin. One day, not long 
 after the expiration of his service in the State Senate, 
 he was walking across country to catch a train, and, 
 hearing it in the distance, ran for a half mile. He 
 reached the station just as the train did, but was so 
 exhausted that he sat down on a pile of lumber and died 
 within five minutes from heart failure. 
 
 J. W. Norval was a good man, endowed with many 
 splendid qualities, and his name will always be recalled 
 by the pioneers of Union County with a high regard for 
 his active work as one of the founders of that little 
 empire which nestles so cozily in the heart of the Blue 
 Mountain Range. 
 
 After the campaign of 1876 W. J. Snodgrass was sev- 
 eral times a candidate for State Senator and once or 
 twice attempted to secure the Republican nomination for 
 State Treasurer, but never was successful. For several 
 years he was in the mercantile business in. Okonogan, 
 near the British Columbia line, but afterward returned 
 to his old home in La Grande, where he died in the year 
 1910, after forty years of great activity in business and 
 political life in the Grand Ronde valley. 
 
298 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 In the fall of 1876 I received an urgent request from 
 my mother's people in the Willamette valley to return 
 to the scenes of my childhood and settle down among 
 them. To look the situation over, I went to that section 
 after an absence of ten years, and notwithstanding the 
 ties I had formed in the Grand Ronde valley, the land 
 of my birth looked good to me and I decided to make 
 the change the ensuing spring. I made this trip imme- 
 diately after the Presidential election in November. The 
 Hayes-Tilden difficulty had already taken form, and as 
 we met the stages while en route to Umatilla Landmg I 
 would anxiously inquire of the driver the latest news. 
 At Portland I stopped at the St. Charles Hotel, then the 
 leading hostelry in the city — George Coggan, formerly 
 of La Grande, was the proprietor — ^and I recall the 
 excitement prevailing among the people who assembled 
 to learn the latest news from Washington and to discuss 
 the alarming situation. 
 
 I returned home within two weeks, sold my farm and 
 stock in the Cove and was prepared to leave for the 
 Waldo Hills when the weather would be suitable for the 
 trip overland in the spring. 
 
 On May 26, 1877, therefore, with a four-horse team, 
 a wagon — with four wheels and a "bed" — a wife and 
 four children, one a step-daughter, I drove from the 
 little town of Cove, never to make it my home again. 
 On June 16, 1870, I had married Mrs. Nancy Batte, a 
 young widow with a little girl, and in the subsequent 
 years there had been two girls and a boy added to the 
 family, the latter being but four months old at the time 
 of our departure. About fifty people had assembled to 
 "see us off." It was a sad parting, since the country 
 was yet new enough to have retained the pioneer spirit 
 and the families were all closely bound together in neigh- 
 borly ties such as are never formed in older countries. 
 
 I shall never forget that day in May. It was no indi- 
 cation of weakness that there were few, if any, dry eyes 
 as the last handshakes were given and the wheels began 
 to roll toward western Oregon. It was an ideal day in 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 299 
 
 the Cove. The morning sun had come across the old 
 mountain which for thousands of years had stood guard 
 over the changes in the beautiful valley, and birds every- 
 where were giving forth their silver melody, as if to 
 mock the sadness of the occasion ; the old mill was grind- 
 ing away just across the creek, utterly oblivious of the 
 fact that it had been my first bedroom in Grand Ronde 
 valley, and that I regretted leaving it almost as much 
 as the people themselves. Then there was the "Morri- 
 son" church, which I had painted as my contribution 
 toward its building, and in which, as an officer in the 
 local Grange, I had partaken of many of its famous 
 "fourth degree" dinners, attended dances long to be 
 remembered and had led in the singing at occasional 
 revivals held within its walls. "Dad" Russell was pound- 
 ing away on the anvil in his shop, but he had already 
 been to see us; "Johnny" Clark, from his shop, waved 
 us his farewell; "Uncle" Cowles, pipe in mouth, had 
 come to wish us well, and a group of school-children — 
 bless their hearts! — whose teacher I had been the pre- 
 vious winter but one, came along on their way to school 
 and stopped to say good-by. 
 
 And the old "Dixie" schoolhouse — I was to be a 
 frequenter of social gatherings within its walls no more. 
 How the old times filled my memory as I recalled the 
 debates we had had there; the singing schools, with the 
 different teachers who had since gone their way; the 
 writing school, where L. J. Rouse taught us the prin- 
 ciples of the "Spencerian" system and other "practical 
 foolishness" ; the Union Sunday-school, with its summer 
 Sunday afternoons; the day-school I had taught there, 
 and how the children had "turned me out" on the day 
 before Christmas, at the noon hour, for a joke, and how 
 I returned the joke by going home and leaving them to 
 dismiss the school as they saw fit — all these incidents 
 came to my mind while bidding farewell to the place, as 
 well as to the people. A last glance at "Dixie" brought 
 to view, in imagination, "Jack" Gallagher and Lambert, 
 two of the earlier teachers there ; Revs. Koger, Booth and 
 
300 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Lewis, three Baptist preachers who believed in foreordi- 
 nation and predestination, and earnestly urged all sin- 
 ners to accept their faith in order that they might be 
 saved — regardless of predestination, it is presumed; and 
 "Uncle" Dan Elledge, popular and jolly Christian min- 
 ister who had no doubt that he was preaching the Gospel 
 "according to the faith once delivered to the saints." 
 
 Finally, however, we were on our way and that night 
 camped on the Grand Ronde River, a few miles above 
 Oro Dell. As we made the turn around a point which 
 gave us the last glimpse of the old home, I stopped the 
 team while we discussed the situation with saddened 
 hearts, and wondered if we should ever regret the move, 
 when we should ever see the familiar scenes again, if 
 ever, and why we had not "let well enough alone," any- 
 way. There was no joy in the camp that night. 
 
 I did not see the Cove again for six years, when I 
 made a visit there and had a wonderfully cordial recep- 
 tion, remaining two weeks. In the succeeding years I 
 returned nearly every year, sometimes oftener, until the 
 death of my father. One day in August, 1903, while 
 standing in the doorway of my home in Salem, I received 
 a long-distance call telling me of his sudden illness and 
 that he had requested that I come at once. As I had 
 been to his home on a visit two months before, on which 
 occasion he and I had spent three days in calling at the 
 homes of many of the old friends, this request of his 
 was alarming. It was Saturday afternoon, but I took 
 a train for Portland and reached the Cove on Sunday 
 afternoon at one o'clock, only to find my father uncon- 
 scious. An effort was made to arouse him by the 
 announcement of my arrival, but without success. When 
 asked if he knew what was said, he gave a slight nod of 
 his head, but no other evidence of consciousness. He 
 passed away within an hour, at the age of seventy-five 
 years. 
 
 In his delirium he frequently inquired if I had arrived 
 — even within a half-hour after the message was sent — 
 and asked that I should write his obituary notice in case 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 301 
 
 he should not survive to make the request in person. 
 This I did, publishing it in the Oregonian, giving an out- 
 line of his life, as detailed in a preceding chapter, and 
 closing with these two paragraphs: 
 
 In 1866, Union County having been recently estab- 
 lished, he served for a few months as deputy sheriff, 
 and, being attracted by the marvelous beauty of the 
 Grand Ronde valley, decided to locate there perma- 
 nently and again engage in horticultural pursuits. He 
 carried his decision into effect and for thirty-seven and 
 one-half years, exactly half his lifetime, he cultivated 
 one of the most successful and best-kept fruit farms in 
 eastern Oregon. He was actively in the harness when 
 the summons came announcing that his work was done. 
 He lived a very active life and died with the highest 
 respect of everybody. 
 
 A short time before his demise, when asked if he 
 wanted anything, he replied, "Only death," and when 
 asked if he was ready to die, he said he had always 
 been ready. Just before losing consciousness for the 
 last time he asked if I had arrived, and his last earthly 
 request was that I should write his obituary. This I 
 have done, lovingly as a son, and on these closing lines 
 my pen lingers, as, sitting under the whispering pines, 
 just above the old home, whose branches sheltered me 
 so many times during my boyhood days, and con- 
 fronted on every hand by the countless familiar ob- 
 jects which were my companions and his during the 
 struggles of my early manhood, I bid my father good- 
 by until we meet in that "house not made with hands, 
 eternal in the heavens." 
 
 I may be pardoned for adding that my father and I 
 were more like two brothers than parent and child, and 
 many people not intimately acquainted with us or the 
 family supposed we were brothers. My first wife was 
 a younger sister to his second wife, thus making us 
 brothers-in-law, and the children of the two sisters, as 
 well as their parents, were frequently puzzled to figure 
 out the precise relationship which they bore to one 
 
302 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 another. My father was the uncle to my children, as well 
 as their grandfather, and their aunt, who was my step- 
 mother, was their grandmother ! Also, my wife was not 
 only the aunt of my father's children — by his second 
 wife — but was their sister-in-law, as well. My little step- 
 daughter came nearer than any other member of either 
 family to a plain title, and even she was the neice of her 
 sister's grandfather and her mother was her grand- 
 mother's sister! Yet the two families "got along" 
 splendidly ! 
 
 My father was one of the jolliest of men, counted the 
 best of companions and his home was always a popular 
 resort, even for young people, or perhaps I should say 
 especially for young people. I have been to the Cove but 
 once since his death, as the old place seems not the same 
 without him. His remains are resting in the cemetery on 
 the hillside overlooking the beautiful little section which 
 he chose for himself in middle life, by the side of the wife 
 who preceded him by two years. 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 
 No doubt most men, in looking back over their varied 
 experiences, can select a few events which appear to 
 mark distinctly the dividing line between what might 
 properly be called epochs in their lives. Some unfore- 
 seen happening will often serve to change the entire 
 trend of one's life and its purposes — if it had any. 
 
 This I can truly say of my removal from eastern 
 Oregon to my old home in the Willamette valley in 1877. 
 My mother's uncle and his wife being well advanced in 
 years and childless, had made me an offer, in land, to 
 come and live near them during the remainder of their 
 lives and look after them in their declining years. This, 
 together with my attachment to the Willamette valley, 
 caused me to accept the proposition and, in a sense, to 
 begin a new life along different lines and amid strange 
 surroundings. 
 
 We made the trip from the Grand Ronde valley to 
 Waldo Hills overland, with the exception of the distance 
 between The Dalles and Portland, which was covered by 
 a Columbia River steamer. I was just past twenty-six 
 years of age, had a family of a wife and four children, 
 and was bound for a land which none of them had ever 
 seen and where my own success was yet to be deter- 
 mined. I am free to confess that I was filled with a 
 mixed feeling of concern, regret, hope, courage and a 
 goodly supply of optimism. The second day from "civili- 
 zation" we were compelled to remain four days in the 
 heart of the Blue Mountains on account of a most severe 
 rain-storm and the illness of my wife, being obliged to 
 send to La Grande for medicine by the stage-drivers who 
 passed twice a day. The sixth day we reached Pendleton 
 and camped in the suburbs of that little city. The next 
 morning I discovered that three of my four horses were 
 
 303 
 
304 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 missing. They had slipped their hobbles in some way 
 and had of course taken the back track for the Grand 
 Ronde valley. My wife had been very sick all the pre- 
 vious night and the baby, four months old, had cried 
 unceasingly from dark until two o'clock in the morning, 
 which necessitated my holding him, walking the floor of 
 the tent and occasionally endeavoring to lull him to 
 sleep by rocking him in a low four-posted, rawhide-bot- 
 tom chair. Between acts, or rather during acts, I admin- 
 istered as best I could to the wants of his suffering 
 mother. A little while before daylight, everything else 
 having failed to quiet the child, she suggested that maybe 
 he was thirsty. During the six preceding hours I had 
 given him every kind of medicine the two druggists in 
 the town had ever heard of as being good for infantile 
 complaints, but without results — at least desirable results. 
 
 The thought was absolutely new to me, but acting 
 upon the suggestion I procured a tin-cup of water and 
 ofiFered it to the little fellow. Upon his first sight of it 
 he made such a frantic grab for its contents that it was 
 worth a small fortune to see him. He drank it all and 
 wanted more; but this was withheld. Within less than 
 five minutes he was in a deep sleep which lasted for full 
 four hours. 
 
 Some men are so blasted stupid, anyway — ever notice 
 it? 
 
 The next morning my wife was very ill and could eat 
 nothing we had in our stores; she only wanted some 
 potatoes. So I went down on Main Street and asked the 
 proprietor of the only grocery store if he had any. He 
 replied that he had not. I at once pointed out to him a 
 sack standing in front of the store, but he said they were 
 not for sale. After I had explained the situation to him, 
 however, he gave me permission to take all the potatoes 
 I wanted — even the entire sack. I took a dozen and 
 offered him the price of them, but he replied that he had 
 none for sale ! His name was Lot Livermore, and he is 
 one of the best-known pioneers of Umatilla County 
 to-day. He has altogether served twenty years as post- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 305 
 
 master of Pendleton and is as "white" a man as lives in 
 the State of Oregon. 
 
 After breakfast I saddled the only horse which had 
 not played "hookey," engaged a woman who lived close 
 by to attend to the wants of the family, and started for 
 the Grand Ronde valley, not expecting to find the truant 
 horses before reaching their old home, ninety miles away. 
 But good luck was mine, for before traveling ten 
 miles I met some of my old neighbors on their way to 
 the "Landing" for freight. They had seen my horses, 
 knew them, guessed the situation and were leading them 
 behind their wagons. It was a most cheering sight when 
 I recognized my three runaways reluctantly retracing 
 their steps, for it was the only really encouraging inci- 
 dent that had happened since the beginning of the trip. 
 
 The remainder of this journey was without special 
 interest. The route, much of the way, was along the 
 identical road made by the immigrants who created the 
 "Oregon trail" in the early '40's and some of the camp- 
 ing places were the same as those used by my parents 
 just thirty years before. To this day many sections of 
 the Oregon trail through eastern Oregon are used by the 
 people, and the light soil, blown by the winds of seventy 
 years, has drifted away, leaving two parallel trenches 
 with a ridge between so high that the axles of the wagons 
 often drag on its surface. Indeed, in some places, as 
 you descend the hillsides into the gulches, the alkali soil 
 has been blown out of the old road until it is only usable 
 by horsemen, whose heads are often below the surface 
 of the surrounding country. 
 
 In 1877 the boundless advantages of the bunch grass 
 range of eastern Oregon were just beginning to be appre- 
 ciated and the first large herds of cattle and sheep were 
 commencing to make their mark on the almost unlimited 
 stretches of this succulent grass. I remember that in 
 traveling from Pendleton to Heppner, a distance of some 
 sixty miles, we drove through extensive sections of 
 grass which stood two feet high, and not a head of stock 
 had molested it since it began its growth in the early 
 
3o6 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 spring. As we approached the streams, however, which 
 are some ten miles apart, there were evidences of stock 
 here and there; the grass began to be shorter, and as we 
 neared the creeks there was literally none at all. The 
 fact was that my horses were compelled to do without 
 grass as we passed through this part of the magnificent 
 eastern Oregon range, except as we made some dry 
 camps at the noon hour. 
 
 Since then the immense herds of cattle, horses and 
 sheep which have made large fortunes for thousands of 
 men have practically exterminated the bunch grass, which 
 for succulent qualities and its great vitality on dry up- 
 lands has not been equalled by any other kind of forage 
 plant, native or imported. Indeed, there are many people 
 who believe the transformation of these boundless ranges 
 into farm lands devoted to the production of grain has 
 been an industrial mistake, since much of it is, of neces- 
 sity, subject to dry seasons and the output often unsatis- 
 factory in consequence. When given a rest from pas- 
 turage for two years the bunch grass will reappear, 
 strange as it may seem. Traveling in eastern Oregon, 
 one frequently sees a fence running over a high moun- 
 tain, on one side of which the grass, newly grown — or, 
 it may be, drying up in the early fall — shows plainly for 
 twenty miles away, while on the opposite side of the 
 fence, where the land has been closely pastured, the hills 
 are perfectly bare and as brown as a city street. 
 
 Many an eastern Oregon grain-raiser of to-day often 
 sits on the front porch of his home and sighs for the 
 halcyon days of King Bunch Grass. Much of that 
 country, however, is splendidly adapted to the produc- 
 tion of grain of all kinds, and without doubt the section 
 in Umatilla County, consisting of twenty miles square 
 with Athena as a probable center, has a record as the 
 best wheat nroducing land in the world. 
 
 Incidentally, though a digression, it will be interest- 
 ing to describe briefly the process of harvesting wheat 
 in this section. While living in Pendleton, during the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 307 
 
 threshing season in 1907 George Perringer, one of the 
 "wheat kings" of Umatilla County, invited me one day 
 to accompany him to his farm, twenty miles away — in 
 his automobile. Many of the big farmers of Umatilla 
 County live in Pendleton and occupy some of the finest 
 homes there. 
 
 Perringer had about three thousand acres of wheat 
 that year and there were three "combined harvesters" 
 working at once. Two of them had thirty horses each 
 furnishing the motive power, while the third was drawn 
 by a steam engine of one hundred and ten horse-power. 
 To this we drove in our machine and I was invited to 
 ride once around a five-hundred-acre field which it was 
 transforming from standing grain that averaged fifty 
 bushels to the acre into the sacked product. 
 
 A "combined harvester" is, as its name implies, a huge 
 header with a threshing machine attachment. The "ele- 
 vator" dumps the wheat directly into the cylinder of 
 the thresher, and a platform carries three men. One of 
 these is the sacker ; the other two sew the sacks and pile 
 them on a broad plank which, when it receives a suffi- 
 cient weight — about thirty bushels — automatically up- 
 tilts, slides the sacks off in a pile, and adjusts itself imme- 
 diately to receive the next sack. 
 
 The sickle of this machine was twenty-four feet long 
 and the amount of headed wheat it gathered in and 
 dumped into the cylinder was almost appalling — so vora- 
 cious and monsterlike did the process appear. The man 
 who handled the sacked wheat had a job that kept him 
 "on the jump," while the two men who were sewing 
 sacks had not an idle moment. 
 
 The drive-wheels of the engine were eight feet in 
 height, with a tire twenty-four inches in width. Neces- 
 sarily, there is more waste in harvesting with this method 
 than with the ordinary binders, but where the business 
 is pursued on such a gigantic scale as in Umatilla County 
 and other sections of eastern Oregon it would be impos- 
 sible to gather in the crops without the combined har- 
 vester. 
 
3o8 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Perringer sold a part of his crop the following fall to 
 Balfour, Guthrie & Co., of Portland, and received his 
 pay in one check for $72,000, a fac-simile of which was 
 printed in the Portland papers — and there are several 
 other Umatilla farmers who are in Perringer's class. In 
 that year the yield of wheat in that county was estimated 
 at six millions of bushels. 
 
CHAPTER XLII 
 
 We arrived at the home of Grandfather Eoff, whose 
 farm — on which I was born — of eight hundred acres was 
 situated both in the Waldo Hills and on Howell Prairie 
 on June 8. I took possession of my farm of three hun- 
 dred and twenty acres adjoining this on the first of the 
 succeeding October, and for the next twenty years was 
 engaged solely in the endless work which such a farm — 
 or, indeed, any farm — entails. I had no rest from cease- 
 less toil except during the four terms I served in the 
 State Legislature, of forty days each, and the time de- 
 voted to public speaking in various parts of the State 
 between 1892 and 1898. 
 
 I can truthfully say that for a long time I had no 
 clearly defined ambition to occupy public positions. It 
 was developed as the result of circumstances which 
 I had no hand in shaping. Early in life I found myself 
 possessed of a liking for newspaper writing, for the 
 pleasure I tound in controversies involving the discussion 
 of public questions; and as they usually appeared to be 
 welcomed by the papers and appreciated by their readers, 
 I rather cultivated the tendency during my farm life. 
 Indeed, I found in it the only diversion from really hard 
 work, and without some mental rest or occupation to 
 vary the daily grind of farm labor, the life one leads 
 there is not so different from that of the horses one drives 
 every day and for whose physical necessities he pro- 
 vides. The man whose occupation requires all his day- 
 light hours and whose duties call for the constant bend- 
 ing of the back, the crooking of the elbows and straining 
 of the arms, really leads a life which differs so little 
 outwardly from that of the work-mule that the distinc- 
 tion is hardly worth considering. And this is not an 
 unfaithful picture of the lives of hundreds of thousands 
 
 309 
 
3IO FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 of farmers throughout even these United States, not to 
 mention those less favorably situated in other parts of 
 the world. 
 
 So, as I have intimated, I found some relaxation after 
 the daily routine — ^hauling rails, building fences, splitting 
 wood in the timber, plowing, sowing grain, harvesting it, 
 haying, clearing land, digging oak "grubs" and postholes, 
 making gardens, hauling and spreading manure, culti- 
 vating potato fields, pruning orchards, killing hogs and 
 kindred stunts — in spending my evenings writing for the 
 newspapers. Often, while plowing, I have thought out 
 the substance of an article for publication and, having 
 constructed and reconstructed a sentence until I was 
 satisfied with its arrangement, have stopped the team 
 and, sitting on the plow beam, jotted it down on a paper 
 which I carried with me for that purpose. This process 
 would be repeated many times, then late some evening, 
 while the family slept, I would devote two or three hours 
 to the actual writing of the letter. 
 
 The first five years I lived on the Waldo Hills farm 
 there was no post-office nearer than Salem, eight miles 
 away, and it was the custom to watch for some neighbor 
 passing along the road on his way to that town and hail 
 him with a request to bring out our mail. I had a neigh- 
 bor whose family lived in Salem, where his children 
 were enjoying the advantages of better schooling, and he 
 went each Saturday to spend Sunday with them, return- 
 ing to the farm late on the afternoon of that day. He 
 regularly brought the mail for every family living along 
 the road, and "Lew" Griffith's return home was watched 
 for eagerly on every Sunday afternoon for a number of 
 years. At this writing he still lives on his large farm at 
 the age of eighty-three years, but has been helpless by 
 reason of a paralytic stroke for the past ten years. 
 Through it all, however, he has shown remarkable 
 patience and fortitude and has the sympathy of the 
 unusually large circle of friends and acquaintances among 
 whom he has lived for more than sixty years. 
 
 In about 1882, however, what was known as the "nar- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 311 
 
 row gauge" railroad was built from Woodburn, on the 
 main line of the Southern Pacific on French Prairie, to 
 Springfield, in Lane County, passing through the Waldo 
 Hills within two miles of my farm. A station was built 
 at what had been known as "Stipp's schoolhouse" since 
 my earliest recollection. It was called Macleay, after 
 Donald Macleay, of Portland, who was prominently 
 connected with the "Scotch Company" which gave the 
 necessary financial backing to the railroad enterprise. 
 Afterward, Mr. Macleay donated a large sum toward 
 the erection of a fine schoolhouse for the town, named 
 in his honor, with which, and an additional sum sup- 
 plied by the people of that school district, was erected an 
 edifice which for many years was the finest in the State 
 outside the incorporated towns. 
 
 And with this innovation passed a landmark which 
 holds a cherished place in the memory of hundreds of 
 people now scattered all over the Pacific Coast; for 
 "Stipp's schoolhouse" was known far and near in the 
 days when all the people of Oregon were yet pioneers. 
 Elder John Stipp owned a farm near by and was a 
 "Hard Shell" Baptist of the most impervious kind — 
 most probably he belonged to the family of Noah — 
 and his sermons were as long in their delivery as they 
 were dull and obscure. But this latter characteristic in 
 no wise diminished the appreciation of his hearers of his 
 theological pronunciamentoes, for he was "called of God" 
 and the finite mind was not expected to be able to com- 
 prehend the revelations of the Infinite. The more in- 
 coherent the deliveries of Elder Stipp, the greater the evi- 
 dence of their divine origin and the resultant awe which 
 they produced. His portrayal of foreordination and 
 predestination, interwoven with official assurance that 
 infants a span long are burnt through all eternity in 
 a lake of fire and brimstone because they are not mem- 
 bers of the "elect," was accepted without question by 
 most of his congregation, and for many years he was 
 regarded as one of the ablest preachers in his denomina- 
 tion in all that region. 
 
312 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Soon after my return to the Waldo Hills in 1877 
 Elder Stipp, who had then lived in Clackamas County 
 for several years, visited his old neighborhood and 
 preached a sermon one Sunday morning in the school- 
 house that had just replaced the one named after him, 
 erected in 1850, and his congregation included all the 
 old-timers within a radius of ten miles. All greeted the 
 grizzled warrior in the army of the Lord with that warmth 
 which is characteristic of the pioneers, and the old man, 
 then showing plainly the ravages of cruel Time, held his 
 audience for two hours while he delved into the 
 mysteries of revelation and demonstrated that the 
 second coming of Christ was then overdue, that it is 
 inconceivable how even the mercy of God can save such 
 sinners as the best of us are, that, in effect, a smile 
 under any circumstances is an evidence of frivolity and 
 that an exhibition of mirth of any character indicates 
 a lack of that seriousness which should mark the de- 
 portment of those who expect ultimately to "vie around 
 the eternal Throne," etc. 
 
 On this occasion Elder Stipp's delivery had taken on 
 an additional degree of "hesitation," compared with 
 which his former style was a frisky gallop among his 
 confused verbs and nouns. He always began his sen- 
 tences in a modulated tone, with a gradual rise until 
 a satisfactory pitch had been reached, when there was 
 a partial lessening of force and a lowering of tone for 
 a few words ; but the rising scale was soon resumed and 
 followed until his whole effort was centered on some 
 particular word near the end, when there was a partial 
 verbal collapse which became complete when the period 
 was reached. There was a rhythm permeating his tones 
 after he had talked for fifteen minutes, with a sliding 
 scale of diminuendoes and crescendoes as graceful and 
 regular as a well-rendered modern two-step, and if one 
 was not careful, he would find himself involuntarily 
 keeping time to these variations with a swaying of the 
 head and body. Sometimes half the congregation were 
 so aflfected. He had practiced this method of delivery 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 313 
 
 for so long that it had become an art, and where the 
 matter of his sermon did not convert, the melody of the 
 musical scale was perfectly irresistible. Now you could 
 detect a familiar bar in "Nearer My God to Thee" for 
 a dozen words, as he described the gold which is used 
 in paving the streets of the New Jerusalem; a minute 
 later a section of "On Jordan's Stormy Banks" would 
 be recognized for an instant, as it was called into service 
 to emphasize the horrors of perdition — and was gone 
 before there was time for a salutation! 
 
 But Elder Stipp, good old soul, has passed away, as 
 has the old schoolhouse, his style of preaching, and, for 
 the most part, the creed he propounded for a full half- 
 century to those who sincerely thought he was "contend- 
 ing for the faith once delivered to the saints." 
 
 In following this reminiscent vein, however, I have 
 drifted away from the consideration of the fact that 
 with the building of the "narrow gauge" railroad a post- 
 office was established at Macleay, and with it came a 
 daily mail service. This was, of course, a marked im- 
 provement, though it necessitated a trip of two miles 
 each way on the part of some member of the family. 
 In our case we usually decided at the noon meal which 
 one should make the trip for the mail during the after- 
 noon, for by this time many of us felt obliged to take 
 a daily paper and the mail must be obtained every day. 
 This condition obtained during the other fifteen years 
 of my residence on the farm, and I reckon that, between 
 all the members of my family, in that time we traveled 
 some thousands of miles on foot — for there was a deep 
 canyon to cross and by the road the distance would have 
 been fully doubled. 
 
 Within a year after I moved to Salem, however, the 
 rural free delivery system was inaugurated and the mail 
 was delivered at the farm every day before noon. At 
 the same time a telephone line was erected through that 
 neighborhood, and so two of the rural inconveniences 
 with which I wrestled for twenty years, were removed. 
 
 But, Mr. Reader, have you observed how untrue is 
 
314 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 the assumption that the introduction of the rural mail 
 delivery and the telephone has increased the sociability 
 in farming communities? This is a common statement 
 in the average newspaper — that the isolation which has 
 heretofore made country life so unpleasant has been 
 removed by these two agencies. But quite the reverse 
 is true. 
 
 One day in 1902 I rode from Salem to my farm on 
 a bicycle, and at the dinner table asked Simeral if Tom 
 Jones was showing any more gray hairs than when I 
 had seen him last a few months before. He replied that 
 he hadn't seen him for two months, he guessed. 
 
 "Haven't seen him for two months?" I gasped. 
 "Why, have you had a falling out?" 
 
 "Oh, no," he laughingly answered, "but you know 
 we have 'phones now and when I want to talk to him 
 I simply 'call him up,' and that is all there is to it. He 
 is well, though, for I was talking to him this morning 
 about whether the gourds are bad in his wheat this 
 summer." 
 
 Tom Jones was my nearest neighbor, and during the 
 twenty years I lived on the farm there was rarely a 
 day that I did not see him, either at his home or mine. 
 
 And I discovered that Simeral had not been to 
 Macleay for a month. He had no business there, as 
 his mail was delivered at the house, and not while he 
 waited, either. He had seen none of the neighbors in 
 that direction since the Christmas entertainment, six 
 months before, but the amount of information every- 
 body possessed about everybody else was astonishing. 
 Every family within a radius of ten miles was on a 
 "party line," and when two people were indulging in 
 local gossip it was usual for every family between Salem 
 and Silver Creek Falls and from Silverton to Sublimity, 
 to have a receiver down — ^learning the latest. This is 
 the rule, and is in part justified by the fact that the 
 ordinary conversation in the country lasts from one to 
 two hours, so, if one wants to be "next" on the line, he 
 must needs be in position to start his claim at the drop 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 315 
 
 of the hat. And even then he is frequently left in the 
 assertion of his right! 
 
 One day, merely as an experiment, a Macleay man 
 called up a neighbor, according to a previous under- 
 standing, and told him that a well-known citizen of the 
 locality had sustained a dislocated knee joint through an 
 accident occasioned by a runaway team, though nothing 
 of the kind had happened. Within the next hour the 
 'phone at the home of the supposedly injured man was 
 kept red-hot by calls from every part of eastern Marion 
 County inquiring as to the exact extent of his hurt ! 
 
 And when everybody was compelled to go to Macleay 
 for his mail, one would usually find from ten to twenty 
 men there waiting for the arrival of the train from 
 Portland and the stage from Salem. At such times 
 there was an enjoyable hour or two of sociability which 
 permitted the discussion of current topics, local, State 
 and national, religious, political and agricultural. But 
 there is nothing of the sort now. There is nothing to 
 go to Macleay for! Uncle Sam brings your mail to 
 the door free of charge, and if you desire to talk to 
 a man living there you can take down your receiver — 
 if some other fellow has not already brought his own 
 into use — and have it out with him, while in the former 
 days you would be getting ready to saddle your horse 
 for a half -day's journey. 
 
 All of which goes to show that in these days things 
 are so handy that you can put in all your waking hours 
 at work, while your neighbors are doing the same. Did 
 you ask if I regret the change? Oh, no, indeed, I was 
 merely stating a fact. Let the improvements come, and 
 when the airships are perfected we can sail away to 
 the blue Mediterranean for a little vacation, giving out 
 no infgrmation as to the time of our departure or our 
 return — if, indeed, we do return. 
 
CHAPTER XXLIII 
 
 When the State campaign of 1880 opened in the 
 spring of that year I was nominated by the Republicans 
 of Marion County as a candidate for the lower house 
 in the Legislature. Under the apportionment then 
 existing that county was allowed six members and I 
 was the youngest of the delegation. I had been em- 
 ploying the three years preceding in writing for the 
 papers at somewhat regular intervals and was quite well 
 known locally, so, when the time came for selecting 
 available material for the Legislature I succumbed to 
 the "solicitation of my many friends" and "permitted the 
 use of my name" in the county convention. The slate 
 went through without much damage and after a joint 
 canvass of the county with the Democratic candidates 
 the entire Republican ticket was elected — since the 
 cocinty was under the control of that party by at least 
 six hundred majority. 
 
 In those days the sessions of the Legislature were 
 held in September, according to the terms of the State 
 Constitution, though it was permissible to change the 
 date by law, which has since been done. On the morn- 
 ing of September 13, I went to Salem to begin my 
 legislative experience. Upon arriving at the State House 
 I found that the Republican caucus for the selection of 
 officers was already at work. I was directed to the com- 
 mittee room where this important function was being 
 attended to and upon timidly rapping at the door was 
 greeted by a cheery looking man with hair and full 
 beard which were even then snowy white. Upon my 
 giving my name, with the information that I was a 
 House member from Marion County, he greeted me with 
 a degree of cordiality which was flattering to me, indeed, 
 for a moment; for I assumed, of course, that my fame 
 had preceded me, though, up to that moment I was not 
 
 316 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 317 
 
 aware that I had any. But my suppressed pleasure was 
 short-lived, for the man at once informed me that his 
 name was Z. F. Moody, that he was a member from 
 Wasco County and that he was a candidate before the 
 caucus for Speaker. He also presented me with a card 
 which set forth the same fact in black and white. 
 
 A few moments later the vote was taken for Speaker 
 and Mr. Moody was elected. Of course I voted for 
 him. I had thus taken the first degree in practical 
 politics and it appeared to be a very smooth game — ■ 
 ever)rthing was pleasant! 
 
 Mr. Moody was elected when the House met in its 
 first business session and he made a model officer — 
 always fair, always courteous and always "on the job." 
 
 It was during this session that the bill was passed 
 which finally provided for the care of the insane by 
 the State. Until then, all the insane and feeble-minded 
 persons in the State had been cared for by private 
 persons under the contract system — for many years the 
 work having been done by Drs. Hawthorne and Loryea, 
 of Portland — and all efforts to break up this system had 
 been unsuccessful. The contracts had been let at ex- 
 orbitant figures and the contractors were amassing 
 fortunes from a business which it was held the State 
 could attend to as well, and at the same time save the 
 people thousands of dollars annually. 
 
 For years it had been publicly charged that a "sack" 
 was always provided to be used in preventing an "asylum 
 bill" from being enacted, and, whether true or not, the 
 attempt had at each session come to naught. It was 
 under these circumstances that the Marion County dele- 
 gation in the session of 1880 decided to center its every 
 effort toward the passage of a law appropriating money 
 for the purpose of erecting an asylum building at Salem. 
 We had agreed to sacrifice everything else in the matter 
 of new legislation, if necessary, in return for assistance 
 in support of our "pet measure." The bill was prepared 
 and was introduced by Hon. Tilmon Ford, the chairman 
 of our delegation. 
 
3i8 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 At once, for the reason already intimated, our asylum 
 bill was the target for all kinds of attack. Prominent 
 men were in the lobby pulling all the strings at their 
 command, and as many members as possible were "lined 
 up" in opposition to the proposed interference with the 
 established order of things. It was soon discovered that 
 we had a fight on our hands with the chances against 
 us; but we also soon learned that, very fortunately, 
 Speaker Moody was in favor of the erection of an 
 asylum building and that he could be depended upon 
 at all times. To this circumstance our final success was 
 to be attributed, though the question had not been men- 
 tioned in the contest for the Speakership. In that matter 
 we simply had been lucky. 
 
 This was one of the most bitterly contested struggles 
 in the history of Oregon Legislatures, since the break- 
 ing up of a monopoly which furnished rich pabulum 
 for its beneficiaries was not to be accomplished without 
 meeting with fierce resistance. The friends of the 
 measure at once called a caucus and met every night 
 until success crowned their efforts. Every member was 
 asked to look after as many members among his special 
 friends as could be persuaded to join us and to keep 
 things moving. 
 
 The two members from Union County, my old home 
 in eastern Oregon, were Terry Tuttle and J. W. Blevans. 
 They were friends of mine and I at once turned my at- 
 tention to them, impressing upon them the necessity of 
 the State taking charge of its unfortunates, not only in 
 the interest of humanity, but in pursuance of a wise, 
 economical policy. They at once agreed with me and 
 attended our caucus meetings. 
 
 But I had a brother-in-law, Dunham Wright, who was 
 a member of the Senate from the same county, and who 
 had already served several terms in the House. By 
 reason of this experience he was "wise" to some things, 
 and having met with several defeats for his special 
 eastern Oregon measures, had imbibed a very healthy 
 dislike for anything that savored of western Oregon 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 319 
 
 origin. When he discovered, therefore, after a couple 
 of weeks, that his House colleagues were attending the 
 asylum caucus, he promptly upbraided them for their 
 shortsightedness, assuring them that in so easily agree- 
 ing to a measure which meant the expenditure of several 
 hundred thousand dollars in Salem, without first exact- 
 ing support in return for eastern Oregon measures, they 
 were throwing away their influence and, in a sense, 
 betraying the interests of their constituents, etc. 
 
 They both came to me without delay and explained 
 their dilemma, adding that under the circumstances they 
 would be compelled to withdraw from the asylum caucus. 
 To this I seriously demurred, impressing upon them the 
 danger to their reputations should they take such a step. 
 
 "Don't you know," I said, "it is currently reported 
 around the State House that there is a large sum of 
 money here to be used liberally for the purpose of defeat- 
 ing the asylum bill, and that if, after you have been 
 meeting with us and declaring yourselves in favor of its 
 passage, you suddenly change base and join the other 
 side, there are those who will put two and two together 
 and make four — maybe five, or six?" 
 
 This presentation of the situation had its desired 
 effect and they promised to attend at least one other 
 caucus meeting on that night and look into the matter 
 a little further. 
 
 I at once reported the threatened loss of the two sup- 
 porters of our measure to several friends and when the 
 caucus met I carried out a scheme — which we had agreed 
 upon — by moving, as soon as it was called to order, that 
 Hon. Terry Tuttle, of Union County, be elected chair- 
 man to serve during the evening, the regular chairman, 
 strangely enough, being absent. The motion was carried 
 with a great show of enthusiasm and Mr. Tuttle was 
 escorted to the chair. Of course this proceeding so 
 prominently identified him with the asylum movement 
 that it was thereafter impossible for him to desert us 
 without arousing suspicion as to his integrity, though 
 
320 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 in his case such distrust would have been wholly un- 
 founded. 
 
 The effect of this ruse was to hold Tuttle and Blevans 
 in line for our bill, and it finally passed the House with 
 but one vote more than the constitutional requirement. 
 It might have been an instance of legislative log-rolling — 
 it was, perhaps — but it was entirely legitimate and was 
 wholly in the interest of good legislation. Mr. Tuttle 
 was for several terms superintendent of schools for 
 Union County and was a splendid type of the western 
 pioneer. He owned a fine farm near Summerville, 
 twenty-five miles from where I lived when I was a 
 citizen of that county. In the winter of 1874 I painted 
 his house, inside and out, boarding with him for a 
 week. It was at the time when all the lanes in that part 
 of the Grand Ronde valley had drifted so full of snow 
 that they were entirely abandoned for neighborhood 
 travel. Mr. Tuttle died a few years ago when well past 
 eighty years of age. 
 
 "Jeff" Blevans, soon after his legislative experience, 
 moved into Wallowa County, where he still lives. He 
 had been a school-teacher in his earlier days and had 
 taken on what may be called the pedagogic habit of 
 conversation. He was very precise in his use of 
 language and somewhat pompous in his style of ex- 
 pression. One morning, about the middle of the session, 
 he arose when the House was called to order and asked 
 of the Speaker that he might be excused for the day, 
 as he desired to visit some friends across the river in 
 Polk County. Partly as a joke, I asked if he really 
 intended to go to Polk County or if, as had been the 
 case with many members, he only wanted to attend to 
 other matters around town. He replied that he was 
 going to be away from the city all day and wanted to 
 be marked legally absent. He was, therefore, excused 
 for the day and the fact entered upon the minutes. 
 
 Just before noon, however, after the roll had been 
 called on the passage of a bill and before the result had 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 321 
 
 been announced, Blevans arose from his seat and asked 
 that his name be called. I had not noticed his presence 
 until I heard his familiar voice, and, in pursuance of 
 some fun, I objected to the granting of his request, since 
 I was certain the records would show that the gentleman 
 from Union was at that moment over in Polk County. 
 
 "But," said Blevans, "when I reached the river bank I 
 found that the Dallas stage was already crossing on the 
 ferry and I was left. Therefore, I am here and want 
 very much to vote on this measure, as it is my bill." 
 
 Without looking at Blevans, whose seat was imme- 
 diately behind mine, I insisted to the Speaker that he 
 was not present, as the House would distinctly recall 
 that he had been excused, that he had promised to 
 stay away until the next morning, and that in all 
 disputed legislative questions the record itself was final 
 — and I appealed to the record ! This confused Blevans 
 to a greater degree than I had supposed possible, and 
 while the House was roaring with laughter over his 
 discomfiture, the clerk read the minutes which declared 
 that he was undoubtedly in Polk County. Upon this 
 showing I insisted that outsiders had no right to vote 
 on measures in the House, that it was not within our 
 province to change the minutes unless they were mani- 
 festly wrong, and that they were not correct not even 
 Mr. Blevans would contend! 
 
 Blevans finally succumbed and made no further effort 
 for recognition. He said his bill had passed, he had 
 learned, that he really had some business he could attend 
 to during the afternoon anyway, and that he would, with 
 pleasure, make his actions conform strictly with the 
 record — and he did, quite turning the tables on those of 
 us who had decided to abandon further opposition and 
 admit him to the fold at once. 
 
 The Legislature of 1880 organized by the election of 
 Z. F. Moody, Speaker; C. B. Moores, chief clerk; J. 
 W. Strange, assistant clerk; E. C. Hadaway, sergeant 
 at arms, and T. A. Bacon, doorkeeper. Soon after these 
 
322 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 officers were installed, the peculiar combination of their 
 names appealed to me as being altogether out of the 
 ordinary and in a few minutes I rose in my place and 
 said: 
 
 "Mr. Speaker, I trust our Democratic friends will not 
 be Moody any Moore, nor think it Strange that the Repub- 
 licans Hadaway of saving their Bacon in the organiza- 
 tion of the House." 
 
 The suddenness of this announcement at once had a 
 most depressing effect upon the members, but as soon 
 as they had regained their normal bearing I found 
 myself in the midst of a near-mob which was consider- 
 ing the propriety of introducing a resolution of expul- 
 sion; but my friends, for I had a few yet remaining, 
 pleaded my youthfulness and lack of experience in my 
 defense and the affair was permitted to blow over with- 
 out further trouble. But it was a narrow escape. 
 
CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 The most active member of the House in the session 
 of 1880 in opposition to the passage of the asylum bill 
 was A. J. Lawrence, of Baker County. He was a lawyer 
 of some ability, a fair speaker, always in evidence, wore 
 a flannel shirt with the collar unfastened, his hair show- 
 ing the effect of an independence of combs and brushes 
 for probably the preceding five years, and was con- 
 stitutionally opposed to every bill that appeared to have 
 any prospect of enactment. He frankly said that he 
 wanted to make a record for preventing as much legis- 
 lation as possible — ^an ambition not to be particularly 
 censured when directed in some channels. 
 
 Lawrence also loved the flowing bowl, the proof of 
 which was often in evidence during the daily sessions. 
 He was especially active against the asylum bill at every 
 stage of its progress, generally relying on the effect of 
 dilatory motions rather than on any sort of argument. 
 He preferred always to prolong the debates in order to 
 consume time, hoping by that means to delay bills until 
 the end of the session, when they might be waylaid for 
 lack of time for their consideration. One of his chosen 
 methods was to object strenuously to a committee report 
 and, after pointing out his grounds for opposition, move 
 to refer for amendment. Upon its reappearance he 
 would move to re-refer — anything for a delay. He was 
 always the last speaker on any proposition, since, if the 
 debate could be prolonged by others, his main purpose 
 was attained and he was willing to remain silent. 
 
 Lawrence was a "character," and his native ability 
 made of him an opponent to be feared, for he was 
 shrewd and had no care for the methods employed, so 
 his ends were accomplished. His manner was peculiar. 
 When it became evident that a debate was drawing to a 
 
 323 
 
324 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 close, he would lean forward in his seat, take on the 
 look of a fox, and twirl his spectacles in one hand while 
 he closely watched the trend of things. This attitude 
 always indicated that he was about to begin his attack. 
 
 But we managed to dodge his flank movements suc- 
 cessfully until toward the very last days of the session, 
 when we had our forces so aligned that we were sure 
 of the necessary support, provided a vote could be taken 
 at once. We realized that any delay would be dangerous, 
 for the opposition was very resourceful and was leaving 
 nothing undone to deflect a vote where it might be 
 possible. We had agreed to force a vote immediately 
 after dinner and not to engage in any debate whatever. 
 When this became apparent, which it soon did, Lawrence 
 could not conceal his surprise, for he had counted upon 
 a prolonged fight on the floor of the house. When the 
 Speaker ordered the clerk to call the roll on the passage 
 of the bill, Lawrence, who had been leaning forward and 
 twirling his spectacles, arose and addressed the Chair, 
 but Speaker Moody, according to the program which 
 had been formulated, said, "Will the gentleman from 
 Baker please take the chair?" 
 
 Lawrence, who had "ginned up" a little more than 
 usual for the coming fray, seeing that his game was a 
 losing one and that his being called to the chair at that 
 particular time was a prearranged affair, gave up the 
 contest, accepted the situation with a broad smile and 
 with a decided uncertainty in his gait proceeded up the 
 aisle to the Speaker's chair amid the general laughter 
 of the members. 
 
 Upon taking the gavel from Speaker Moody's hands, 
 he said : 
 
 "Gentlemen, the question is, 'Shall the bill pass?' 
 Those who are in favor of the bill will answer 'aye' 
 as your 'noes' are called and those opposed will answer 
 'no' as your 'ayes' are called. The clerk will call the 
 roll." 
 
 The fact was that his tongue was wobbly as well as 
 his feet, and the jingle of the usual form of putting the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 325 
 
 question was too much for him to master. It was 
 probably five minutes before there was sufficient decorum 
 restored for the roll to be called in an orderly manner, 
 but the result was a victory, with one vote to spare, 
 and all was well. 
 
 The humdrum of ordinary legislation was relieved 
 during the latter part of the session of 1880 by a recep- 
 tion given one afternoon to President Hayes and General 
 W. T. Sherman, who were touring the Pacific coast. 
 Both houses met in joint convention and were addressed 
 by the President and the hero of the great March to the 
 Sea. It was the first time a President of the United 
 States had ever been in Oregon and it was justly counted 
 a great event, but it was plain that the enthusiasm 
 aroused by the presence of the great military com- 
 mander surpassed that felt on account of the visit of the 
 President, though his reception was cordial in every 
 respect. After the addresses had been made, the Presi- 
 dent, General Sherman and Mrs. Hayes stood in line 
 and greeted the public with a hearty handshake. 1 
 recall that as I took the General's hand I said: 
 
 "General Sherman, this is almost as hard work as 
 marching to the sea." 
 
 "Yes," he replied, with his jerky manner of speech, 
 as he reached for the hand of the next man in line, 
 "quite as hard work, but less dangerous." 
 
 On that occasion there was much admiration ex- 
 pressed for Mrs. Hayes, as there was, indeed, wherever 
 she was known. Her democratic manner, together with 
 her exceeding simplicity of dress, was a mattei of 
 general comment. It was commonly remarked, I re- 
 member, that of the many hundreds of women who 
 attended the reception, the President's wife was without 
 doubt the least expensively dressed. Mrs. Hayes was 
 an American woman with that best of womanly en- 
 dowments — common sense! 
 
 Before passing from a consideration of some of the 
 more prominent features of the legislative session of 
 
326 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 1880, I must refer to the fact that the House of Repre- 
 sentatives had three members who were serving their 
 first terms in any oflficial capacity, and who were after- 
 wards elected Governor of the State, — I refer to Z. F. 
 Moody, George E. Chamberlain and the writer. 
 Speaker Moody was nominated for that position by the 
 Republican State Convention in 1882, and was elected 
 over his Democratic opponent, Joseph S. Smith, who had 
 been elected to Congress in 1868, by a good majority. Mr. 
 Moody made a splendid chief executive in every respect 
 and at the end of his term, having built a fine residence in 
 Salem, became a citizen of the capital city and has since 
 resided there. He is now in his eightieth year, in good 
 health, and bids fair to remain in the land of the living 
 until he really becomes an old man. During his term 
 the Legislature changed the time for the beginning of its 
 biennial sessions from the second Monday in September 
 to the second Monday in January. Under the Oregon 
 State Constitution the Governor is not inaugurated until 
 the vote is officially canvassed and declared by the Leg- 
 islature, and one result of this change was the addition 
 of four months to the length of Governor Moody's 
 term of office, he having served from September, 1882, 
 until January, 1887. 
 
 George E. Chamberlain was a member of the House 
 in 1880 from Linn County, having come to Oregon four 
 years before from his native State, Mississippi. He 
 made no special mark during the session and certainly 
 gave no promise of that remarkable capacity for 
 political manipulation that has since characterized his 
 career, though the main ingredient, a cordial handshake, 
 was there, it is recalled, with all its Southern fervor. 
 It was generally known that he was recently from the 
 South, and his manner had all the effusive cordiality 
 peculiar to the people of that section. It was noticeable 
 that he became intimately acquainted with all the 
 members sooner than any other man had done, or 
 perhaps was able to do. At the end of the first week he 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 327 
 
 knew Jim from eastern Oregon and Tom from Jackson 
 familiarly enough to slap them on the shoulder and 
 walk out of the State House arm in arm with them, 
 thus laying the foundation for the popularity that had in 
 it the elements which, within two decades, placed him- 
 self twice in the Governor's office and once in the United 
 States Senate. 
 
 Two other men in the session of 1880 deserve a pass- 
 ing mention, John M. Thompson, of Lane County, and 
 William Galloway, of Yamhill. The session of 1878, at 
 which time Thompson had been Speaker of the House, 
 had appointed a committee to investigate certain charges 
 which had been made against the Grover administration, 
 covering several matters, and Thompson and Galloway 
 were the leading members of that committee. They were 
 both Democrats and it was expected, in some quarters 
 at least, that the report would be so arranged that no 
 political damage would follow. Thompson and Galloway 
 had, however, adopted the policy of calling a spade a 
 spade and their report was altogether unsatisfactory to 
 those who were engineering the matter. The result of 
 this was a determined effort to defeat them for re- 
 election. This attempt failed in their respective county 
 conventions and before the people. They were both re- 
 turned to the session of 1880, a splendid vindication of 
 their course, but were not in good standing with their 
 political colleagues. There was constant friction among 
 the Democratic members on this account, and though 
 their party was in a minority in the Legislature for the 
 first time in eight years — largely, it was thought, on 
 account of this legislative report — there was enough of 
 ill feeling to produce continual irritation. Chamberlain 
 ranged himself with the Old Guard, and so bitter was 
 the feeling that one day he and Thompson had a personal 
 altercation which, it was generally understood, almost 
 led to bloodshed, both being armed, it was said, but better 
 counsels prevailed and the affair passed into history as a 
 harmless episode. 
 
 Thompson was a man of quick temper and was 
 
328 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 besides in ill health, the latter leading to his death 
 within a short time after the close of his legislative 
 experience. Galloway, on the contrary, will probably 
 live to be a hundred years of age — ^holding lucrative 
 positions all the time. He owns a fine farm in Yam- 
 hill County, but has lived in some public building most 
 of the time since he became of age, some forty years 
 ago. He was the Democratic candidate for Governor 
 in 1894 against William P. Lord, but was defeated. 
 He was for a long time Judge of Yamhill County and 
 served in the Government Land Office at Oregon City 
 until he decided he would rather discharge the duties 
 of judge for the Third District, comprising the counties 
 of Marion, Linn, Yamhill, Tillamook and Polk. Hav- 
 ing come to this conclusion he announced his candidacy 
 and, though a Democrat, defeated a good Republican 
 in a district that is Republican by at least two thousand 
 majority. At the end of six years, feeling that he would 
 enjoy another term, he so informed the electorate — and 
 it came to pass. 
 
 Galloway was raised in Yamhill County and when a 
 boy knew every Indian on the Grand Round reserva- 
 tion — in fact, they were boys together. He called them 
 Tom, George and Charley, as the case might be, and 
 they all called him "Bill." One day, three years ago, 
 he was holding court in Dallas, and a case was being 
 tried which involved a Grand Round Indian on a charge 
 of gross misconduct. This Indian and the judge had 
 been boys together, though the former had always re- 
 mained on the reservation. The prosecuting attorney 
 was examining the Indian as a witness and had flatly 
 contradicted a statement he had made. This so angered 
 him that he turned to the court and said: 
 
 "Bill, that is the truth. You know, Bill, that I 
 wouldn't lie!" 
 
 "Bill" acknowledged the corn and from the bench 
 vouched for the uniform good character of the Indian, 
 as an Indian, and his acquittal soon followed. 
 
 Judge Galloway is a man who has the confidence of 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 329 
 
 those we call the "common people," is suave always, has 
 the Chamberlain manner in accosting people, acquaint- 
 ances and strangers alike, is a Democrat between cam- 
 paigns but a non-partisan during their progress, and 
 is, withal, a good, all 'round, typical Western American 
 citizen of the pioneer mold — and that is saying a good 
 deal in favor of any man. 
 
CHAPTER XLV 
 
 One of the important acts of the Legislative session 
 of 1887 was the passage of a law creating a Railroad 
 Commission. It was the first session of the Legislature 
 after the inauguration of Sylvester Pennoyer as Gov- 
 ernor and he had incorporated into his inaugural ad- 
 dress a goodly amount of his idiosyncrasies on political 
 as well as economic questions. Pennoyer was full of 
 them, not really, it was generally believed, but for the 
 effect it had upon the "populace," to which he was ap- 
 pealing for support in his public career, upon which he 
 was then just starting. He had made his campaign for 
 Governor in the spring of 1886 upon the question of 
 exclusion of Chinese from the State and, as such an 
 appeal is always received with favor by most people, 
 and especially those known as "working people," it was 
 a good "slogan" to wield, and in the hands of a man 
 like Pennoyer it was effective to the last degree. 
 
 Governor Pennoyer was for ten years the central 
 figure in Oregon politics. In his earlier life he had been 
 a school-teacher in Portland and afterward editor of a 
 paper, but he had been in retirement until his nomination 
 for Governor in 1886. The Chinese question had been 
 vigorously agitated for a year or two prior to this, and 
 the time was ripe for a man of Pennoyer's ability to 
 appeal to the voters along the line of "the masses against 
 the classes," "the money power," "Caesar," etc., and he 
 came to the front for the reason that he saw his op- 
 portunity. No public man in Oregon has ever been a 
 more thorough aristocrat. No man ever saw him on the 
 street or in public anywhere without his standing collar 
 of the Henry Clay style. His manner was exceedingly 
 stiff and his bearing almost painfully dignified. Yet he 
 was always approachable by the humblest of men and 
 
 330 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 331 
 
 received all callers at the executive office most cordially. 
 He was a very kindly man at all times, and was always 
 conscious of the fact that Bill Smith could cast as 
 effective a vote as the Hon. So and So. Therefore 
 Pennoyer never lost sight of the importance of cultivat- 
 ing the friendship and admiration of Bill Smith and all 
 his personal friends. 
 
 In the spring of 1886 the Oregon Republicans had 
 nominated Colonel Thomas R. Cornelius for Governor, 
 one of the best and most favorably known of the early 
 pioneers, a farmer by occupation and a man who should 
 have received every Republican vote in Oregon; but 
 the campaign had but opened when it was discovered — 
 or the claim was made that it had been discovered — that 
 at some time not very far in the past Colonel Cornelius 
 had employed a Chinaman to wash some shirts — and 
 the revelation of this unpardonable offense against good 
 government and the rights of man was more than his 
 otherwise faultless record in Oregon for forty years 
 could overcome. Everywhere the people were informed 
 of the lack of sjmipathy on the part of Colonel Cornelius 
 for the laboring man — as proven indisputably by the 
 incident of his laundry patronage — and Pennoyer was 
 not the man to permit the common people to be imposed 
 upon without emphasizing the danger to which they were 
 subjected if a man of this character were allowed to 
 occupy the highest office in the State! 
 
 So Pennoyer was elected and inaugurated in January, 
 1887. In his inaugural address he gave expression 
 freely to his peculiar ideas upon the Feder.al Constitu- 
 tion and the usurpation by the courts, State and national, 
 of the powers which belonged exclusively to the State 
 Legislatures and to Congress. The Legislature had 
 enacted a registry law which the Supreme Court had 
 pronounced unconstitutional. This act of the court was 
 denounced by Governor Pennoyer as being plainly 
 beyond its power or right, and he contended to the 
 Legislature in one of his messages that, notwithstanding 
 the decision of the Supreme Court, the law still stood 
 
332 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 and was really in effect. Of course this position was 
 absurd in the extreme and it created great merriment in 
 the Legislature and out of it. The following is an 
 abstract from the Governor's message : 
 
 There cannot be found in the Constitution of Oregon 
 any warrant for such a proceeding. There cannot 
 be found in the Constitution any provision by which 
 the judges of the several Courts of Oregon are ex- 
 empted from obedience to the laws of the State. There 
 cannot be found there any warrant by which they can 
 suspend, by an order, the operation of a law which 
 that Constitution expressly declares shall never be 
 suspended except by the Legislative Assembly. By 
 that instrument they are bound to obey and enforce 
 the law, and are not privileged to disregard and 
 nullify the law. In that instrument there is no pro- 
 vision by which the unanimous will of the people in 
 regard to this registry law, regularly expressed in a 
 legislative enactment, can be thwarted by any two or 
 three men in the State. Judges cannot make or un- 
 make laws, but like others, they must obey the laws. 
 
 After supporting this most remarkable position by 
 an extended argument, he closed with this statement of 
 his conclusion : 
 
 Finding, therefore, no warrant, either in the State 
 or Federal Constitution, for the Judicial Department 
 to nullify an enactment of the Legislature, the con- 
 clusion is irresistible that the Registration Act as 
 passed by_ the Legislature of Oregon is the law of 
 the land to-day, and that the order of the court sus- 
 pending the operation of such law was in violation 
 of Section 23, Article i, of the Constitution, and 
 therefore that it was void and of no effect. 
 
 This astonishing exposition of constitutional powers 
 as between the Legislative and the judicial departments 
 of government gives a very fair illustration of what was 
 popularly known in those days as "Pennoyerism." His 
 most intimate acquaintances knew that he knew better 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 333 
 
 than sincerely to hold to many of his publicly expressed 
 opinions; but he was in politics to win, and these ex- 
 treme utterances, especially if they are directed against 
 the established order of things, never fail to touch some 
 sort of popular chord and to win a following. A fol- 
 lowing was what Pennoyer always wanted, and it was 
 what he generally had. 
 
 Parenthetically, it may be admitted that for a man in 
 politics to have a following, if it is strong enough to 
 bring about desired results, is not a really objectionable 
 thing. 
 
 I was not a member of the Legislature of 1887, but 
 was present at the delivery of Governor Pennoyer's 
 inaugural address and witnessed the amusement with 
 which this part of it was received by the assembled 
 lawmakers, as well as by those in the galleries. It 
 created a great sensation, and that this pleased the Gov- 
 ernor immensely was plainly seen. That was what he 
 wanted, for one of his peculiarities was that he would 
 rather be abused at any time than to be ignored. 
 
 Within a week or two after this incident I wrote a 
 letter to the Oregonian, a column in length, reviewing 
 this stand of the Governor on the powers of State and 
 Federal Courts, sprinkling it quite liberally with ridicule, 
 and closed with this paragraph: 
 
 Far many years past it has been the custom of 
 Californians to ship Oregon apples to their State, label 
 them California apples and send them to Eastern mar- 
 kets, they have imported Columbia River salmon by 
 the thousands of cases, re-marked them as California 
 salmon and secured fabulous prices for them in the 
 markets of the world ; Oregon lumber is re-shipped East 
 as California lumber, and even California geographies 
 never fail to locate Mt. Hood inside the northern boun- 
 dary of the Golden State ; but all these offenses, these 
 sins of commission and omission, will be swept into 
 the bottomless pit of forgiveness and forgetfulness if 
 hereafter our neighbors on the south, as well as all 
 other outsiders, will speak of Governor Pennoyer of 
 California. 
 
334 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 To this letter I signed the name of our country post- 
 office, "Macleay," not feehng disposed to sign my own 
 name to a communication of so personal a nature. It 
 created a little ripple on the surface of the local political 
 sea at the time, was copied in some of the State papers, 
 commented on here and there and was soon for- 
 gotten — by me. 
 
 As was said at the beginning of this chapter, this 
 session enacted a law establishing a State Railroad Com- 
 mission, by the terms of which the Governor was to 
 appoint the two members who were to compose it. It 
 was required that one of them should be a Democrat and 
 the other a Republican. They were to serve for two 
 years at an annual salary of $2,500, with an appendage 
 called a clerk. To be one of these members was a de- 
 sirable position and, naturally, there was some excite- 
 ment among certain people as the time approached for 
 the appointment to be made — "on or before the first 
 of April." 
 
 Being a farmer, and having some experience in public 
 affairs, several of my friends began working with the 
 Governor for my selection as the Republican member 
 of the Commission. I did not then know him personally, 
 but he had heard of me, I learned, and was somewhat 
 disposed to look upon my appointment with favor. 
 Things were in this condition when, one forenoon about 
 ten o'clock in the last week of March, I received my 
 mail from a neighbor who had been to Macleay, and 
 in it was a letter from the "Executive Office" in Salem, 
 and it was addressed to me in the well-known, fine, even 
 chirography of Governor Pennoyer. At once divining 
 the possible nature of its contents, I had it read in a 
 jiffy. He merely asked me if it would be convenient 
 for me to call upon him in the immediate future for a 
 little consultation. I was planting potatoes in a small 
 field above the house at the time, but within an hour I 
 had changed my clothes, partaken of a light luncheon, 
 saddled "Coly" and was on my way, though I was not 
 sure where I was going. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 335 
 
 Upon arriving at Salem I tied my horse to a large 
 maple tree on the edge of the campus of the Willamette 
 University, directly opposite the State House and within 
 a hundred yards of where the old Oregon Institute stood, 
 where I attended school in the early '6o's. I soon 
 presented myself to the Governor who received me very 
 cordially. Proceeding to the point without delay, he said 
 he had been asked to appoint me as the Republican 
 member of the Railroad Commission and wanted to 
 talk the matter over with me. He said he had already 
 decided to appoint Hon. James H. Slater, of La Grande, 
 as the Democratic member and wanted to know if I 
 could work agreeably with him on the Commission, in 
 case of my selection. I replied that I could, especially 
 since I had known him intimately during my ten years' 
 residence in Union County; besides, I was in no humor 
 just then to argue with His Excellency the expediency 
 or desirabihty of appointing any particular man to the 
 Democratic place on the Board. The fact was I could 
 have worked agreeably with any Democrat in the State 
 whom the Governor might have desired to favor, as 
 near as I can come at this date to analyzing my senti- 
 ments. I was only concerned as to the complexion of 
 the Republican side of the Commission, and I did have 
 a decided preference as to who should fill that particular 
 place. 
 
 Mr. Slater, who had served two years in the lower 
 House of Congress and a full term as United States 
 Senator, was fully equipped to serve on the Railroad 
 Commission and, as I recall the conversation now, I 
 extolled his many excellent qualities more enthusiasti- 
 cally to Governor Pennoyer just then than I had ever 
 done before. 
 
 The interview ended, I went down on the main streets 
 of Salem and, to strengthen my prospects, requested a 
 few prominent Democrats who were personal friends of 
 mine to do a little "rustling" with the Governor in order 
 to make my appointment sure ; this they said they would 
 gladly do. So I went home, happily dreaming of re- 
 
336 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 ceiving a commission of appointment, splendidly en- 
 graved, together with the congratulations of my friends 
 from different parts of the State. I considered, too, 
 the possibility of hiring a hand on the farm to do the 
 very hard work while I looked after the interests of the 
 public. 
 
 But alas for the vain hopes of man! The next day 
 at noon I received the Salem Daily Statesman, and there, 
 in glaring headlines, was the announcement that the 
 Governor had appointed on the Railroad Commission 
 Hon. James H. Slater, of La Grande, and Hon. George 
 A. Waggoner, of Corvallis! 
 
 That afternoon I finished planting my potatoes, but at 
 digging time the following October it was impossible 
 to decide whether that part of the field had been planted 
 north and south or diagonally with the compass, and 
 the yield was a cross between the Early Rose and the 
 White Kidney, though the latter variety had been out- 
 lawed in that section for twenty years. A large share 
 of the potatoes came out of the ground cross-eyed, and 
 all were heavy at the heart! 
 
 I had never been a very ardent admirer of Governor 
 Pennoyer, but after that mistake of his there was no 
 time in his career when I could persuade myself that 
 his judgment could be relied upon in an important 
 emergency. He was too fickle. 
 
 When I had sufficiently recovered to make another 
 trip to Salem — which was in the following July, I 
 believe — I learned that when I had requested some of 
 my Democratic friends to intercede for me with the 
 Governor it soon became known to a few other Demo- 
 crats with whom I had had some political tilts in pre- 
 ceding local campaigns and who proposed that I should 
 not "get ahead" politically, if they could help it. These 
 at once went to His Excellency and told him what they 
 had heard. He replied that he was, indeed, thinking 
 very strongly of my appointment, etc. 
 
 "But," they said, "did you know. Governor, you are 
 about to appoint the man on the Board who wrote that 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 337 
 
 letter to the Oregonian a little while ago signed 
 'Macleay?'" 
 
 "Y'ou don't mean to say he is the man who wrote 
 that letter?" inquired the Governor. 
 
 "He is the very man," they informed him, "and surely 
 you won't put him on the Board of Railroad Commis- 
 sioners. There are a number of other Republicans who 
 are applicants and who would be decidedly less objec- 
 tionable to Democrats generally." 
 
 Possessed with this bit of information, it was as 
 easy for the Governor to erase my name from the list 
 as it was for him to wink his eye at one of his sly 
 jokes — and that means it was no effort at all. 
 
 During the month of May, 1901, fourteen years after 
 the occurrence of the above episode, and when I was 
 in the Executive chair, I visited California. President 
 McKinley was there at the time to witness the launch- 
 ing of the battleship Ohio. One day, with my wife, I 
 visited San Jose and while there called upon Alfred 
 Holman, then editor and proprietor of the San Jose 
 Mercury. Holman was a native of Oregon and was 
 for a number of years a member of the editorial staff 
 of the Oregonian. Soon after entering his office, he 
 suggested that he should invite in the Mayor, president 
 of the Board of Trade and a few other celebrities, with 
 their wives, and give us a dinner at our hotel, and this 
 was done. During the progress of the meal Holman 
 had a lot of fun recalling some of our Oregon ex- 
 periences. He was relating to the guests how for a good 
 while it had been one of my fads, while on the farm, 
 to write letters for the papers, and how he had frequently 
 had difiSculty in deciphering my handwriting. "And," 
 he added, "he used to write mighty good stuff, too." 
 
 "Yes," I interrupted, "I remember one letter I wrote 
 to the Oregonian a few years ago that cost me five thou- 
 sand dollars." Before I could get any further with my 
 story Holman quickly inquired : 
 
 "How was that? Did her husband get hold of it 
 first?" 
 
338 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 And, notwithstanding this break, Holman has been 
 strangely permitted to Hve to this day, though soon after 
 that he moved to San Francisco, where he now owns 
 the Argonaut. 
 
 The man, George Waggoner, who "usurped" my place 
 on the first Oregon Railroad Commission was a mem- 
 ber of the session of the Legislature in 1880, where we 
 became good friends, a relation which has been main- 
 tained to date. But I knew him first while I lived in 
 Union County when he was a resident of Walla Walla. 
 One day in the early spring of 1876 my wife had made 
 a "pieplant" pie, and as it was a great delicacy, being 
 the first fruit of the year, and all kinds of fruit being 
 very scarce in that country in those days, my two little 
 tow-headed girls, Maud and Dosia, aged respectively 
 five and three years, could hardly wait until the noon 
 hour for the pleasure of tasting it. In fact, they had 
 been watching the growth of those few stalks of rhu- 
 bard for two weeks, and each day came in reporting that 
 they were sure they were large enough to pull. 
 
 So this day the little things stood by the table as 
 their mother stewed the fruit and made it into a pie. 
 They watched it as it was placed in the oven, and as it 
 came out, full of juice. We were about to seat ourselves 
 around the table when there was a shout at the front 
 gate. Upon investigation it proved to be two Walla 
 Walla hog buyers who were anxious, they said, to get 
 their dinners. It is never customary in the country to 
 refuse a man his dinner, so they were invited in and 
 after seeing that their horses were fed we began the 
 meal. 
 
 This unexpected intrusion made it necessary for the 
 two little girls to wait, and as they stood in the parti- 
 tion door between the kitchen and sitting-room, lean- 
 ing against the "jamb," they presented about as doleful 
 a pair of countenances as one would run across in an 
 average lifetime. I am perfectly honest when I say 
 that I felt so sorry for them in their disappointment that 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 339 
 
 I did not enjoy either the meal or the visitors. They — 
 the visitors — had voracious appetites, it being my 
 opinion then, I remember, that they must have been 
 fasting since leaving Walla Walla three days before, 
 and were just "coming to." 
 
 When it came time to "pass the pie" my wife cut it 
 in six pieces, remembering the little girls. The visitors 
 were fairly ecstatic in their praises of the pie. It had been 
 years since they had had the pleasure of eating a pieplant 
 pie ; they had always been wonderfully partial to that kind 
 of pie anyway; they wondered why farmers did not raise 
 more rhubarb, since they understood it was easily grown. 
 And, then, my wife was certainly an expert at making 
 pies, for they had not found anything quite so good 
 in all their travels. By this time their consignments 
 were gone and, with knives firmly gripped in their right 
 hands and forks in their left, they looked at those two 
 remaining pieces with a yearning that was fierce to 
 behold. I was certain that if I didn't invite them to have 
 another helping they would rake the remnants in anyway, 
 so I asked them to have another piece. I passed the 
 plate, and unhesitatingly, without a tremor, without 
 batting an eye, the gallant Walla Wallaians accepted the 
 invitation, — the remainder of that pie went glimmering 
 and the plate was empty! 
 
 At this phase of the catastrophe I looked at the 
 children, and they rushed out of the house, screaming 
 with all their might, and down into the raspberry 
 "patch." There I found them, as soon as I could ex- 
 cuse myself, crying as if their hearts would break and, 
 like Rachel of old, they refused to be comforted. Upon 
 my return I told the guests one of the girls had been 
 stung by a yellow jacket, though that insect was not 
 due for yet four months. And yet they had really been 
 "stung!" 
 
 One of these men of abnormal appetite, was George 
 Waggoner and the other was Obadiah Osborne, a 
 preacher in the United Brethren Church. They were, 
 of course, entirely unconscious of the part they had 
 
340 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 played in the tragedy of the pie. In January, 1891, 
 when I was Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
 my daughters, then eighteen and twenty years respect- 
 ively, visited me for a few days in Salem. Happening 
 to meet Waggoner in the corridors of the State House, 
 I informed the girls, after an introduction, that he was 
 the man whom they had never forgotten, recalling to 
 his mind at the same time the two little girls who had 
 so suddenly fled from the kitchen on that day 'way 
 back in 1876, trying to escape from a yellow jacket, — 
 in April. 
 
 The instance was related in the presence of a dozen 
 House members and it was unanimously agreed among 
 them afterwards that it was the only time in their 
 acquaintance with Waggoner that he was plainly em- 
 barrassed. He apologized profusely to the girls, urging 
 a furious appetite in extenuation, but seemed wholly 
 unable to think of a way of making restitution that would 
 be in any sense adequate. 
 
 And yet, Waggoner is a pretty good man, when you 
 come to know him well. 
 
CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 When the campaign of 1888 opened I was nominated 
 for the Legislature again and my election followed, with 
 all the Republican ticket in Marion County, my colleagues 
 being William Armstrong, John B. Waldo, John Q. 
 Wilson and Samuel Layman — all strong men. 
 
 Indeed, in looking over the list of members of the 
 Legislature of 1889, both Senate and House, I am in- 
 clined to the belief that it contained a larger per cent, of 
 able men than any other session in the history of the 
 State. I was so impressed at the time, and I recall that 
 the personnel of the delegation from Multnomah County 
 in the House was remarkable because it was made up 
 of men who were even then prominent in the business 
 and political world. It is well known that in these days 
 and under the present conditions of political life it is 
 seldom that men of this caliber can be induced to submit 
 to the annoyances and humiliations which characterize 
 the average political campaign. 
 
 There were nine men in the House from Multnomah 
 County in 1889, as follows: William M. Ladd, H. H. 
 Northup, W. B. Gilbert, R. P. Earhart, W. T. Hume, 
 D. P. Thompson, J. A. Strowbridge, J. J. Fisher, S. R. 
 Harrington and T. E. Fell, — ^men of weight and ability 
 and sincerity of purpose. 
 
 William M. Ladd is at present and for many years has 
 been the president of the banking firm of Ladd & Tilton, 
 one of the oldest and strongest financial firms west of 
 the Rocky Mountains. H. H. Northup is one of the 
 able lawyers of Portland, a Grand Army man with a 
 distinguished record during the war; since serving in 
 the Legislature that session he has been Judge of Multno- 
 mah County for four years and was the "sound money" 
 
 341 
 
342 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 candidate for Congress in 1896. W. B. Gilbert was 
 soon afterward appointed to the position of United 
 States Circuit Judge for the District of Oregon and 
 California, the duties of which he is discharging with 
 great honor to himself and to the satisfaction of the 
 people. R. P. Earhart had but recently retired from 
 the position of Secretary of State, which he had occupied 
 for eight years with signal ability. D. P. Thompson 
 was one of the best known men in Oregon, a man who, 
 after reaching his majority, had split cordwood in the 
 woods near Oregon City, and who afterward amassed 
 a fortune by his careful management and shrewd invest- 
 ments. Mr. Thompson once said he was "a farmer by 
 birth, a blacksmith by trade, a surveyor by education 
 and a banker by occupation." In 1890 he was the Repub- 
 lican nominee for Governor, but was defeated by Syl- 
 vester Pennoyer because he was a banker. He would 
 have made a most excellent Governor, but paid the penalty 
 of being a successful man. He died when comparatively 
 young, leaving a large fortune to his family. W. T. 
 Hume was a lawyer of rare ability who afterward served 
 Multnomah County for two terms as District Attorney. 
 S. R. Harrington was a lawyer with an extensive practice 
 and a splendid record as a soldier and officer in the 
 Union army during the Civil War. J. J. Fisher was a 
 prominent physician of East Portland and J. A. Strow- 
 bridge was a well-known business man of Portland and 
 one of its earliest pioneers. 
 
 This was a notable list of distinguished citizens who 
 were willing to donate their services to the public for 
 the public good. They were able to make their cam- 
 paigns without meeting a torrent of personal abuse and 
 were not accused of being rascals bent upon the "subju- 
 gation of the common people." These men are all living 
 to-day, with the exception of Thompson, Earhart and 
 Strowbridge, and it is not at all likely that any one of 
 them, if a candidate for the Legislature now, could be 
 elected under any circumstances. 
 
 In the Senate Multnomah County had Joseph Simon, 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 343 
 
 George A. Steel, J. C. Carson, Donald Mackay and J. K. 
 Wait. Simon has since been United States Senator from 
 Oregon and Steel has served one term as State Treas- 
 urer. The other three were men of high standing in the 
 business circles of Portland. Other members of the 
 Senate were: George Chandler, of Baker; T. E. Cau- 
 thorne, of Benton; J. W. Watts, of Yamhill; F. A. 
 Moore, of Columbia ; Thomas H. Tongue, of Washing- 
 ton ; J. H. Raley, of Umatilla; J. B. Looney, J. B. Dimick 
 and M. L. Chamberlin, of Marion; J. H. D. Gray, of 
 Clatsop; C. A. Cogswell, of Lake; R. M. Veatch and 
 S. B. Eakin, of Lane; J. C. FuUerton, of Douglas; S. A. 
 Dawson, of Linn, and Charles Hilton, of Wasco. 
 
 In the House were E. L. Smith, of Wasco, chosen 
 Speaker; John T. Apperson, Peter Paquet and R. V. 
 Short, of Clackamas ; J. N. Williamson, of Crook ; J. E. 
 Blundell, of Douglas; Robert A. Miller, of Jackson; 
 S. W. Condon and A. C. Jennings, of Lane; J. W. 
 Maxwell, of Tillamook; H. J. Bean, of Umatilla; E. O. 
 McCoy, of Wasco; Charles Goodnough, of Union, and 
 Thomas Paulsen, of Washington. 
 
 These were all substantial citizens who proved very 
 active and efficient members. F. A. Moore has since 
 been a member of the State Supreme Court for twenty 
 years and H. J. Bean, after serving as District Attorney 
 and Circuit Judge for Umatilla and Morrow counties, is 
 just now beginning a full term as one of the Justices of 
 the Supreme Court. E. L. Smith has served for several 
 years as president of the State Board of Horticulture 
 and has done more to make the apples of Hood River 
 famous the world over than any other man. Robert A. 
 Miller has since been a Democratic candidate for Con- 
 gress and served for six years as Register of the United 
 States Land Office at Oregon City. J. N. Williamson 
 has since been elected to Congress twice and is one of 
 the prominent stockmen of Crook County. R. V. Short 
 was a member of the State Constitutional Convention of 
 1857; S. W. Condon was the son of Rev. Thomas 
 Condon, who for several years was geologist at the 
 
344 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 State University ; E. O. McCoy was a prominent business 
 man of eastern Oregon; J. W. Maxwell was a well- 
 known Grand Ai-my man of Tillamook County ; Charles 
 Goodnough was a man extensively interested in several 
 mercantile firms in Union and Wallowa counties and 
 Thomas Paulsen was one of the successful dairymen of 
 his county. 
 
 There were other members worthy of mention who 
 contributed to the work of the session intelligently and 
 conscientiously. Taken altogether, as I have said, it was 
 without doubt the ablest assemblage which has ever com- 
 posed an Oregon Legislature — and no participant in any 
 other session can possibly take umbrage at this estimate, 
 for he can, if so disposed, console himself with the reflec- 
 tion that too many of his colleagues failed to reach the 
 average requirement for a good legislator! 
 
 One of the most popular members of that session was 
 James E. Blundell, of Douglas County. He was a very 
 small man physically, probably not weighing more than 
 ninety pounds, but he was exceedingly witty and always 
 commanded the attention of the House when addressing 
 the Chair. 
 
 One afternoon Bowditch, of Jackson, grew somewhat 
 belligerent in a debate he had precipitated with a fellow 
 member regarding a bill that appeared to have been lost 
 in some committee shuffle, and had received a retort 
 which greatly angered him. To this he replied with 
 vigor, and as he appeared to be making a hostile demon- 
 stration toward the accused committeeman, there was a 
 great uproar in the House. The Speaker had begun to 
 exercise his authority to preserve order, when Blundell 
 arose and, standing almost by the side of Bowditch, who 
 was a two-hundred pounder, said in his peculiar piping 
 voice : 
 
 "Mr. Speaker, I will undertake to preserve order on 
 the floor of the House in my immediate vicinity, and I 
 hereby notify the gentleman from Jackson that if he 
 doesn't promptly resume his seat and govern that temper 
 of his, / will hold him personally responsible." 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 345 
 
 As he said this he shook his fist at the Jackson County 
 member, and his attitude, together with the delicious 
 absurdity of his remark, — his head scarcely reached 
 above his desk, — created a roar of laughter that lasted 
 for several minutes. But good feeling was restored and 
 Bowditch himself enjoyed the episode as well as his 
 fellow-members. 
 
 Blundell served four terms altogether from Douglas 
 County, being a member in 1887, 1889, 1891 and 1895. 
 On the last night of the session of '89, an hour before 
 adjournment, there was no business to attend to and the 
 members, with the permission of the Speaker, devoted 
 themselves to all sorts of recreation not known to parlia- 
 mentary law. Colonel Robert A. Miller was in the 
 chair and Roberts, of Coos, had introduced a resolution 
 ousting him from his position on account of an arbitrary 
 ruling. Miller put the motion on the adoption of the 
 resolution and, though it received a unanimous vote of 
 approval, declared it lost. 
 
 At this juncture, when all was in an amusing disorder, 
 Blundell climbed into his chair and from it to the top 
 of his desk, from which vantage point he shouted in 
 tones which were heard above the general din, striking 
 the open palm of his left hand vigorously with the 
 clenched fist of his right, the while: 
 
 "Gentlemen, I do not propose to shirk the duty which 
 rests upon me as a representative of the people of 
 Douglas County by submitting to the tyranny of the gen- 
 tleman from Jackson, who happens for the moment to 
 be the presiding officer of this House. If any one other 
 member will follow my lead, I will take the gentleman 
 from the chair by force and — " 
 
 At this point, McCoy, of Wasco, a giant in stature, 
 took Blundell around the waist with his right arm and, 
 with his legs kicking wildly in the air, carried him down 
 the aisle and into the main lobby of the Capitol. 
 
 Probably a more side-splitting incident never occurred 
 during a legislative session in any State than that. In a 
 short time Blundell and McCoy returned to their seats, 
 
346 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 arm in arm, order was restored, Speaker Smith took the 
 chair and the important business of the State was resumed 
 in a serious manner. "All work and no play makes 
 Jack," etc. 
 
 Poor "Jimmy Blundell" was afflicted with asthmatic 
 trouble but his countenance was always cheerful, as was 
 his heart. He was a school-teacher by profession and 
 occupation. When his distressing ailment finally proved 
 fatal, the announcement of his death carried a feeling of 
 regret to every part of the State. 
 
 John B. Waldo, a member from Marion County, was 
 the youngest son of Daniel Waldo, the noted pioneer of 
 1843, and had but recently completed a full term of six 
 years on the State Supreme Bench. He was a very 
 reserved man in his manner, though exceedingly hos- 
 pitable in his home. He was a close student all his life 
 and almost lived in and with his books. Every summer 
 for twenty years before his death he invited a few friends 
 to accompany him into the Cascade Mountains on an 
 extended camping trip, usually lasting for two months. 
 It was his custom to go into the mountains with his pack 
 train of a few horses and, without following trails, pro- 
 ceed to the summit, after which he would pursue the 
 backbone of the range well southward toward the Cali- 
 fornia line. He was an expert botanist and was perhaps 
 more familiar with the flora of Oregon than any other 
 man has been. 
 
 The likes and dislikes of Judge Waldo were very 
 deeply rooted. I recall that as the session of 1889 was 
 drawing to a close a local photographer asked me to see 
 him and request him to sit for a picture. He explained 
 that he was making a group photograph of all the mem- 
 bers of both Houses and had secured sittings from all 
 the members save Judge Waldo. When, as requested, I 
 told the Judge what was wanted, like a flasla, he in- 
 quired : 
 
 "Is Joe Simon's picture going to be in the group ?" 
 
 "Yes, I presume so," I replied, "as he is the president 
 of the Senate. Why?" 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 347 
 
 "Well," replied the Judge, "I won't have my picture 
 alongside of Joe Simon's." 
 
 And he did not call at the photographer's. That 
 enterprising individual, however, succeeded in securing 
 an old picture somewhere and his group contained pho- 
 tographs of all the members of both Houses. 
 
 The bitterness of Waldo against Simon was due to 
 the impression he had received that the latter had been 
 instrumental in his defeat as Supreme Judge when a 
 candidate for re-election in 1886. His death occurred 
 at his farm in the Waldo Hills three years ago. He was 
 a man of the strictest integrity and held in the highest 
 esteem by his acquaintances everywhere. 
 
 One of my colleagues from Marion County in the 
 sessions of 1889, and again in 1893, was Samuel Lay- 
 man, of Woodburn. He was a successful farmer and an 
 intelligent Representative, but he could not address a 
 public meeting without being lost in an overwhelming 
 wave of embarrassment. It was the custom in those 
 days for the candidates of the opposing parties to visit 
 every part of the county and hold joint debates, the 
 "remarks" of each candidate being restricted to a limited 
 time. This part of the program Layman always endeav- 
 ored to avoid, but in order to gain votes he found it 
 necessary to make the rounds, and he was invariably 
 called upon by some man in the audience, though his 
 associates had agreed to let him off. In the two cam- 
 paigns I made with Layman he made perhaps forty 
 speeches, and these were the identical words he used 
 every time: 
 
 "Fellow-citizens, I am not a public speaker, but am 
 a farmer down on French Prairie. If elected to the 
 Legislature, I promise you that I will oppose all the bad 
 bills and favor all the good ones. I hope you will vote 
 for me." 
 
 This always provoked laughter from the audience and, 
 inexpressibly confused, Layman would seek his seat. 
 However, it is plain that if he had spoken for two hours 
 he could have said nothing better than this — and might 
 
348 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 have said too much, as the rest of us frequently did. 
 And, besides, Layman always received more votes than 
 any other man on the ticket — as he deserved to. 
 
 Another influential member in the session of 1889 
 was Captain John T. Apperson, of Clackamas County. 
 Captain Apperson had for a long term of years oeen a 
 steamboat pilot on the Willamette River and had served 
 in the State Senate during the sessions of 1878 and 1880. 
 For about twenty years he was president of the Board 
 of Trustees of the Oregon Agricultural College and is 
 now a member of that body. He has been a tower of 
 strength to that very deserving and useful educational 
 institution, and has attended all its meetings during his 
 long tenure of office on the Board. 
 
 A resolution had been adopted during the last week 
 of the '89 session providing for adjournment on a Friday 
 night at midnight. A few minutes before this hour, 
 arrived Speaker Smith had called Captain Apperson to 
 the chair and was absent when the clock pointed to the 
 hour of twelve. Five minutes before this the House 
 had called upon H. H. Northup to make a short address 
 on the eve of our separation, to which he had responded. 
 Judge Northup, who is a splendid speaker, especially 
 upon an occasion of that character, was narrating a very 
 pathetic incident which occurred on one of the battle- 
 fields of the Civil War, relating to the wounding of a 
 drummer boy, when Captain Apperson called his atten- 
 tion to the fact that the hour for adjournment had 
 arrived. A request went up from all over the House 
 for him to finish his story, to do which, he replied in 
 answer to a query, would take but two minutes; but 
 Captain Apperson said the resolution called for adjourn- 
 ment at midnight. 
 
 "I have no discretion in the matter, gentlemen," said 
 he. "Your resolution says we shall adjourn at twelve 
 o'clock, and you can see," glancing at the clock on the 
 wall back of the Speaker's desk, "that it is now one 
 minute past that time." 
 
 And Judge Northrup's story was never finished — all 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 349 
 
 because Captain Apperson had for twenty years been a 
 river pilot, where an order was an order, where punct- 
 uality meant being punctual, and where there was no 
 dallying with the dictum of one man whose conclusion 
 was the law. 
 And the House stood aghast — also, adjourned. 
 
CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 When the legislative session of 1891 met in January 
 of that year I was a candidate for Speaker of the House, 
 and after a little preliminary skirmish, which involved 
 more or less of communication with members from 
 other parts of the State during the preceding month or 
 two, I was successful. There were but two other aspir- 
 ants, H. B. Miller, of Josephine, and George L. Story, 
 of Multnomah. Mr. Miller had represented his county 
 in the State Senate, where he had made a splendid record 
 as a hard and efficient worker, but a week before the 
 session convened he announced that he had no desire to 
 be Speaker. Mr. Story had been a member of the House 
 in 1885, serving with distinction, and was one of the 
 very earliest settlers in the city of Portland. He did not 
 make a very active campaign for the Speakership, how- 
 ever, and there were few obstacles in the way of my 
 success. R. R. Hays, of Tillamook, was chosen chief 
 clerk, Frank Davey assistant clerk, and Glenn O. Holman 
 reading clerk. 
 
 This session of the Oregon Legislature may be said 
 to have been characterized by an "era of good feeling." 
 There was not much demand for general legislation and 
 the "political pot," which in this State has boiled with a 
 good, old-fashioned boil for fifty years almost without 
 intermission, was actually enjoying the experience of a 
 perfect rest for the first time. The "fight against 
 Mitchell" which had known no cessation since his advent 
 to the State in i860, had been abandoned and, though 
 his second term in the United States Senate was termi- 
 nating and he was a candidate for re-election, he re- 
 ceived every vote in the Republican caucus, which was 
 attended by every Republican member of both Houses, 
 
 350 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 351 
 
 and received every Republican vote in the joint conven- 
 tion — and all the members were present. 
 
 Mitchell wfas a candidate for the United States Senate 
 in 1866, but lacked one vote of securing the caucus nomi- 
 nation. There were no more Republican Legislatures 
 until 1872, when he was again a candidate for Senator 
 and, after a strong combination against him had been 
 overcome, a successful one. At the end of his term the 
 Legislature was again Democratic and he was retired in 
 favor of James H. Slater. In 1882 there was another 
 Senator to elect and a Republican Legislature chosen to 
 perform that duty. Mitchell was an active candidate for 
 the position, but after a struggle, which lasted until the 
 very last moments of the session, Joseph N. Dolph, 
 Mitchell's law partner, was elected. 
 
 The principal objection to Mitchell among those Re- 
 publican members who opposed him was that he was a 
 "corporation lawyer," and the fact that his partner was 
 finally selected was held to be one of the instances of 
 political inconsistency frequently encountered along the 
 highway of caucuses and conventions. Upon his return 
 to Portland after his defeat he received a tremendous 
 ovation from the thousands of men who had assembled 
 on the streets, while the successful candidate received, 
 by comparison, no welcome whatever. 
 
 The Legislature of 1885 was confronted with the duty 
 of electing a Senator, and Solomon Hirsch, of Portland, 
 received the Republican caucus nomination. There was 
 a defection, however, of eighteen members, who refused 
 to be bound by the caucus action and were able to pre- 
 vent an election. The struggle was continued until the last 
 minute of the constitutional duration of a legislative 
 session and an adjournment was had without an election. 
 In the following October Governor Moody called a 
 special session of the Legislature for the purpose of 
 electing a Senator and Mitchell was again a candidate. 
 The fight which was made upon him at this time was one 
 of the fiercest known to Oregon politics. It was led by 
 the Oregonian and nothing was left unsaid or unprinted 
 
352 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 which it was thought would contribute to Mitchell's 
 defeat. The attack was directly personal and Mitchell 
 was charged with all the sins of omission and commission 
 known to the calendar of moral and personal delin- 
 quencies. Proof of the truthfulness of the charges was 
 offered — indeed, was published — and challenges to insti- 
 tute a suit for libel were printed daily in black- faced 
 type, but Mitchell, like Cuflfey, "des kep' on sayin' 
 nuffin'." After a short session of this character, although 
 it seemed a long one, a sufficient number of Democrats 
 came to Mitchell's support to give him the necessary 
 forty-six votes and he was elected. 
 
 Considering the nature of this furious onslaught in 
 1885 against Mitchell it was a matter of surprise, and of 
 rejoicing, that at the end of his term there was no oppo- 
 sition to his re-election in any quarter. All was peace 
 and Mitchell must have thought the millennium at hand. 
 But it was only a lull in the cyclone which usually focused 
 around the political headquarters where John H. Mitchell 
 was the central figure, — as later Oregon history abun- 
 dantly shows. 
 
 It was during the session of 1891 that I formed the 
 acquaintance of H. B. Miller, member from Josephine 
 County. He was a prominent contractor in southern 
 Oregon and had much to do with the construction of 
 railroad bridges. He was also extensively engaged in 
 horticultural pursuits, as well as manufacturing enter- 
 prises in Josephine County. 
 
 He had a well-developed ambition to go to Congress 
 and had his eye on any old thing that promised to assist 
 in preventing the re-election of Binger Hermann. At 
 that time Hermann had acquired the fixed habit of going 
 to Congress every two years, which was naturally dis- 
 couraging to a few other men who were ambitious to 
 serve the people's interests at Washington. Among 
 these very deserving aspirants was H. B. Miller. In 
 those years Oregon had but one member of Congress, 
 and since it began to look as though Hermann, with his 
 perfect health and convincing handshake, would live as 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 353 
 
 long as anybody else and stay in Congress as long as he 
 lived, there seemed little chance for any other man to 
 acquire the privilege of sending garden seeds to the 
 farmers of the State, — unless, indeed, something out of 
 the ordinary should happen. 
 
 But Miller and I decided that Hermann could be dis- 
 placed if only the proper steps were taken. Others w?ere 
 admitted to our councils, and it was finally decided that 
 if about five of us, living in different parts of the State, 
 should become candidates for the nomination, the com- 
 bined strength of the opposition would throw Hermann 
 in a minority, and after that had been accomplished it 
 would not be difficult for us to unite on the man who 
 should represent us. 
 
 It was a good scheme, its only fault being that it didn't 
 work out so well when put to the actual test as it did in 
 our private consultations. When the session of 1891 
 adjourned there was a well-arranged understanding be- 
 tween Miller and myself that before the campaign of '92 
 opened we would have a scheme perfected which would 
 result in placing Hermann on the shelf. We felt sure it 
 could be done with proper management, and that we 
 were in position to carry it to a successful termination. 
 
 I saw Miller at intervals during the following summer 
 and fall, and each time we added minor details to our 
 campaign. He said it looked good to him in southern 
 Oregon, and that he was certain he could come to the 
 convention with several counties hitherto solid for Her- 
 mann in his pocket. 
 
 In January, 1892, we met by appointment in Portland 
 to complete the plan of our attack. A few flank move- 
 ments were decided upon and our lieutenants selected. 
 We separated with a promise by Miller that some time 
 within a month he would write me a letter which would 
 give further details as to the southern Oregon situation, 
 for Hermann must first be shaken in his own section, 
 and Miller, because of his prominence, and coming from 
 that part of the State, was going to be the most for- 
 midable man in the combine. 
 
354 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 I returned to the farm and resumed my plowing and 
 sowing, expecting to hear from Miller at any time. The 
 spring oats were sown, the orchard pruned and yet noth- 
 ing from Miller. I knew he was busy preparing for the 
 solar plexus blow that was to give us a different Congress- 
 man, but finally, thinking that valuable time was being 
 wasted — I had some things of my own to do if I was to 
 get seriously into the contest — and concluding that by 
 that time Miller had surely laid the foundation for the 
 fight good and strong, I wrote him a letter. He had 
 promised to let me know and had not done it. I was 
 anxious to hear the details of his inroads into the Her- 
 mann ranks, so sent him the following : 
 
 Macleay, Oregon, March lo, 1892. 
 Hon. H. B. Miller, 
 
 Grant's Pass, Or.: 
 My Bear Miller : 
 Well? 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Geer. 
 
 Three days afterward I received the following lucid 
 answer to my letter, which constituted an exhaustive 
 explanation of the political situation in southern Oregon, 
 as far as Miller had succeeded in causing a defection in 
 the Hermann ranks : 
 
 Grant's Pass, Oregon, March 13, 1892. 
 Hon. T. T. Geer, 
 
 Macleay, Or.: 
 My Dear Mr. Geer: 
 
 I was delighted to hear that you are "well." Good 
 health is a great blessing. 
 
 Truly yours. Miller. 
 
 It was not the kind of letter which called for an imme- 
 diate answer. It spoke volumes and breathed such a 
 deep appreciation of my prime physical condition that I 
 was wholly overcome. I at once counted myself out of 
 the Congressional race — I didn't wait for others to do 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 355 
 
 so — and was not at all surprised when the Republican 
 State Convention assembled along in April to read that it 
 had re-nominated Hon. Binger Hermann, of Douglas 
 County, for Congress "without serious opposition." 
 
 One of the important acts of the session of '91 was 
 the creation of the office of Attorney General. Attempts 
 to do so had been made prior to that date, but there was 
 general opposition to the establishment of new offices 
 and they failed. That there was need for such adviser 
 to the State officials there could be no doubt, so provision 
 was made for the new official to be appointed by the 
 Governor, to hold until the next general election. Accord- 
 ingly, Governor Pennoyer named George E. Chamber- 
 lain, of Linn County, who was nominated by the Demo- 
 crats for the same position in 1892, and, according to 
 the Chamberlain custom, was successful at the polls, 
 defeating L. R. Webster, Republican. 
 
 There were many new members in the House in 1891, 
 though there were several who had had wide experience in 
 legislative matters and who afterward became promi- 
 nent in State affairs. There was much to enliven the 
 ordinary trend of legislative proceedings and, as is 
 usually the case, a humorous reply or statement often 
 came at the most unexpected times. 
 
 One day the House was considering a proposed bill 
 on assessment in Committee of the Whole. The Com- 
 mittee on Assessment had undertaken to revise the entire 
 system of taxation — a proposition which always appeals 
 to the aspiring legislator as a means not only of immor- 
 talizing his own name, but of contributing to the wel- 
 fare of the masses. For a full hundred years this work 
 of drafting an assessment law that will make all taxation 
 "equal" has been prosecuted in our older States and 
 there is the same complaint of the injustice of the pre- 
 vailing system, no matter what it is, that characterized 
 the unrest of the people at the beginning. 
 
 But we were in the midst of considering the new bill 
 on taxation, as reported by the committee, by sections. 
 
356 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 We had reached a section which provided for the taxa- 
 tion of watches, when Holmes, of Marion, a Democrat 
 who had managed to be elected by a margin of six votes 
 in that strongly Republican county, arose and said : 
 
 "Mr. Chairman, in these times a watch has become an 
 article of necessity and not one of luxury, as was for- 
 merly the case. Everybody now, even the poor man, 
 carries a watch and I move that this section be stricken 
 out in the interest of the common people." 
 
 Before the chairman could put the question Starr, of 
 Benton, a man who had not been on his feet before 
 during the entire session, asked for recognition and 
 said: 
 
 "Mr. Chairman, I am opposed to striking out this 
 section. Just a few minutes ago we adopted another 
 section which taxes horses, and I object to taxing horses 
 and exempting watches, for hundreds of times I have 
 seen young fellows on the Long Tom riding four-dollar 
 cayuses and carrying forty-dollar watches!" 
 
 After which Holmes' proposed amendment didn't have 
 a "look in." 
 
 Glenn Holman was the reading clerk for the session 
 of '91, as indeed he had been for many sessions before, 
 and he had a most remarkable memory as well as a 
 splendid voice for that purpose. That was before the 
 day of the t)rpewriter, and as all the bills and resolu- 
 tions were written in long hand, and usually by their 
 authors, samples of handwriting drifted up to the clerk's 
 desk that would often put a crimp in that officer's 
 tongue. But Holman could read anything that even 
 looked like writing and get away with it in pretty good 
 shape. He never stalled. If he came to an obstacle in 
 the way of a sprawl across the paper, he named it and 
 went on without any hesitation whatever. It was one of 
 his boasts that he had never yet found a specimen of 
 writing that he could not decipher with ease. 
 
 One day a member who intended to introduce a bill to 
 prohibit the killing of certain kinds of pheasants, except 
 at stated times of the year, handed it to me in advance 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 35; 
 
 to get my opinion of it. One section was something like 
 this : "It shall be unlawful to kill or have in possession, 
 except as otherwise hereinafter provided, any ring- 
 necked pheasant, silver pheasant, golden pheasant, copper 
 pheasant, green Japanese pheasant. Reeves pheasant, 
 scholmeringu pheasant, etc." 
 
 In this last word I saw an opportunity to have some 
 fun out of Holman and asked the member to let me 
 write his bill, telling him my purpose. I wanted to write 
 that word "scholmeringu" in such a way that Holman 
 would be baffled. The bill had but two or three sec- 
 tions and it was soon done. I had let a dozen members 
 into the joke and they were ready for a laugh on Holman. 
 As soon as the House was called to order the bill was 
 introduced. With his customary assurance, the reading 
 clerk began to declare its provisions to the members in 
 ringing tones which reached every part of the chamber. 
 I had written the word "scholmeringu" in such a way 
 that it spelled nothing whatever, only the first three 
 letters being decipherable at all. After their formation 
 the word flattened out into a meaningless scrawl. And 
 here is the way Holman read it, while the House listened 
 and watched to see him forced to admit his defeat : "It 
 shall be unlawful to kill or have in possession, except as 
 otherwise hereinafter provided, any ring-necked pheas- 
 ant, silver pheasant, golden pheasant, copper pheasant, 
 green Japanese pheasant. Reeves pheasant or — any other 
 kind of pheasant," and he went right on with a broad 
 smile on his face while the House indulged a round of 
 laughter at my failure to trap the versatile translator of 
 duck tracks, et al. 
 
 Holman had a wonderful memory for names, and 
 after calling the roll of sixty members a half-dozen times 
 could easily dispense permanently with the printed form. 
 He was at the reading clerk's desk in the House sessions 
 of '80, '89, '91 and '93. One day toward the last of the 
 session of '93 he was calling the roll for about the 
 thousandth time, perfunctorily, as the proceedings were 
 very uninteresting, when he came to the name of Merritt, 
 
3S8 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 of Jackson County, who had been a member during the 
 preceding session. When Holman came to his name 
 that day he unconsciously switched from the roll-call of 
 '93 to that of '91 and followed Merritt's name with those 
 who succeeded his in the session of two years before. 
 The "break" was not noticed until some of the members 
 were astonished to hear names of men called who had 
 gone down to defeat, and some even were dead. After 
 adjournment, in commenting upon the incident, Holman 
 repeated, from memory, the roll-call of '91 without hesi- 
 tation, and even repeated that of 1880, thirteen years 
 before, with but a few mistakes. 
 
 Toward the end of the session of '91 the members 
 began to show their impatience at any move which con- 
 sumed time. This, however, is not unusual. At the 
 beginning of a session there appears to be "all kinds of 
 time" in which to transact the business before the Legis- 
 lature and a motion to adjourn will always carry. The 
 first three weeks of an Oregon session, which is constitu- 
 tionally limited to forty days, it is customary to adjourn 
 on each Thursday and proceed to Portland, not to return 
 to Salem until the following Sunday night, or perhaps 
 not until Monday morning. But when half the session 
 is gone and members begin to discover that many of 
 their bills are yet "in committee," and that there is 
 danger of their being lost altogether, an awakening 
 always takes place and the great majority are willing to 
 adjourn only for the time necessary for meals. 
 
 Although when the House adjourned sine die in '91, 
 every bill had been disposed of and we had two hours 
 to spare, there was' much uneasiness during the last 
 three days concerning the fate of several measures. The 
 Ministerial Union of Salem had provided a minister to be 
 present every morning to open the sessions with prayer. 
 This had always been customary and it is a very fitting 
 beginning of the day's work. There were several mem- 
 bers who had privately asked me to abandon the custom 
 during the last week, in the interest of some of the belated 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 359 
 
 measures, but I had assured them that we would "clean 
 up" the calendar, and that it would not look well to reject 
 the offers of the ministers to intercede for us at the 
 Throne of Grace, since we probably stood in need of all 
 the assistance we could get, both here and hereafter. I 
 remember that Garfield, of Coos, was especially opposed 
 to "wasting the time of the House in needless prayers." 
 
 However, on the morning of the last day there had 
 been so many importunities from members to dispense 
 with the morning prayer that when Rev. Robert Whit- 
 aker, of the Baptist Church, stood by my side I whispered 
 to him while the House was coming to order, "Cut it 
 short," for much of the complaint had been at the length 
 of some of the prayers — which, indeed, were needlessly 
 long. I knew Whitaker well, and as he was a very witty 
 man both in and out of the pulpit, I felt perfectly free 
 to ask him to "cut it short." He was very obedient to 
 my suggestion, for here is his prayer, verbatim : "Oh, 
 Lord, we pray Thee to keep us from all evil throughout 
 this day. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen." 
 
 To say that the House was pleased would be to put it 
 very mildly. Smiles were in evidence over the chamber, 
 even some clapping of hands. Holman passed a hat among 
 the members and secured for the considerate preacher 
 five dollars, which was given him at the door when he 
 passed out three minutes later. It was a signal triumph 
 of the art of condensation, for he might have extended 
 his prayer ten minutes longer, as some of the preachers 
 did, without adding anything to the effectiveness of his 
 appeal. 
 
 At that time Rev. Whitaker could have had any posi- 
 tion within the gift of the Legislature for the asking. 
 
CHAPTER XLVIII 
 
 During the progress of the legislative session of 1891 
 it became known that in the spring President Harrison 
 would visit the Pacific Coast, including Oregon, and . 
 before adjournment a joint committee was appointed to 
 meet him and his party at the State line and to take 
 charge of their itinerary while they remained among our 
 people. Accordingly, the committee, consisting of three 
 members of the Senate and five from the House, includ- 
 ing President Simon of the Senate and myself, went to 
 Ashland on May 5 to meet the Presidential party, which 
 arrived there at four o'clock. The weather had been 
 quite dry for the preceding month, but at noon of that 
 day a threatening haze overspread the sky and ten min- 
 utes before the train arrived there was a heavy fall of 
 rain. This developed into a steady downpour, and by 
 the time the President appeared before the great audience 
 to make his address there was a general scurrying for 
 awnings, doorways and anything else that offered pro- 
 tection. It was thought to be only a passing shower, but 
 it proved to be the beginning of a three-days' rain which 
 has rarely, if ever, been equalled in Oregon during the 
 month of May. At Grant's Pass the people had pre- 
 pared a huge bonfire, and when the train arrived at nine 
 o'clock a large audience had congregated to greet the 
 President, sheltered by umbrellas and kept busy endeav- 
 oring to preserve the life of the flames against the furious 
 onslaught of Jupiter Pluvius. 
 
 The Presidential train was scheduled to arrive at 
 Eugene the next morning at six o'clock, and the people 
 of that enterprising town had made great preparation to 
 give their distinguished guests a magnificent reception. 
 Several men had been sent the day before up the Mc- 
 Kenzie River to catch a basket of mountain trout to 
 
 360 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 361 
 
 present to the President. When the train arrived, which it 
 did on schedule time, there were literally acres of people 
 assembled to welcome the nation's Chief Magistrate. 
 When I arose and looked out of the car window, it 
 seemed to me that I saw more people than I supposed 
 were living in all of Lane County. After all, however, 
 whether there were any people at all was a mere matter 
 of conjecture, since there was only an unbroken sea of 
 umbrellas in sight. It was raining so steadily and vigor- 
 ously that one might suppose it to be the middle of No- 
 vember. There were miniature lakes of water every- 
 where, but all this did not daunt the enthusiasm of the 
 men and women — and children — of Eugene. Nothing 
 ever does. 
 
 As soon as the President's train came to a stop there 
 were loud calls for "The President," "Harrison," etc., 
 but there was no response. Finally his secretary ap- 
 peared on the rear platform and bowed to the people, 
 while the anxious committee having in charge the large 
 basket of McKenzie trout, handsomely packed in ice and 
 decorated with beautiful flowers, handed it to the secre- 
 tary, with the compliments of the people of Eugene. He 
 graciously received them in the name of the President, 
 and retired within the car. 
 
 The people standing in torrents of falling water con- 
 tinued to call for the President. After a delay of per- 
 haps five minutes his secretary again appeared and an- 
 nounced that upon retiring the night before he had given 
 orders not to be molested until just before reaching 
 Salem, toward noon. He was very tired, he said, and 
 needed rest. 
 
 Upon this turn of affairs the people gave vigorous 
 utterance to their disappointment, which finally turned 
 into disgust and anger. The train pulled out soon after, 
 amid exclamations that were not especially laudatory of 
 the President, and some of which would not look well 
 in print! And through it all President Harrison slept 
 the sleep of the weary and the unconcerned. Incidentally, 
 it is proper to remark that neither Theodore Roosevelt 
 
362 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 nor William J. Bryan would have been asleep under simi- 
 lar circumstances. 
 
 But there was one man in the President's party who 
 had seen this exhibition of indifference on the part of 
 the President to the expectations of the people of Eugene 
 — whom he had promised to address as a part of his 
 itinerary — and who was sorely troubled over Harrison's 
 failure to keep faith with them. That man was "Uncle" 
 Jeremiah Rusk, then Secretary of Agriculture in the 
 President's Cabinet — a man with a big heart, a typical 
 Western American of the true pioneer type. He was 
 greatly annoyed by the Eugene incident and that night, 
 while sitting near me on the platform while the Presi- 
 dent was addressing a great audience in the old Exposi- 
 tion Building, he leaned toward me and said : 
 
 "Do you know that I wouldn't have had that affair 
 happen at Eugene this morning for a hundred dollars? 
 It was really too bad and should not have been per- 
 mitted." 
 
 The Secretary's peace of mind was especially upset 
 because during the afternoon the committee which had 
 presented the President's representative with the moun- 
 tain trout sent a dispatch to that individual in Portland 
 informing him that, if he would return the basket to them, 
 he could keep the fish and they would call it even! 
 
 At Salem an immense throng had assembled though 
 the rain continued. There was but one hour to be devoted 
 to Salem and nearly half of this was lost in trying to 
 find Governor Pennoyer, who had refused to accompany 
 the committee to the State line on the ground that the 
 Governor of a State is a "bigger man," officially, than 
 the President of the United States, since the States are 
 "sovereign," while the Federal Government is but the 
 "creature of the States," etc. He had publicly said that 
 he would be glad to welcome the President in his office 
 in the State House, but that it would be "unseemly" for 
 him to go to the State line. And he didn't ! 
 
 When the train arrived at Salem, however, the Gov- 
 ernor was at the depot in a cab, but this was not known 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 363 
 
 until the procession was about to start to the Capitol, 
 when the committee in charge, learning that the Gov- 
 ernor was in the crowd somewhere, instituted a search 
 for him. When he was finally discovered, at least one- 
 fourth of the hour was gone. Another fourth was con- 
 sumed in getting to and into the Capitol, where the pro- 
 gram was to be presented in the Representatives' Hall. 
 The first thing arranged was an address by Mayor P. H. 
 D'Arcy, and as he was a young man who appreciated 
 the great privilege of actually addressing the President 
 of the United States, he had prepared a regular oration, 
 dealing with the Boston tea-party, Paul Revere's ride, 
 Israel Putnam at Ticonderoga and Webster's reply to 
 Hayne, all leading up to the causes of the Great Rebellion, 
 etc., etc. 
 
 Of course this consumed nearly all that remained of 
 the hour and when the President arose to address the 
 people there was only time to thank them for coming 
 out to see him and to express his love for this great West- 
 ern Coast, etc. 
 
 This turn of affairs, taken in connection with the antics 
 of the eccentric Governor, presented an amusing phase 
 of the situation which was generally enjoyed, especially 
 since Mayor D'Arcy was born in Salem, had lived there 
 every day of his life and was known personally to every 
 man, woman and child within thirty miles of the capital, 
 and could be heard, — indeed, had iDeen heard, — on hun- 
 dreds of other occasions. But D'Arcy was young then. 
 He has since developed into one of the most popular 
 orators in Oregon, and the public always is glad to hear 
 him speak on any subject and occasion. 
 
 The Presidential train arrived at Oregon City in the 
 middle of the afternoon. Here another immense gath- 
 ering had assembled to welcome the Chief Executive, 
 and it was raining harder, if possible, than it had rained 
 at any other point. The water simply fell in torrents 
 and there were more umbrellas in sight than I had sup- 
 posed could be found in all Oregon. It was here that 
 the President made use of one of those strikingly apt 
 
364 FIFTY YKARS IN OREGON 
 
 expressions which characterized all his speeches on that 
 memorable trip. As he began his address he was stand- 
 ing under an umbrella, while every citizen there was 
 actually ashamed of the weather — it was so "unusual" 
 and unnecessary. Everybody was apologizing for its 
 misbehavior. Different members of our committee had 
 over and again assured him that such a storm in May 
 had not been known since the first white settler came 
 here, ages ago, etc. 
 
 But the first thing the President said was : "My fel- 
 low citizens, I have just come from the land of sunshine, 
 roses and irrigation to a country where it is evident 
 that the Lord himself takes care of the crops." This 
 put him on splendid terms with his audience, proved to 
 us that he knew a good thing when he saw it and con- 
 vinced us that "this Oregon of ours" never makes a mis- 
 take in its weather, after all. 
 
 A great welcome was given the President in Portland, 
 one entirely worthy of that city's reputation for open- 
 hearted hospitality, though it continued to rain. The 
 only consolation to be derived at the time from this 
 unusual opening of the heavens was that when the Presi- 
 dential train arrived at Seattle the next morning it was 
 pouring as steadily as it had during his stay in Oregon. 
 
 "Uncle" Jerry Rusk, President Harrison's Secretary 
 of Agriculture, was the kind of man who had full sym- 
 pathy with the disappointments or sorrows of others. 
 He was a big man, physically and temperamentally. He 
 was always popular with the people of his State of Wis- 
 consin and after serving his district six years in the 
 lower House of Congress was elected Governor and 
 served for two terms. Upon the creation of the office of 
 Secretary of Agriculture President Harrison appointed 
 him to that position, which he filled with great credit to 
 himself and with benefit to the public. He was a good 
 executive officer and had the confidence of his fellows 
 always. 
 
 In October, 1887, I was in St. Louis at the time of 
 the assembling of the Grand Army of the Republic for 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 365 
 
 its national encampment. One day of the week was set 
 apart for an excursion to Springfield, Illinois, to visit 
 the tomb of Lincoln, and since it was my intention to 
 visit the home town of the great emancipator while on 
 my travels — for it was my first trip anywhere farther 
 East than to Baker, — ^I accompanied the Grand Army 
 men to that most interesting city — interesting because of 
 its connection with the early struggles and final triumph 
 of the great Lincoln. 
 
 Upon arriving at Springfield everybody went directly 
 to Oak Ridge Cemetery where the great monument 
 stands over Lincoln's remains, and after an hour spent 
 in walking reverently about the grounds, calls were made 
 for a speech by Governor Rusk of Wisconsin. As the 
 demand would not be stilled, he appeared soon after- 
 ward in an open place in the immense crowd and began 
 speaking. At once voices from every direction demanded 
 that he speak from some place where he could be seen 
 as well as heard. Near by was a carpenter's work 
 bench — the grounds at that time not having been cleared 
 of the rubbish left by the contractors — and several men 
 picked it up and brought it to where Rusk was standing. 
 Upon this he was assisted to mount, and after he had 
 spoken a few minutes loud calls were made for his staff, 
 which it was learned was present, to mount the bench 
 and stand by his side. 
 
 This brought out a loud round of applause, and soon 
 several old veterans took their places by the side of the 
 Governor. It was a most touching spectacle, as it was 
 soon discovered that each man had lost either an arm 
 or a leg. They kept coming until eleven men were 
 ranged beside the Governor. As they stood there, hun- 
 dreds of men in the vast gathering were moved to tears 
 and everybody was hurrahing for Rusk and his staff — 
 and the flag. Seven of his staff had lost an arm each, 
 three had lost a leg, and Colonel Henry Fisher, who had 
 belonged to the Second Missouri, had a shattered limb. 
 
 Taking it altogether — ^the place where it occurred, the 
 experiences of the men who constituted the assemblage, 
 
366 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 and remembering what the struggle for which they had 
 risked Hfe and limb meant to this great republic — it was 
 at once one of the most inspiring and most pathetic scenes 
 I ever witnessed. 
 
 Governor Rusk was a splendid story-teller, as most 
 generous, big-hearted and whole-souled men are. On 
 his trip to Oregon in 1891 he related one that is worth 
 repeating since it aptly illustrates the truth of the old 
 saying that a prophet is not without honor save in his 
 own country. 
 
 Soon after his appointment to the position of 
 Secretary of Agriculture in the President's Cabinet it 
 occurred to him that he would visit the home of his 
 boyhood in Ohio, which he had left when barely of age 
 and to which in all the intervening years he had not 
 returned. When he left for Wisconsin in 1853 there 
 was no railroad within twenty miles of the village where 
 he lived, but upon his return he found that a line had 
 been run through that section, but missing the village 
 by a half mile, and that a "hack" was run down to the 
 station to meet such passengers as might, for some odd 
 reason, want to visit the little hamlet. 
 
 Upon arriving at the station — he was the only traveler 
 who alighted — he saw near by a, two-seated vehicle 
 which he surmised, correctly, was waiting for a customer. 
 He approached the , prematurely old driver, whom he 
 recognized as one of his schoolmates in the early days, 
 and who had doubtless never been outside his county. 
 Rusk took his seat by the side of the driver, but the 
 man seemed indisposed to engage in conversation save 
 with his horses, who appeared to be decidedly averse 
 to arriving at their destination. To induce a faster 
 gait, the driver was constantly using both his whip and 
 voice. 
 
 Rapidly taking in the situation. Rusk himself began 
 a conversation, or tried to. Presently he said to the 
 man: 
 
 "I suppose you don't know who I am, do you?" 
 
 "Giddup there," said the driver, as he struck the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 367 
 
 off horse with his whip. "Oh, yes. I know you. You 
 are Jerry Rusk." 
 
 And he said nothing more, except to continue his 
 wrangle with his team. After a few minutes, Rusk 
 began the attack again. 
 
 "Well," he said, "do the people here know that after 
 I went out to Wisconsin a long time ago I joined the 
 Union army as a private and came out a brigadier 
 general ?" 
 
 "Giddap!" replied the man. "Oh, yes; we heard all 
 about that." And he shut up like a clam. 
 
 "And do they know," continued the Governor, "that 
 after I returned home I was elected to Congress and 
 served in that body for six years?" 
 
 "Giddap!" shouted the driver. "Oh, yes, they heard 
 all about that." 
 
 After vainly waiting for five minutes for the driver 
 to show some interest in the matter, and, perhaps, to 
 get a line as to how he stood in his old home town. Rusk 
 ventured to inquire : 
 
 "Well, do they know that after that I was elected 
 Governor of Wisconsin for two terms?" 
 
 "Giddap! Yes, everybody heard about that, too." 
 And he relapsed into a profound and unbroken silence. 
 
 "I suppose they know that at present I am a member 
 of the Cabinet of the President of the United States?" 
 ventured Rusk, after a short pause. 
 
 "Giddap, Bill!" shouted the driver, as he gave the 
 unambitious horse an undercut. "Yes, heard 'em talk- 
 ing about it at the store 'tother evening." 
 
 There was a pause of several minutes, during which, 
 Rusk said, he eyed the countenance of the driver to 
 discover what sort of a man he was anyway. Seeing 
 that he showed no glimmer of interest in his career, he 
 made this last effort to get an expression from him as 
 to the local estimate of himself and his political triumphs. 
 
 "Well, when the people here, where I was born and 
 where I grew to manhood, who knew that I went West 
 without money and no friends to help — when they 
 
368 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 learned that I came out of the war a brigadier general, 
 was afterwards elected to Congress three times, served 
 two terms as Governor of Wisconsin and finally became 
 a member of the Cabinet of the President of the United 
 States — when they heard all this, what did they say?" 
 
 The man gave his sleepy horse a more vigorous cut 
 than usual and said : 
 
 "Ah, giddup there ! Oh, they just laughed." 
 
CHAPTER XLIX 
 
 As the time for the opening of the campaign of 1892 
 approached I asked the Repubhcans of Marion County 
 to favor me with a fourth term in the Legislature and 
 my request was granted. I appeared to have contracted 
 the habit of going to the Legislature, but after the lapse 
 of so many years it is difficult to understand the reason. 
 I think my only motive was to be in a position where 
 I could serve a second term as Speaker, which at that 
 time no man had ever done. I had served as Speaker 
 of the House at the preceding session and had heard no 
 word of criticism from any quarter of my administra- 
 tion of the duties of the position. I hoped, and ap- 
 parently with good reason, that I could be re-elected 
 easily, but upon the assembling of the members I dis- 
 covered that Hon. W. P. Keady, who, as a member from 
 Benton County, had been elected Speaker in 1885, was 
 again a member, this time from Multomah County, and 
 was an active candidate for the same position. 
 
 The result was that two of my colleagues from Marion 
 County had for reasons that seemed sufficient to them 
 formed an indirect alliance with Mr. Keady, and with 
 my local support thus divided he was able to make 
 other combinations which gave him a majority in the 
 Republican caucus. The effect of this was that Mr. 
 Keady, instead of myself, won the honor of being elected 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives twice, — the 
 only man who has ever had that distinction to date. 
 
 Among my ardent supporters for the Speakership 
 in 1 89 1 was J. W. Merritt, of Jackson County. During 
 the progress of that session he was deeply interested 
 in the success of a certain measure which I did not 
 approve and against which I voted upon its final pas- 
 sage. His bill was lost and he felt the disappointment 
 
 369 
 
370 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 very keenly, frankly admitting to me that he was "sore" 
 over my attitude toward it, though we remained good 
 friends. When the campaign for the Speakership in 
 1 893 was beginning to take form, I wrote Merritt saying 
 that I would feel grateful for his support and that I 
 very much hoped I might count upon it. I remembered 
 his disappointment in the matter of the bill but thought 
 it better not to refer to it. 
 
 In a few days I received an answer in which Merritt 
 said he would pledge his support, as requested, as he 
 thought I had made a very good presiding officer, and 
 that he was disposed to overlook my vote regarding a 
 certain measure in the preceding session, "since it was 
 
 not likely that any man would make such a d d fool 
 
 of himself twice in succession." 
 
 Of course, under the circumstances, taking into con- 
 sideration the fact that his support was pledged, I could 
 afford to disregard his brutal candor. There are few 
 things one cannot forgive during the stress of a political 
 campaign. 
 
 Tilmon Ford was a prominent member of the House 
 at this session from my own county, and to him was 
 directly due my defeat for the Speakership. There was 
 a political rivalry in Marion County between us and he 
 was openly opposed to my candidacy for a second term 
 as presiding officer of the House. The reason given for 
 his action was that Hon. Edward Hirsch, Senator from 
 our county, was an aspirant for the presidency of the 
 Senate and he preferred to render his contest easier 
 by making impossible the election of a Marion County 
 man to the Speakership. It was fully known that cir- 
 cumstances were such that Mr. Hirsch had no chance 
 for success, and the real reason for Mr. Ford's attitude 
 could be traced to another source ; but the outcome was 
 the same and his purpose was accomplished. 
 
 Four years later I was a candidate for the Republican 
 nomination for Congress. The fact no sooner became 
 known than Mr. Ford also was possessed with an am- 
 bition to serve Oregon in that body. He immediately 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 371 
 
 organized his supporters into a working force in every 
 Marion County precinct, with the result that, having 
 carried the Salem districts, with one or two in the 
 country, he had a majority in the county convention. 
 The "unit rule" applied, and he had the support of our 
 county in the District convention, which met in Albany. 
 
 It was in this convention — 1896 — that Mr. Hermann 
 was finally defeated for a renomination, after se'rving 
 in Congress continuously for twelve years. To accom- 
 plish this result it required about fifty ballots and a 
 session lasting until midnight of the day on which the 
 convention met. Through the entire protracted struggle 
 Mr. Ford's support only included that of Marion County, 
 though it remained with him until the very last ballot. 
 Naturally, he was very much crestfallen over the un- 
 expected — to him — result, but I had been kept out of 
 the contest and in a measure he and his friends had won 
 a victory, though it was a left-handed triumph. This 
 was practically the end of Mr. Ford's political aspira- 
 tions, though he was a Presidential elector in the cam- 
 paign of 1904 and made a partial canvass of the State. 
 
 I refer to this for the reason that for ten years I 
 was obliged to meet Mr. Ford's opposition in every move 
 I made in political matters, and when I succeeded, it 
 was in spite of his active influence, which was not to be 
 overlooked as he was a man of splendid ability, a lawyer 
 of reputation, was a good public speaker and had at his 
 disposal a private fortune. After the Albany conven- 
 tion had nominated Mr. Tongue Mr. Ford ceased his 
 active opposition to me, though he gave me no real 
 support until during the primaries of 1906, when, meet- 
 ing him on the streets of Salem one day, he asked for 
 the opportunity to say that he was in favor of my nomi- 
 nation for Governor and that he would do anything for 
 me that I would suggest. This I appreciated more than 
 I could say, and so told him. He, as well as his special 
 friends, afterwards gave me much assistance. 
 
 Mr. Ford met with a serious accident in 1905 which, 
 after a lingering illness, caused his death. He made 
 
372 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 many bequests in his will — he was a bachelor — to friends 
 here and there and gave to each of fifty men named a 
 stated sum, with which they were to purchase a keep- 
 sake — a diamond ring or a watch — by which to remember 
 him. I confess that I was surprised to find my name 
 among the favored ones. To be perfectly fair, however, 
 Tilmon Ford was a man with a big heart in many ways, 
 had a high sense of honor in business matters and was 
 greatly esteemed by the people generally. We entered 
 public life together as colleagues in the Legislature from 
 Marion County in 1880, in the campaign of which year 
 I first met him. When at that time we began the joint 
 canvass with the opposing candidates, he was charged 
 at once with having been a Southern sympathizer during 
 the Civil War, and the story developed by constant 
 repetition into the direct statement that one day in '63 
 he "rode along the streets of Salem on a mule, hurrahing 
 for Jeff Davis." To this story, repeated daily in the 
 papers and elsewhere. Ford paid no heed until the very 
 last night of the campaign, when, before an immense 
 audience gathered in the old Reed's Opera House in 
 Salem, he said, in closing his speech : 
 
 "Now I come to a yarn to the effect that during the 
 war I rode up and down the streets on a mule hurrahing 
 for Jeff Davis. Fellow citizens, I want here and now 
 to brand this story as the biggest kind of a lie. (Loud 
 applause.) I never rode a mule in all my life — it was 
 a yaller cayuse!" 
 
 To this there was a responsive yell of delight that left 
 Mr. Ford rather the favorite among the entire list of 
 Republican candidates. His was the closing speech of 
 the evening — and this was his closing remark. It hit 
 the bull's eye and left a splendid impression where a 
 serious attempt at refutation might have been hurtful. 
 
 One afternoon during the session of 1893 the House 
 was considering a bill that had to do with the labor 
 question. There had been so much debate relating to 
 it that the members were generally tired out and were 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 373 
 
 clamQring for a vote, but Mr. Trullinger, of Clatsop 
 County, arose and asked the privilege of making a few 
 remarks. He had not before that taken any of the 
 time of the House and for that reason his request was 
 complied with. What he had to say was of real interest 
 and he commanded the general attention for ten minutes, 
 which fact seemed to create in his mind the impression 
 that he could continue his speech indefinitely without 
 objection — a mistake frequently made even by speakers 
 of great reputation. The knack of knowing when 
 enough has been said is not the portion of many public 
 men. 
 
 After Trullinger had said all he should have said, 
 instead of resuming his seat "amid the plaudits of his 
 hearers," he proceeded in this wise : 
 
 "Mr. Speaker, I believe in work. Every man should 
 be a working man. Labor is honorable and tends to 
 make a man healthy and strong. I have been a laboring 
 man all my life, gentlemen. Mr. Speaker, I really doubt 
 if any man in Oregon has done more days of hard 
 work than I have, and I can now, at the age of nearly 
 seventy years, throw down any man in this House." 
 
 Before he could make further declaration of his 
 prowess. Rev. W. R. Bishop, a member from Multnomah 
 County, gray-headed and fully as old as Trullinger, 
 sitting four seats in front of the latter, arose and ad- 
 vanced down the aisle toward the challenger, the while 
 rolling up his sleeves to his elbows. Assuming a 
 menacing attitude, he said: 
 
 "Does the gentleman prefer side holts or catch as 
 catch can?" 
 
 Bishop had stopped when about ten feet from Trul- 
 linger, and the expression on the latter's countenance at 
 this unexpected interruption of his speech — ^the House 
 roaring with laughter at the ludicrous turn the situation 
 had taken — was a picture for the student of facial ex- 
 pressions. His answer to Bishop's inquiry was never 
 known, if he made any, for when order was finally 
 restored he had resumed his seat, the gentleman from 
 
374 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Multnomah had returned to his desk, and the labor 
 question, as well as Trullinger, had been settled. 
 
 The real "character" of the House in 1893 was J. H. 
 Upton, of Coos County. He was a quaint looking man 
 who wore a long beard and was quite upset by his con- 
 viction that the "Crime of 'j^i' hS'S not been equalled in 
 its monstrous, abhorrent diabolism since the betrayal 
 of the Savior by Judas Iscariot. He was practically 
 "nutty" on the question of the demonetization of silver 
 and it was next to impossible to make a motion to 
 adjourn without calling out a speech by Upton in de- 
 nunciation of the gold standard. When he addressed the 
 Chair, he only remained standing at his desk during the 
 delivery of the first ten words. After that he got in the 
 aisle and began his walkmg exercise up and down its 
 entire length, the while pouring hot shot into John Sher- 
 man and all his imps. His seat was midway between 
 the Speaker's desk and the entrance to the lobby in the 
 rear, and when he was traveling toward the galleries he 
 would direct his remarks to their occupants. As he 
 turned to proceed toward the Speaker, he would address 
 the presiding officer and the amused members on either 
 side. Upton could not talk and remain still, and his 
 listeners could not remain still while he talked. At times, 
 in his enthusiasm, he would stoop so low as he proceeded 
 up the aisle that the crown of his head was scarcely 
 higher than the tops of the desks and his beard would 
 almost sweep the floor, but in an instant he would resume 
 a standing posture, finally terminating in a tiptoe at- 
 titude worthy a vaudeville artist as he delivered a broad- 
 side into the ranks of the people's foes — the Gold Bugs I 
 
 But everybody enjoyed Upton, and frequently the pro- 
 ceedings were so directed that he would be certain to 
 take the warpath, usually just before an adjournment. 
 As the session was drawing to a close, however, he met 
 his Waterloo. The report of the Mileage Committee had 
 been read and it allowed Upton and his colleague, 
 McEwan, only the usual amount of traveling expenses, 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 375 
 
 direct to Coos County, when the fact was that, owing 
 to the deep snow then on the Coast Mountains, they 
 would be obliged to return home by way of San 
 Francisco and proceed up the coast to their destinations 
 - — so Upton said. His seat was near mine, and upon 
 hearing the report read he leaned across to my desk and 
 said: 
 
 "Say, I wish you would move to so amend that report 
 as to allow McEwan and me mileage -home by way of 
 San Francisco, for we can't get home across the moun- 
 tains for two weeks yet on account of the snow. I 
 wish you would do me that favor, for if I make the 
 motion it will be voted down, of course." 
 
 I told him I would — and, as it was well known that 
 it was his purpose all through the session to make a 
 record for "Reform" so conspicuous in its nature that he 
 would capture the Populist nomination for Congress in 
 the next campaign, I was able to see the probable out- 
 come of a proposition to secure mileage home by way 
 of San Francisco. 
 
 Therefore, as well as to be obliging, I addressed the 
 Chair as follows: 
 
 "Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Coos, Mr. Upton, 
 informs me that the Coast Mountains are so covered 
 with snow at this time that he and his colleague will 
 be compelled to return home by way of San Francisco, 
 and he has requested me to move for an amendment to 
 this report which will allow them mileage on that route. 
 He says that unless this is done they will be compelled 
 to remain in Salem for at least two weeks after adjourn- 
 ment, and rather than that such a misfortune as this — ■ 
 to the gentlemen, I mean, not necessarily to the city — 
 shall be inflicted, I move that the report be amended in 
 accordance with his request." 
 
 The motion was adopted, and the gentlemen returned 
 home by way of the Bay City, but Upton was never 
 heard of as a serious candidate for Congress. Before 
 the motion was put, an irreverent member moved that 
 pay be allowed for the extra fifty miles Upton had 
 
376 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 traveled up and down the aisles during the previous forty 
 days in his savage tirades against the Money Power, but 
 the House suppressed the impudent suggestion as a 
 reflection upon its appreciation of Brother Upton's un- 
 questioned earnestness in his defense of the white metal. 
 He is still living, it is said, in Coos County, but his 
 public life terminated with his legislative experience in 
 '93. He was a kindly man who had some of the John 
 Brown temperament in the attempted promulgation of 
 his convictions. His greatest fault was that he believed 
 every man who had access to his sources of information 
 should have sense enough to believe as he did, and that 
 there was no good excuse for his not doing so. 
 
 And there are many Uptons in every walk of life. 
 Intolerance is illiberality, illiberality is a form of selfish- 
 ness, and selfishness is at the basis of almost all the 
 world's sorrows and disappointments. 
 
CHAPTER L 
 
 Sylvester Pennoyer had been Governor of Oregon for 
 eight years when the campaign of 1894 began to com- 
 mand the attention of the people of Oregon, and since 
 the State Constitution forbids the same man occupying 
 the position of Chief Executive for more than two 
 terms of four years each in succession, it became neces- 
 sary to search for new material with which to fill that 
 position. It had been suspected for two years that the 
 retiring Governor had cast a covetous eye on a seat 
 in the United States Senate, and this suspicion was 
 verified in the spring of 1894 when he announced his 
 intention to canvass the State in support of his candidacy, 
 in the hope of electing a Democratic Legislature. He had 
 been exercising a surprising influence over the people of 
 Oregon, principally by addressing himself to the farmers, 
 appealing to them for support and directly allying himself 
 with them and their interests. In his campaigns he had 
 adroitly planned his trips through the State in a way 
 that included the smaller towns, avoiding the cities, to 
 which most public speakers directed their main efiforts. 
 In this way he met the farmers and, as a rule, captured 
 them in great numbers. He was one of the most ef- 
 fective campaigners the State has ever known; for he 
 was plausible and his solemn countenance would carry 
 conviction to the assemblage, which failed to detect the 
 twinkle of the eye that a closer inspection would always 
 discover. 
 
 For this reason, and because of the victories he had 
 won in past campaigns in the face of apparently in- 
 surmountable obstacles, the Republicans viewed with 
 alarm the prospect of losing a seat in the United States 
 Senate. The term of Senator Dolph was expiring, and 
 as he had from the very beginning of the discussion of 
 
 377 
 
378 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 the question of free silver been an eloquent and con- 
 vincing advocate of the gold standard, the situation 
 presented conditions which appeared to contribute 
 directly to Pennoyer's success. There seemed to be 
 good reasons for fearing not only the loss of a Senator- 
 ship, but the election of a Democratic Governor for the 
 third time in succession in a strongly Republican State. 
 
 William Galloway had been nominated by the Dem- 
 ocrats for Governor and he was an admittedly strong 
 man. Against him the Republicans had chosen Judge 
 William P. Lord, who for sixteen years had served on 
 the State Supreme Bench with great distinction. While 
 a noted jurist and having a splendid record, he was 
 not a public speaker and was further handicapped in 
 making a State campaign by reason of his partial 
 deafness. 
 
 Under these circumstances the Republican State Com- 
 mittee invited me to make a canvass of the State, advo- 
 cating Judge Lord's election. Having been a farmer all 
 my life, it was thought that I had better be sent on the 
 trail of Pennoyer, who had already published his 
 itinerary, to speak in every town and locality where he 
 had appeared. 
 
 To this request I consented, after some well-grounded 
 misgivings as to the wisdom of the course. I had never 
 done any campaigning outside of my own county, save 
 a half-dozen speeches during the Harrison campaign two 
 years before, and it seemed a tremendous undertaking. 
 However, there was much at stake for the Republicans 
 and I buckled on my armor and "waded in." 
 
 It was certainly a "red-hot" campaign, practically 
 every speaker in both, or rather all three of the political 
 parties, Republican, Democratic and Populist, taking 
 some part in the contest, either local or in the State at 
 large. Governor Pennoyer was on the "stump" most 
 of the time for a month, visiting every part of the State, 
 preaching the doctrines of free silver, populism, where 
 it would appear to do the greatest service to his cause, 
 and denouncing the "money power," "gold bugs," "cen- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 379 
 
 tralization," and the "Crime of '73" with all the rhetori- 
 cal vehemence he possessed. 
 
 Nathan Pierce, of Umatilla County, was the Populist 
 candidate for Governor, and Pennoyer supported both 
 him and Galloway, for during the last Pennoyer admin- 
 istration it was never quite made out whether its chief 
 was a Democrat or a Populist. 
 
 The result of this campaign was an easy victory for 
 Judge Lord, his majority being several thousand, and 
 Sylvester Pennoyer's ambition to go to the United States 
 Senate became but a dream. At the end of his term 
 as Governor, in January, 1895, he retired to private life, 
 though afterward he was elected Mayor of Portland and 
 served in that capacity for one term of two years. 
 
 On May 28, during the campaign in 1894, I addressed 
 a meeting at Arlington at eight o'clock in the evening. 
 I had spoken at Pendleton the night before and was due 
 at La Grande the day after, but as time was valuable and 
 election day drawing near, it was decided that I should 
 run down the Columbia to Arlington and after the 
 meeting take the night train back to La Grande. The 
 Columbia River was unusually high at that time and 
 many people advised me to abandon the Arlington meet- 
 ing on account of the danger of encountering a wash- 
 out and thus rendering the return to La Grande im- 
 possible. But the train was going to risk the run down 
 and I took the chance. 
 
 As it proved, however, it was the wrong thing to 
 do, for the east-bound train did not come. The rapidly 
 rising river destroyed the track in several places and the 
 next morning there was no connection from Arlington 
 with any point, either east or west, by rail, 'phone or 
 telegraph. It was an uncomfortable situation, aside from 
 the anxiety and vexation we experienced because of our 
 inability to fulfil our engagements. But we were most 
 effectually stranded. After vainly trying all day to hear 
 something from somewhere — anywhere — a cattle buyer 
 (W. H. Daughtrey) and I hired a team to take us to 
 The Willows, nine miles above, where the Heppner 
 
38o FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 branch makes its junction with the main line. We hoped 
 the train on that branch might make the run, and if 
 we could get to Heppner, some sixty miles away, we 
 could go overland to Pendleton and thus make our 
 escape. But there was no train back to Heppner and we 
 were not so well oflf as at Arlington. 
 
 However, there was a small crew of men rigging out 
 a hand-car which they intended to take up the track some 
 fifteen miles to Castle Rock, and they informed us that 
 if we were once there the station-keeper would no doubt 
 take us with his team to Umatilla Landing, which point 
 was above the damaged portion of the roadbed. And 
 they added that if we would assist in pumping the car 
 that fifteen miles they would furnish us the transporta- 
 tion without charge! Realizing that there was no 
 alternative, we accepted the favor (?) and took our 
 places at the handles. The car was loaded with materials 
 of various kinds which were piled so high that it was 
 impossible to see the men working at the opposite side 
 of the "engine." To be candid, much of the time I 
 wondered whether there was any force being applied to 
 the propelling power except what I was furnishing 
 myself. 
 
 I really believe that was the hardest single piece of 
 work I ever did. The grade up the Columbia on that 
 stretch of track is steep and the load was heavy. I 
 had been inured to the hard work of a farm, and 
 for thirty years had managed one of my own, frequently 
 putting in twelve and even fifteen hours a day mowing, 
 harvesting, plowing, making rail and cordwood, fencing 
 and digging postholes, but I was never so near "holler- 
 ing enough" as when we had made about five miles of 
 that trip on an O. R. & N. hand-car. I was standing 
 on the rear end of the platform, which projected barely 
 enough for a foothold, and after we had made about 
 one mile I was so entirely out of breath that I was 
 unable to furnish the least particle of motive power. 
 Neither could I let go of the handles, since they supplied 
 me with the only purchase I had to maintain my place on 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 381 
 
 the four-wheeled bronco. I not only could not let go, 
 but I could not stop, even for a moment, the up-and- 
 down motion of the handles. I was, in fact, in great 
 danger of falling off through sheer exhaustion when the 
 exigencies of the situation compelled me to call a halt 
 until I could teorganize my scattered forces. 
 
 After a short' breathing spell, during which the rail- 
 road men indulged in much sport at our expense (for 
 Daughtrey showed every sigh of approaching physical 
 dissolution when he emerged from behind the moun- 
 tain of supplies), we proceeded on to Castle Rock, 
 where the men went on after pointing out the station- 
 keeper's house. We roused him from his slumbers, for 
 it was then 11 o'clock, and told him our predicament — 
 how we happened to be there and that we wanted him 
 to take us to the "Landing" the next morning with his 
 team. 
 
 "Team?" he said, in a very surprised tone; "why, 
 I have no team here and never had. What would I 
 want with a team here?" 
 
 And, sure enough, why should he keep a team? 
 Castle Rock was then ten miles from anywhere, in the 
 middle of a cheerless stretch of sand and sage-brush and 
 not a tree nearer than forty miles. That we had been 
 taken in by the railroad men was then apparent, but 
 the station-keeper routed a part of his family out of 
 their beds — where he put them we never could deter- 
 mine — and we were made so comfortable that, crude 
 as were our accommodations, by contrast with the hand- 
 car experience they seemed superior to those of the 
 Waldorf-Astoria. 
 
 The next morning, after breakfasting at six o'clock, 
 Daughtrey and I settled down to a serious considera- 
 tion of the situation. It was Decoration Day, and as 
 the sun came up over those burning sand-hills its heat 
 was enough to roast an egg — and it was twenty-five 
 miles to the Landing! Finally I told my companion, in 
 pure desperation, that I was going to ask the good woman 
 of the house to put up a luncheon for me — that I would 
 
382 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 walk that distance — that I could by that means at least 
 be at the Landing at night — that it was only a matter 
 of physical endurance and that I saw no other way 
 out of the dilemma — did he? 
 
 His reply was that he could not walk that far if his 
 life depended upon it, and that I should, upon my arrival 
 at the Landing, send a man and team after him. This 
 I agreed to do and started out up the track. After 
 proceeding two hundred yards, I heard a shout behind 
 me. It proved to be Daughtrey, who informed me that 
 if I would wait until he could secure a luncheon he 
 would join me, since he couldn't bear to remain at that 
 "God-forsaken place" alone. 
 
 For ten miles we walked along the river banks. As 
 they were in many places submerged and the water 
 backed out into sloughs for two miles inland, we were 
 often compelled to follow these to their junction with 
 the foothills and then return to the river, as they were 
 too deep to ford. At Coyote the track "cuts across" a 
 bend in the river and for at least ten mil^ there is no 
 water in sight. Here we ate our luncheon, though it 
 was but ten o'clock, and then plunged into this desert 
 walk. By this time the heat was frightful in its in- 
 tensity. We had not proceeded more than three miles 
 when Daughtrey, whose business required much horse- 
 back riding, and who was therefore unaccustomed to 
 walking, even under sane conditions, began to lag behind. 
 About every half-mile there was a pile of newly sawed 
 railroad ties which had been dumped for repair work, 
 and when one of these was reached Daughtrey would 
 throw himself across it in an attempt to cool off; but 
 these short rests only served to render his locomotion 
 slower, with the result that within an hour he was almost 
 entirely disabled. He finally removed his trousers, 
 hoping thereby to gain some relief, and threw them over 
 his shoulder while he trudged across that desert with the 
 perspiration streaming from his nose and chin. 
 
 Tired and hot as I was, I was in no such condition 
 as Daughtrey, but I verily believe that the contrast. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 383 
 
 which I recognized, was all that kept me going. If 
 this page could be illustrated with a "snap shot" of 
 Daughtrey, red of face, weighing two hundred and 
 twenty pounds, trouserless and blistered, it would be 
 worth any reasonable sum of money. 
 
 When within six miles of the Landing we spied the 
 Columbia River but a mile away. Being almost 
 famished, we debated whether it would be better to go 
 to the river and back for a drink, thus adding two miles 
 to our trip — and this seemed more than we could en- 
 dure — or whether we should make that six miles without 
 water. We looked at the river and at each other, but 
 the river presented much the more cheering prospect 
 and we started in that direction. Upon reaching it, we 
 prostrated ourselves full length and drank as only 
 famished men can drink. I recall now how thankful 
 I was that an unparalleled flood was on, since it 
 guaranteed a sufficient amount of water to satisfy our 
 consuming thirst. 
 
 But this side trip was the final undoing of my com- 
 panion. He had cooled off, was as "stiff as an ox," as 
 he said, and was wholly unable to go any further. 
 After directing me to hire a liveryman at the Landing 
 and send him down, he flattened himself out on a pile 
 of sage-brush and collapsed utterly. But I had not 
 proceeded far before I met a man with a team and 
 wagon, the latter bearing a hayrack filled with provisions 
 which he was taking to a crew of men who were work- 
 ing on an irrigating ditch. To him I explained the 
 situation, and as he knew Daughtrey he agreed to take 
 us to the Landing. We found Daughtrey in a sound 
 sleep and in the midst of a fearful nightmare. Upon 
 seeing his friend he fell all over him, assured him 
 that he was the best looking man he had seen for a 
 year, and oflfered to pay him in advance for taking 
 us to the Landing. We finally arrived there at seven 
 o'clock, tired and hungry, but thankful that we were 
 alive. 
 
 After a hearty meal I went to my room at a hotel 
 
384 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 and was proceeding to retire, though it was not yet 
 dark, \yhen there was a vigorous rap at my door. It 
 proved to be a messenger sent by a delegation of the 
 town people to invite me to participate in a debate, 
 As several. hundred persons had been detained for two 
 days in the town on account of the prevailing conditions, 
 with nothing to do, it was thought expedient to hold a 
 political meeting, particularly as Mr. Galloway, the 
 Democratic candidate for Governor, W. R. Holmes, 
 nominee on the same ticket for Attorney General, and 
 other prominent politicians were among the visitors. 
 As I could think of no plausible re.ason for declining, 
 I re-dressed myself (as that seemed to be the only 
 redress within my reach) and proceeded to the public 
 hall where there was a joint debate which lasted until 
 midnighjt. 
 
 The next morning, before arising, while thinking over 
 the experiences of the preceding two days and nights, 
 I wondered why I was not at home attending to my 
 every-day duties, amid normal and pleasant surround- 
 ings, instead of engaged in campaign work for others, 
 with no compensation whatever— only my actual ex- 
 penses being paid — while I hired out of my own pocket 
 a man to take my place on the farm! 
 
 But, then, no man who enters deeply into political 
 life can justly claim to be in normal condition. 
 
 A special car was sent to Pendleton that day to take 
 a few of us there, and two days later I reached La 
 Grande, where the last meeting of the campaign was 
 held on Saturday. I had gone to Arlington on Monday 
 ^nd should have been in La Grande on Tuesday. 
 
 I remained in Union County for a week waiting for 
 the Columbia to subside, when I returned to Pendle- 
 ton; but the railroad tracks had not been repaired and 
 the company sent all its passengers to Portland by way 
 of Walla Walla, Spokane and Tacoma. We made the 
 trip from Kelso to Portland on the Northern Pacific 
 transfer boat. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 385 
 
 On this campaign, though closely following Governor 
 Pennoyer, I saw him but once. He addressed the people 
 at Heppner the same night I was at Arlington. The 
 next morning there was a train from Heppner to the 
 Junction and he arrived there, nine miles from Arling- 
 ton, very early in the morning. The fact is, there was 
 nothing at the Junction except the mere junction, and 
 as no trains were running there was no place to go, 
 nobody to see and nothing to do. After looking about 
 for a few minutes, His Excellency spied a shack not 
 far away which looked as if it might have an occupant. 
 To this he went and rapped on the door. There was 
 no response. Pounding again on the door with great' 
 vigor, he finally succeeded in eliciting the inquiry, made in 
 no gentle tone : 
 
 "Who the d 1 are you?" 
 
 The brogue smacked decidedly of the Emerald Isle. 
 Pennoyer replied in that peculiarly bland tone for which 
 he was justly famed: 
 
 "I am Governor Pennoyer, and I would like to get 
 a bite of breakfast." 
 
 "Well," said the voice inside the cabin, "I have been 
 up all night and am not going to get up now, not even 
 fur a Guv'ner." 
 
 But Pennoyer insisted that he let him in, at least, 
 as there was no place to go. To this the Irishman re- 
 sponded : 
 
 "Ah, go on wid ye ! As ye said to President Cleve- 
 land, 'You attend to your own business and I'll attend 
 to mine.' " 
 
 This was too much for the mirthful Governor. 
 Abandoning the siege, he turned his face toward Arling- 
 ton, nine miles away, in company with a companion 
 who had listened to his interview with the Irishman, 
 and who reported the joke on His Excellency. I was 
 standing on the main street of Arlington about eleven 
 o'clock on that day in conversation with a group of 
 belated pilgrims when we saw Pennoyer walking toward 
 us, grip in hand, bearing every evidence of excessive 
 
386 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 fatigue. When he reached us, I introduced him to the 
 little gathering and he told us of his experience, omitting, 
 however, his encounter with the son of Erin. He said 
 that was the longest walk he had taken in twenty years. 
 He remained in Arlington for a day and night, then 
 started for Portland in a small boat, accompanied by 
 three friends, and after many hardships and several 
 narrow escapes from drowning, arrived in Portland 
 in time to cast his vote on the following Monday. 
 
 During the prevalence of the Coxey's Army crusade 
 just previous to this campaign, President Cleveland had 
 advised many of the Governors as to their duties in the 
 management of the disorders it occasioned, and to his 
 message sent to Governor Pennoyer the latter replied 
 as follows : 
 
 To the President : 
 
 Yours is received. If you will attend to your busi- 
 ness I will attend to mine. 
 
 Sylvester Pennoyer, 
 
 Governor. 
 
 This telegram was eminently characteristic of Pen- 
 noyer, and his curt, not to say undignified, reply to the 
 President caused wide and unfavorable comment; but 
 this only pleased the Governor. Because of his loyalty 
 to the gold standard Pennoyer had a great loathing 
 for the President, and one year, in order to show his 
 independence of the "Great Apostate," appointed a dif- 
 ferent day for the observance of Thanksgiving from 
 that named by him. 
 
CHAPTER LI 
 
 When the Legislature met in January, 1895, John H. 
 Mitchell had been United States Senator from Oregon 
 for fifteen years, Joseph N. Dolph for twelve years and 
 Binger Hermann had been in the lower House of 
 Congress for ten years. These were three able men 
 and their influence in Congress was at least equal to 
 that of the delegation of any other State. Indeed, it was 
 frequently declared by Eastern observers that no other 
 State had two Senators who stood so well in the Senate 
 in point of ability and who secured so much in the way 
 of appropriations for home improvements, as had 
 Oregon. Mitchell was a man of wonderful personality 
 and popularity, and had great influence among his col- 
 leagues. Dolph, though not so genial in his manner, 
 was the stronger man intellectually and his addresses 
 before the Senate always held the attention of his as- 
 sociates. He had a commanding presence and there 
 was a substantiality to his conclusions that indicated 
 profound research and unquestioned sincerity. He was 
 not a demagogue in any sense and declared his convictions 
 without any regard whatever for their effect on his 
 political fortunes. 
 
 Binger Hermann was one of the smoothest politicians 
 Oregon has ever produced (and that is "going some" 
 for Hermann) and his ability to secure help for his 
 State from the Federal Treasury was unequalled by any 
 other Representative in Congress. These three men 
 were so successful in obtaining what they asked for 
 from Congress that Oregon gained great prestige in the 
 nation at large and their constituencies were justly 
 proud of them. 
 
 Mr. Dolph was a pronounced advocate of the gold 
 standard, having given much thought to the question, 
 
 m 
 
388 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 and before it became a matter of general discussion had 
 delivered several speeches in the Senate relative to what 
 he could foresee would soon develop into a national issue. 
 His term expired on March 4, 1895, just in the midst 
 of the Populist wave which overspread the country, but 
 his attitude on the money question remained unchanged 
 and he went down to defeat at the hands of Repub- 
 lican members of the Legislature, who were bound that 
 no "gold bug" should represent them in the Senate. 
 
 Senator Mitchell had always been an advocate of the 
 (free coinage of silver and his friends took the initiative 
 in defeating Dolph for re-election. A sufficient number 
 of them refused to observe the action of the Republican 
 caucus wJiich re-nominated Dolph and prevented an 
 election until the last minute of the session, when the 
 name of ex-Secretary of State George W. McBride was 
 presented and he was elected. 
 
 The defeat of Senator Dolph was a great mistake on 
 the part of the Oregon Republicans who were re- 
 sponsible for it, for not only did they retire from the 
 public service a very able and conscientious statesaian 
 who had conferred distinction on his State in the United 
 States Senate, but it arrayed his friends against Mitchell 
 and was the beginning of a bitter warfare against him. 
 
 The retirement of Dolph disrupted the delegation 
 which had done so much for the State and none has 
 ever stood so well in Congress since. Hermann was 
 defeated two years later. Since then Oregon's repre- 
 sentation in the national lawmaking body has been of 
 a hit-and-miss character, frequently changing, and some- 
 times not changing fast enough, usually at variance with 
 itself and having little to do with questions of national 
 moment. 
 
 That was a splendid era in Oregon history when 
 Dolph, Mitchell and Hermann were for ten years its 
 sole representatives in Congress and were known as its 
 "working delegation." 
 
 Perhaps no Presidential campaign during the last 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 389 
 
 fifty years has so literally been one "of education" as 
 that of 1896. The question of the monetary standard 
 had finally been brought to the attention of the country 
 at large, partly through the persistent agitation of the 
 matter of fiat money by the Populists, and partly by 
 the silver interests of the West. Bryan was nominated 
 by the Democrats as a pronounced free silver champion 
 and McKinley was put forward by the Republicans on 
 a gold standard platform. There was no dodging the 
 issue and every other question was subordinated to that 
 of the future financial policy of the country. 
 
 There was a very amusing aspect to the newly- 
 developed situation in Oregon, which was also without 
 doubt witnessed elsewhere. Men who had never before 
 been known to express an opinion on the question, who 
 had not discussed public matters of any kind — men 
 whose entire lives had been devoted to daily toil on foot- 
 hill ranches, for instance — suddenly developed into 
 veritable oracles on every detail of the complicated 
 minutia of monetary problems. I knew many men who 
 had been my acquaintances for a generation and who 
 had devoted no thought to the free coinage of silver 
 or any other phase of public financial matters, who in 
 '96 would argue by the hour, or even by the half -day, 
 if an audience of only one man could be secured and 
 held, to show the tendency of the times toward "the 
 subjugation of the masses" by the operation of the gold 
 standard. Prices had been distressingly low for three 
 years and the gold standard was the cause; therefore, 
 prices could never rise and thus bring relief to the 
 masses until the gold standard was upset and the free 
 coinage of silver again adopted, and that "without wait- 
 ing for the consent of any other nation on earth !" This 
 mere reference to the matter sounds like reading an old, 
 half-forgotten story, so familiar are these phrases and 
 declarations, also these mournful predictions. 
 
 The stress of hard times which had been endured 
 by the people for a few years had produced a condition 
 favorable for the successful propagation of these 
 
390 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 fallacies, and by regiments they accepted the theory that 
 what we wanted was a cheaper currency and more of 
 it. Bryan's speech at the Chicago Convention had an 
 electrical effect upon thousands, even millions, of people 
 who afterward themselves wondered at their shortsight- 
 edness. So general was the spread of the free silver 
 gospel that in Oregon, if the election had been held 
 on the first of September, Bryan would without doubt 
 have carried it by at least five thousand majority — and 
 it required "a campaign of education" to prevent it. 
 
 I had been nominated by the Republicans at the State 
 Convention which met in Portland in April as one 
 of the four Presidential electors and, as such, took an 
 active part in the fall campaign. There was an apparent 
 hesitancy on the part of many Republicans of promi- 
 nence to begin the contest, which it was plain must be 
 waged vigorously if a victory for McKinley was to be 
 won. Senator Dolph had been retired because his atti- 
 tude had been precisely that endorsed by the National 
 Republican platform and Senator Mitchell was one of 
 the most pronounced and active free silver advocates 
 in the United States. He had repeatedly declared for 
 the very principle embodied in Bryan's platform, and 
 had contended with an earnestness not surpassed by 
 the Boy Orator of the Platte himself that it was of 
 supreme importance to the people of the United States. 
 
 Naturally, therefore, there was much speculation 
 among the people of Oregon as to what course Mitchell 
 would adopt in the situation thus presented. He him- 
 self said nothing, though repeatedly urged by the Repub- 
 licans to declare his intentions. In the early fall, how- 
 ever, he made a journey to Canton, Ohio, had an inter- 
 view with Major McKinley, returned home and an- 
 nounced that he would support the Republican National 
 ticket and that he would take the "stump" for McKinley. 
 
 But his hesitancy displeased the great body of the 
 Republicans and his decision especially angered the 
 Populists, the free silver Republicans and Democrats. 
 It was, in fact, a very hard situation for Mitchell, and 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 391 
 
 the action he finally took was the only one possible under 
 the circumstances — unless, indeed, he concluded to 
 follow the course of Jonathan Bourne, and thousands of 
 other Republicans, who bolted outright and gave their 
 support to Bryan. Bourne had been elected as Repre- 
 sentative from Multnomah County in the preceding June 
 as a Republican and was also the secretary of the Repub- 
 lican State Committee. He was, however, a strong believer 
 in the free coinage of silver and an enthusiastic admirer 
 of Mitchell, and after the national conventions had 
 been held announced his intention of supporting Bryan — • 
 and did support him. The fact that a Bryan man was 
 secretary of the Republican State Committee presented 
 a very anomalous as well as embarrassing situation and 
 largely accounted for the difficulty encountered in putting 
 any sort of life and aggressiveness into the McKinley 
 campaign. Mr. Bourne finally resigned his position, and 
 after Mitchell had decided what he would do the cam- 
 paign was formally opened on September 18, when an 
 immense meeting was held at the Marquam Theater in 
 Portland, under the auspices of the Sound Money 
 League, an organization which had been formed by 
 many of the leading Republicans of that city, who were 
 impatient with the apparent apathy of the State organi- 
 zation. I attended this meeting, and from there went 
 into Clackamas County and was not again at my home, 
 except one Sunday in October for two hours, until after 
 the election, which was held on November 3. I visited 
 almost every county in the State, speaking generally in 
 the country districts and the smaller towns, where, it 
 was thought, the greatest defections from the national 
 ticket were to be found. It was a most difficult 
 itinerary to follow, traveling by all sorts of conveyances, 
 sometimes on foot, and frequently speaking two and 
 three times a day. 
 
 I was sent to a town called Rufus, in Sherman County, 
 a railroad station merely, where at that time of the year 
 there were hundreds of farmers camped every night 
 delivering their grain from the remote sections of that 
 
392 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 district. Some of them employed three days to make 
 a trip and return. It was a very populous place during 
 the grain delivery season but was abandoned for the 
 remainder of the year. 
 
 I arrived at Rufus in the afternoon and found every- 
 body very busy. As nobody appeared to be interested 
 in politics just then, I went to the hotel and entertained 
 myself without molesting those who appeared to be in 
 better business. There I discovered an old schoolmate 
 whom I had known in Silverton, nearly forty years 
 before, and who had lived in the old town all this time. 
 He was one of its well-known business men, and was 
 so much better dressed than I had ever seen him before 
 that I was really surprised — also surprised to see him 
 where he was. So I said: 
 
 "Why, hello, Os! What in the world are you doing 
 here? It's the first time I have seen you outside of 
 Silverton for thirty years." 
 
 He explained that he was off for a short vacation 
 and that he was visiting some of his wife's relatives 
 who lived not far away. 
 
 After supper, and when I had concluded that it was 
 about time for somebody to be looking after the meet- 
 ing, I was sitting in the hotel office near a table and my 
 friend was at another, some twenty feet to my rear. 
 Suddenly two men came, somewhat out of breath, looked 
 at me a moment and passed on to the Silverton visitor, 
 when one of them said: 
 
 "I beg your pardon, but are you the gentleman who 
 is to speak here to-night?" 
 
 "No, sir," I heard him reply, "I am here on a visit 
 only." 
 
 "Oh, I beg your pardon," the other returned. "You 
 are the only man in the room who looks like a speaker 
 and I thought you must be the man we are after. 
 We are the committee." 
 
 At this my friend explained who the speaker was, 
 but by this time I had presented myself, laughingly 
 apologizing for my ordinary appearance, and the four of 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 393 
 
 us went to the meeting where several hundred farmers 
 had assembled, all deeply interested in Mr. Bryan's 
 declaration that wheat, then bringing fifty cents a bushel, 
 would never bring a higher price until we got rid of 
 the gold standard. 
 
 On the night of Septeniber 30, I addressed a meeting 
 in the town of Tillamook, and the next night, accom- 
 panied by a dozen of the prominent Republicans of that 
 place, took a gasoline launch and started across the Bay 
 to hold a meeting at Bay City, some ten miles away. 
 We did not start until after dark and the night was 
 very foggy. When we had traveled about long enough 
 to have arrived at our destination we saw a light, but 
 as we were getting ready to disembark, it was discovered 
 that it was the lantern hanging at our starting point! 
 We had made a huge circle around the Bay and returned 
 to Tillamook. 
 
 It was then time tor tne meeting to begin, but we 
 concluded, as the night was pleasant, to make another 
 trial, explain to the people the cause of the delay — it 
 was thought not good policy thus to disappoint a "bunch" 
 of voters whose support was likely to be badly needed — 
 and perhaps return by midnight. 
 
 Upon the second trial the captain was more successful 
 and landed us at the Bay City wharf at nine-thirty. 
 We were met by a committee which announced that the 
 schoolhouse on the hillside was "full of men and women 
 who had been waitin' for two hours," so we proceeded 
 there at once. We found them singing "In the Sweet 
 Bye and Bye," "Onward Christian Soldiers," etc. When 
 we entered I at once began to explain how it was, and 
 had been, with us — that I regretted the affair very much 
 and hoped that at some future time I might have the 
 opportunity, etc., etc. — but there were loud protests at 
 any postponement, one man rising and saying that the 
 people wanted to hear the speech, that there had been, 
 it appeared to them, a disposition to slight their locality 
 
394 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 because it was somewhat out of the way, and that they 
 proposed to remain. 
 
 I surrendered at once and the meeting proceeded, 
 occupying an hour and a half. After it was over we 
 again boarded our launch. The captain said that if 
 we hurried we might be able to retrace our course across 
 the Bay, since the tide was just beginning to recede; 
 on a low tide we would be compelled to make a detour 
 of several additional miles. So we started straight across 
 the Bay on an ebbing tide and when not more than 
 a half-mile from Bay City struck a sand bar. Of course, 
 on a falling tide it was impossible to get away, and in 
 five minutes we felt the boat settling into the sand. 
 
 Within an hour our little craft was "high and dry" 
 and not a drop of water within three hundred yards 
 of us. We had no bedding, no luncheon, not even a 
 peanut to take off the edge of our keen appetites, not 
 even so much as a stool upon which to sit. There was 
 a pile of slab-wood which was used for fuel, upon which 
 a few of us lounged by turns. One of the men had 
 his wife along, as she insisted upon having a little 
 "outing," and she proved about the bravest and most 
 patient of the entire crew, as is usually the case. 
 
 About daylight we saw the tide returning and at seven 
 o'clock or thereabouts were able to float once more and 
 proceed to Tillamook, where we ate a late breakfast 
 of fresh salmon and other delicacies that carried terror 
 to the heart of the astonished landlord. 
 
 On account of this delay I missed the stage that 
 morning for Portland, where I had expected to attend 
 a meeting addressed by Roswell G. Horr, a noted cam- 
 paigner from Michigan. But I enjoyed the day with 
 friends in Tillamook, after taking a nap of a few hours 
 duration, and became very much interested in that 
 splendid region which constitutes one of the finest dairy 
 countries in the world. Before many years there will 
 be a coast line from Astoria to San Francisco, making 
 the coast counties of Oregon one of the most desirable 
 and prosperous sections of the Northwest, The Coast 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 395 
 
 range of mountains is not rocky, being unlike the 
 Cascades in that respect, and with its relatively mild 
 climate and productive soil will furnish homes for mil- 
 lions of people from its summit to the very beach of 
 the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 There is something very fascinating in the work of 
 a campaign like that of 1896. There was absorbing 
 interest manifested in the questions at issue and the 
 people were deeply concerned as to the outcome of the 
 contest. For this reason the attendance was always 
 large and the interest never permitted to lag. If your 
 friends were too few in number to greet you frequently 
 with "tremendous applause," the "enemy" was quite 
 likely to make it warm enough to answer all reasonable 
 purposes. I remember that I once addressed a meeting 
 at a place called Bellevue, in Yamhill County, which was 
 held in the afternoon in a schoolhouse. I was invited 
 there by the only Republican in the precinct, as it 
 turned out afterward. He had written that it was a 
 good place to "do missionary work," since the Populists 
 were overwhelmingly in the majority, but was careful 
 to conceal from me the fact that they constituted about 
 ninety-nine per cent of the population and were on the 
 warpath for every Republican scalp from John Sherman 
 down. 
 
 I had spoken at McMinnville the evening before, and 
 three prominent Republicans from there drove over to 
 Bellevue to attend the meeting. When we arrived within 
 sight of the place — only a schoolhouse at a crossroads — 
 there was a crowd waiting for me, most of them sitting 
 on the fences, whittling and relating what they would 
 do to me when I should make my "gold bug" speech. 
 
 We tied our horses to a maple tree near by and pro- 
 ceeded to the schoolhouse. It was decidedly the coldest 
 greeting — if that be the proper word to describe the 
 manner in which the suspicious people eyed us — one can 
 imagine. After we went in the house was soon fillled 
 and Watt Henderson, the sheriff of the county, and one 
 
396 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 of those accompanying me, called them to order — there 
 were no local Republicans — and I began my "remarks.'' 
 I liad not talked more than five minutes before a long- 
 whiskered fellow who was sitting in a window-sill in- 
 terrupted me with the intimation that he would demand 
 the proof before he would believe what I had just said. 
 I had copied the statement from a speech in the Con- 
 gressional Record, which I had at home, but, although 
 I gave the date and page, my questioner said that was 
 not sufficient. He wanted the Record itself, and added 
 that the country was full of gold bug speakers who were 
 fooling the workingmen with rot for which there was 
 no foundation. He was not satisfied, he said, with mere 
 quotations. "Give us facts," etc. 
 
 That was the signal for a display of fireworks that 
 knew no cessation for fully two hours. Finally, as I 
 was to speak at Sheridan that night, I was compelled to 
 •adjourn the meeting, which was done amid the greatest 
 confusion. When I had reached the door one of the 
 men again attacked me, with his tongue, also with a very 
 threatening attitude physically, and, with the entire 
 gathering surrounding us, said I had not once referred 
 to so and so, and that was the most important thing he 
 wanted to hear. All the Republican speakers dodged it, 
 he said. So I returned to the platform, called the meet- 
 ing to order, and we had an encore that lasted for ten 
 minutes. 
 
 After this I was allowed to escape, for which piece 
 of good luck I have never since failed to be thankful. 
 Although such experiences were not uncommon in 
 Oregon at that time, that was the "fiercest" exhibition 
 of political enthusiasm (I use the word enthusiasm 
 rather than intolerance out of deference to that spirit of 
 charity which I have since cultivated and developed) I 
 ever encountered in my twenty years' campaigning in 
 Oregon. 
 
 A few years since I was relating some of the pleasures, 
 surprises and hardships I had "met up with" while 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 397 
 
 engaged in campaign work to Fred Lockley, the genial 
 manager of the Pacific Monthly, among which was the 
 trip to Tillamook. This reminded him of an experience 
 he had in the Coast Mountains once upon a time, when 
 canvassing for the Salem Statesman, that is worth 
 listening to. 
 
 "It was in November," said Lockley, "and the rainy 
 season was on. I was traveling on horseback and was 
 on my way from Woods to Tillamook. Night overtook 
 me and houses were few and far apart. Occasionally 
 there would be a little clearing, with a cabin in it, and 
 then it would be dense timber for a mile or two. The 
 rain was falling in torrents and I was wet through. 
 Suddenly I spied a light through the timber and it soon 
 proved to be in a log cabin not far ahead. Arriving 
 at the house I shouted at the top of my voice and a man 
 came to the door. I told him my predicament and that 
 I would be glad for merely a shelter for myself and 
 horse until morning. He said he would be pleased to 
 have me stay all night, so we put my horse in a small 
 stable near by. He gave me some supper and soon 
 afterwards showed me where to sleep. The room was 
 a 'lean to' about seven feet square, and I was glad 
 enough to retire and rest, also to divest myself of my 
 soaked clothing. 
 
 "The bed had not been 'made up,' but I cared nothing 
 for that. There was plenty of bedding and a good 
 pillow, which still showed the impression of the head 
 of its last occupant. As the air was filled with a dank 
 odor which was not pleasant, I tried to raise the single 
 window at the foot of the bed, but I found it had been 
 nailed in. I decided finally that I was lucky to have a 
 bed and shelter at all and retired. 
 
 "I slept exceedingly well and awoke the next morning 
 refreshed and feeling like a new man. When I appeared 
 for breakfast, my host asked how I had rested. 
 
 " 'Oh, splendidly,' I replied. 'The bed was soft and 
 I was dead to the world until morning.' 
 
 "'Well, I'm glad of that,' responded the fellow, as 
 
398 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 he poured out two cups of black coffee, 'you see my wife 
 died in that room two weeks ago of pneumonia and I 
 haven't had the heart to go into it since they carried her 
 out for the funeral.' 
 
 "One cup of coffee was all the breakfast I wanted," 
 continued Lockley, "and it took me several months to 
 banish even partially from my mind the picture of that 
 impression in the pillow in which I had laid my head 
 for the splendid night's rest which followed." 
 
CHAPTER LII 
 
 The Republicans carried Oregon in 1896 for McKinley 
 by a majority slightly above two thousand and had elected 
 a Republican Legislature in June of that year. This 
 body was to choose a successor to John H. Mitchell in 
 the United States Senate, and at the time it was chosen 
 it was deemed safely in favor of his re-election, but his 
 decision to support McKinley and, tacitly at least, to 
 desert the cause of free silver, cost him the support of 
 a large number of his former friends. The leader of 
 this defection was Jonathan Bourne, at present a United 
 State Senator from Oregon, who openly supported Bryan 
 for President, though claiming to be "as good a Repub- 
 lican as anybody." 
 
 The fact was that at the time of his nomination there 
 was an understanding that in return for his support of 
 Mitchell for re-election, if he should be successful at the 
 polls, Mitchell would lend his aid toward Bourne's elec- 
 tion as Speaker of the House. When the time came to 
 "deliver the goods" Mitchell found Bourne was a Bryan 
 man and that it was impossible to carry out his agree- 
 ment. This, together with his abandonment of the free 
 silver propaganda, was the cause of a decision on the 
 part of some of his former friends to defeat him for 
 re-election at any cost. It was known that if the Legis- 
 lature should organize, Mitchell's election was certain 
 to follow; therefore, the desperate alternative to prevent 
 an organization was deliberately planned. The course 
 pursued was to refuse attendance, to prevent a quorum 
 being present at any time. This scheme, revolutionary in 
 its essence, was adopted until the constitutional limit of 
 an Oregon Legislative session had been reached, when 
 the members went home without any kind of legislative 
 business having been transacted. The Senate was organ- 
 ized but was powerless to proceed with its work. 
 
 399 
 
400 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 The leading assistant of J(,)nathan Bourne in tliis bold 
 expedient for "getting even" was W. S. U'Ren, then 
 a Populist member from Clackamas County, and at 
 present the leading advocate of the single tax proposition 
 in Oregon. Mr. Bourne was a very wealthy man and 
 spent his money freely in his effort to "teach Mitchell 
 a lesson." He maintained magnificent quarters and en- 
 tertained lavishly, holding his organization together 
 with a degree of success that marked him a master in 
 the art of political manipulation. 
 
 From an impartial standpoint, there was no justifica- 
 tion whatever for this move. It was plainly revolu- 
 tionary; there was no reason offered at any time except 
 the bold decision to prevent the re-election of Senator 
 Mitchell, and the fair man will admit that this was 
 no reason at all. And yet what shall the ultimate verdict 
 be when it is recalled that within nine years from that 
 time Jonathan Bourne was himself elected United States 
 Senator by the Legislature, the people of Oregon having 
 voted in his favor against several other prominent Re- 
 publicans at the primary nominating election and after- 
 ward against one of the most popular Democrats in the 
 State? 
 
 In the meantime Mr. Bourne had done nothing in 
 politics to atone in any way for his course, if, indeed, 
 any atonement were necessary, and, in view of his 
 popular endorsement, it seemed not to be required. 
 
 The failure to organize the Legislature, and the conse- 
 quent lack of appropriations with which to carry on the 
 State government, cost the people many thousands of 
 dollars; but, as another illustration of the wayward 
 course of politics, the men who were responsible for it 
 have since been regarded as the especial friends of the 
 people and have be^n particularly honored by them. 
 
 The three men who were chosen McKinley's electors 
 in 1896 besides myself were Hon. John F. Caples, Hon. 
 E. L. Smith and Hon. S. M. Yoran. They were all good 
 speakers and took a prominent part in the campaign 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 401 
 
 which brought success to our ticket. Having "won out," 
 I was quite anxious to be chosen messenger to carry the 
 vote to Washington — principally for the reason that I 
 had never been in the National Capital — and I made my 
 aspiration known to my associates soon after the elec- 
 tion. Mr. Caples had once before been an elector from 
 Oregon and had been chosen as messenger, so he was 
 willing to keep out of the contest. Mr. Yoran, it de- 
 veloped at once, was as desirous to act in that capacity 
 as I was and was an active candidate for the trip. 
 
 According to law, we met in the State Capitol on 
 January 11, and, after organizing, cast our votes for 
 McKinley and Hobart for President and Vice-President, 
 respectively, of the United States. 
 
 Having attended to this little affair, which was of 
 secondary importance, for there seemed a general im- 
 pression that it would turn out that way even before 
 we met, the more interesting business of choosing a mes- 
 senger was taken up. Judge Caples was the chairman, 
 and we proceeded to cast our votes by putting in his silk 
 tile three slips of paper, on each of which was the name 
 of one of the three contestants. Smith, Yoran and myself. 
 After giving the hat a thorough shaking the Judge 
 placed his hand within it and took hold of one of the 
 pieces of paper. He hesitated for a moment to take 
 it out, making one of his familiar grimaces, but finally 
 brought it to light, and it bore the name of E. L. Smith. 
 
 Then something out of the ordinary happened. Mr. 
 Smith arose and said: 
 
 "Mr. Chairman, I would like to make this trip to 
 Washington and have fairly won the opportunity, but 
 my two colleagues want to go so much more than I do, 
 if I may judge by the look of disappointment on their 
 faces, that I will forego the advantage I have gained. 
 I propose that this vote be taken over, in order that one 
 of them may have a chance to win. I woiild rather 
 there ivoitld he one funeral over this matter than two." 
 
 Mr. Yoran and I protested against Mr. Smith's gen- 
 erous ofifer, but he insisted upon another vote ; so, rather 
 
402 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 than appear rude, we surrendered. After another 
 shakeup, a paper was drawn out and I was the successful 
 contestant. I tried hard to follow Mr. Smith's example, 
 but some way it didn't work; besides, after studying Mr. 
 Yoran's countenance for a moment, I became satisfied 
 that he would survive the disappointment. Subsequent 
 events have justified my conclusion, since he is to-day 
 one of the active business men of Eugene and in the 
 best of health. 
 
 On my way to Washington I stopped off at Canton 
 to pay my respects to Mr. McKinley, arriving there 
 January 23. I found him very busy, of course, and 
 several men waiting for an interview. One of these, 
 a man from Kentucky, was visibly abashed when, his 
 turn having come, McKinley took his hand and said by 
 his expression that he was glad to see him — but what 
 was it? 
 
 The pilgrim from the blue-grass section stammered 
 that he was an applicant for an appointment and pro- 
 ceeded to give his reasons for expecting his request to 
 be granted. Mr. McKinley replied in his gracious 
 manner that he could not yet make any promise; that 
 he desired to favor his friends where it was possible 
 without crippling the public service ; that he had a special 
 love for Kentuckians, anyway, and that later he would 
 be glad to hear further from his visitor. By this time 
 they were near the door and the man was bowed out, 
 carrying away a very favorable impression of the Presi- 
 dent-elect, I have no doubt. He probably went home 
 to his neighbors with a story that he had McKinley's 
 promise for his appointment. 
 
 From him the Major came at once to where I was 
 seated and looked at me inquiringly. I arose and said 
 that I had no business, that I did not want any appoint- 
 ment — not then, at least — but that I was the messenger 
 from Oregon bearing to Washington the electoral vote 
 of that State for him. 
 
 At this he asked me to sit down, and added : "Now, 
 if you had gone to Washington, passing through Canton, 
 
FIFTY YFARS IN OREGON 403 
 
 and had not called to see me, an apology would have 
 been in order." He said he recalled that at the Min- 
 neapolis Convention in 1892, of which he was chair- 
 man, the Oregon delegation wanted to make him Presi- 
 dent before he was ready. He then commented upon the 
 fact that Oregon was the only State west of the Rocky 
 Mountains that had given him its electoral vote, all 
 the others being for Bryan except California, which was 
 divided. He was perfectly familiar with the details of 
 the campaign we had waged in Oregon and desired, 
 through me, to thank its people for their support. 
 
 After the inauguration of President McKinley on 
 March 4, there was, naturally enough, an active move- 
 ment among the Oregon Republicans toward the Federal 
 appointments which would follow a chcinge of adminis- 
 tration. In fact, this movement began without any 
 unnecessary delay after the result of the November elec- 
 tion was known. As I could truthfully claim to have 
 traveled over a greater portion of the State in the '96 
 campaign and to have made more addresses than any 
 other speaker, it was generally conceded that my ambi- 
 tion to be appointed collector of customs at Portland 
 should be gratified. A monster petition to the President 
 for my appointment was secured and forwarded to the 
 delegation in Congress, consisting of Senator Geo. W. 
 McBride and Representatives W. R. Ellis and Thomas H. 
 Tongue. Of all the persons in the State to whom this 
 petition was presented, there was but one man who did 
 not append his signature willingly. Indeed, there was 
 no opposition from any quarter and I felt as sure of 
 receiving the appointment as I was that McKinley had 
 been inaugurated. I was fully aware that there are 
 many slips in politics, but in this case there was no doubt. 
 It was a sure thing! 
 
 But when the petition was forwarded it met with no 
 response from the delegation. After waiting a month, 
 I sent a letter of inquiry and was informed that the 
 petition had been received, but that it had not yet been 
 read, since it was the intention of the President to 
 
404 (FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 recognize the "gold" Democrats, where possible, and that 
 as the then incumbent of the office of collector of 
 customs was a "gold" Democrat, it was not likely there 
 would be any change in that position in the near future. 
 There was such a coldness, such an air of indifference 
 with regard to the whole matter, that much speculation 
 was aroused among my friends as to what it all meant. 
 Many insisted that there must be some understanding, 
 some obligation on the part of the delegation to dispose 
 of this appointment in some other way, and it was freely 
 predicted that subsequent events would prove it. It 
 may be said at this late day, and without the slightest 
 remnant of bitterness toward anybody, that the days 
 of prophecy have not yet passed altogether. 
 
 This question of the appointment of collector of 
 customs assumed great importance and was taken up by 
 my friends all over the State — by them more than by 
 myself. There was such pressure brought to bear upon 
 the hesitating delegation that it was finally announced 
 by them that upon their return to Portland in August 
 the matter would be fully considered. On the twenty- 
 seventh of that month, therefore, I went to Portland 
 and had a conference with them, but the explanations 
 presented seemed to explain nothing. I returned home 
 with the information only that it was evidently the pur- 
 pose of the President to retain the Democratic incum- 
 bent indefinitely, the most discouraging feature of it, 
 however, being that there was no promise that I should 
 receive their endorsement for the position when, in the 
 course of human events, the change would be made. 
 
 On September 4 I went to Portland again, to look 
 further into the situation, and learned on the streets, 
 before reaching my hotel, that the delegation had that 
 morning recommended to the President my appointment 
 as register of the United States Land Ofifice at Oregon 
 City — an appointment which no member of it had ever 
 consulted me about and for which I had not been a 
 candidate. This utter disregard of the petition of the 
 Oregon Republicans, more especially since it appeared 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 405 
 
 to justify the general suspicion that there was a prior 
 poHtical trade which interfered with its recognition, 
 created a wave of indignation throughout the State. 
 Within a week I received more than one hundred letters 
 urging me not to accept the Oregon City appointment, 
 if made. These letters were from prominent and in- 
 fluential Republicans in the various counties, all promis- 
 ing me their support for the nomination for Governor 
 or Congress the next year, unless in the meantime their 
 request that I be appointed collector of customs, or a 
 promise of the recommendation of the Congressional 
 delegation, be granted. 
 
 My own impulse was to decline the appointment and 
 take my chances with the people for a vindication, since 
 I was occupying a more prominent place in politics than I 
 had hoped for; but, on the other hand, to reject the 
 recommendation was a bold move, which I hesitated to 
 make — and yet no bolder than that which had been 
 "handed to me." 
 
 However, I finally decided, yielding both to my own 
 preference and to the persistent demands of friends in 
 all parts of the State, to notify the delegation that I 
 would not accept the appointment for the Land Office. 
 Accordingly I wrote the following letter to the delega- 
 tion and sent a copy to the Oregonian, in which it was 
 published the next day : 
 
 Macleay, Dr., September 17, 1897. 
 To Senator G. W. McBride and Representatives 
 W. R. Ellis and T. H. Tongue : 
 
 Gentlemen, — Regarding your recommendation for 
 my appointment as register of the Oregon City Land 
 Office, I beg leave to say that extended reflection has 
 only served to confirm my first conclusion not to 
 accept the appointment, if made. 
 
 There are two controlling reasons which impel me 
 to this decision, the first of which is that I have 
 never been a candidate, in any sense, for the position 
 for which I was recommended, as an examination of 
 my personal letters and petitions in my behalf will 
 
4o6 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 surely show; and for the further reason that several 
 months ago I joined in recommending a personal 
 friend for the Oregon City office — a bar to my accept- 
 ance which I cannot persuade myself to overlook. 
 
 I dislike very much to be considered a "miscel- 
 laneous candidate" for any position on the political 
 chessboard that may be parceled out to me by those 
 having the "placing" of the men. I had, and still have, 
 what I regard as a laudable ambition to be collector 
 of customs for this district, but if in your judgment 
 the best interests of the public service and of the Re- 
 publican party (and, of course, in cases like this we 
 are not influenced by other considerations) demand 
 that this request of myself and friends be denied, then 
 I bow as gracefully as possible to your decision, but 
 must insist upon my privilege of declining to be a 
 candidate for any other appointment. 
 
 It goes without saying, gentlemen, that my attach- 
 ment to the Republican party is supported by un- 
 diminished ardor, for, in my judgment, there has been 
 no time in its history when it was more nearly right 
 on all public questions than now ; and the years to 
 come will, I'm sure, find us, as heretofore, battling 
 side by side for the success of the principles we love 
 so well. 
 
 With kind regards, I am, etc. 
 
 This letter, "if it is me as says it," created a great 
 sensation in Oregon politics and at once changed the 
 trend of affairs in the Republican party of the State. 
 I received hundreds of letters from every section con- 
 gratulating me upon the stand I had taken and the letter 
 was copied in practically every paper of the State. My 
 decision was very generally commended, though there 
 were a few who predicted that it was a fatal mistake 
 for me politically and that it would prove the end of 
 my connection with Oregon politics. The phrase "mis- 
 cellaneous candidate" was taken up as being especially 
 "catchy," and for many months was a popular slogan in 
 the discussion of events and prospects in our rapidly 
 changing political maneuvers. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 407 
 
 At once there was a general movement among my 
 friends to secure my nomination for Governor and the 
 proposition appeared to grow in favor as the months 
 went by. My only competitor was Governor Lord him- 
 self, whose term was drawing to a close and for whose 
 election I had canvassed the State four years before. 
 His home was in Marion County, as was mine, and he 
 had the county, as well as the Salem city government, 
 in his favor; naturally, he had also the support of the 
 different State institutions. The combination made it 
 a very hotly contested primary campaign, for it was 
 understood that if either lost Marion County he would 
 be out of the race. 
 
 The result was that I carried every precinct in the 
 county but the one in which Governor Lord lived, though 
 the vote was so close that many of the large ones were 
 carried by my friends by a margin of only two or three 
 votes. 
 
 With Governor Lord declining to carry the contest 
 any further, I had no opposition in the State Convention, 
 which met in Astoria in April, and was nominated there 
 by acclamation — the only instance of the kind in the 
 history of the Republican party of Oregon. 
 
 I did not attend the Astoria Convention — indeed, it 
 will no doubt surprise many of my most intimate friends 
 to be told that I never attended a State convention in 
 my life as a delegate, and but once as a spectator, in 
 1894, when Judge Lord was nominated OA-er Charles W. 
 Fulton. On that occasion I was an onlooker for an hour. 
 When the Astoria Convention was in session I was at 
 home on my farm. It was the season of the year for 
 "working the roads" and, together with a dozen of the 
 neighbors, I was manipulating the business end of a 
 long-handled shovel about five o'clock in the afternoon 
 when a group of children, returning from school at 
 Macleay, saw me in the distance and began to shout 
 the news that had reached there before they left. 
 
 How I first heard of my nomination for Governor 
 got into the papers, in some way, and the opposition 
 
4o8 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 took it up as a "fairy story, put forth for political effect," 
 etc. ; but this is the true account of it — not at all remark- 
 able when the circumstances leading up to it are recalled. 
 
 In a book of this character I could not do less than 
 to give this abbreviated account of an incident in Oregon 
 politics of which I happened to be a central figure, and 
 which occasioned as much feeling and excitement as 
 any other minor event in our history. By degrees I had 
 been drawn into a prominence which I had not courted, 
 and the great McKinley-Bryan campaign had, without 
 any desire on my part, thrust me somewhat to the fore 
 in the State campaign. It had been a hard contest and 
 the triumph was won by a very small margin. I had not 
 wanted to be a Presidential elector, and realizing that I 
 was nominated largely as a salve to the wound I re- 
 ceived at the District Convention, when I failed to receive 
 the nomination for Congress, I thought seriously at first 
 of declining the honor. 
 
 The Oregon City Land Office affair created a great 
 furore at the time and the delegation in Congress was 
 denounced with much harshness on account of it ; but the 
 unpleasant features of it soon passed away and its mem- 
 bers and myself were afterwards the same friends we had 
 been for years before. Thomas H. Tongue remained in 
 Congress until his death, in December, 1902, grew in 
 popularity both at home and with his colleagues at 
 Washington, and his demise was a great loss to Oregon. 
 He was a man of especial ability, of untiring industry 
 and a very forceful speaker. 
 
 Senator George W. McBride retired from the Senate 
 at the expiration of his term in 1901 and was at once 
 appointed by President McKinley as one of the Govern- 
 ment Commissioners at the St. Louis Exposition, which 
 position he held for four years. For twenty years he 
 suffered from a distressing physical ailment, but through 
 it all was a marvel of fortitude and optimism. Much of 
 the time during his eight years' service as Secretary of 
 State he was bedfast, but supervised his work without 
 cessation. During his six years' term in the Senate 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 409 
 
 he was also a constant victim of bodily infirmities. 
 After a remarkable career, he passed away at his home 
 in Portland during the present summer, in the month 
 of June. 
 
 William R. Ellis was defeated for renomination at the 
 Astoria Convention, after serving in Congress for six 
 years, but was at once elected judge of his district in 
 eastern Oregon. At the end of his six-year term, he 
 declined a renomination and sought an endorsement for 
 his former place in Congress under the direct primary 
 law which had been adopted. In this he was successful, 
 but after serving two terms was defeated for a third 
 one in April of this year — 191 1. In the case of Mr. Ellis 
 it may be said that he had the satisfaction of defeating 
 me for the Congressional nomination at the primary 
 election in April, 1908 — if it was any satisfaction, which 
 is doubtful, since he probably cherishes no more resent- 
 ful feeling than I do over that affair way back in '97, 
 when we were all playing the game of politics in deadly 
 earnest. 
 
 For the first time within the memory of any Oregonian 
 of middle age W. R. Ellis is in private life; but nobody 
 in his sane senses would wager a sixpence that he will 
 not be holding a remunerative public position before 
 another biennial period rolls around. 
 
CHAPTER LIII 
 
 There was a fusion of the Democrats and Populists 
 against the Republican ticket in 1898, especially against 
 the candidate for Governor. The two parties nominated 
 W. R. King, of Baker County, a prominent lawyer of 
 Baker City, who had served as a member of the lower 
 House in the Legislative session of 1893 and as State 
 Senator in the two succeeding sessions. 
 
 Naturally, the burden of the speaking campaign fell 
 to my lot and, with the State Committee, I arranged an 
 itinerary which included every county in the State. I 
 carried it out, thus accomplishing what, it was said, had 
 never been done before in one campaign. It began at 
 Toledo, in Lincoln County, on May i, and ended at 
 Vale, Malheur County, on the Saturday night before the 
 election on Monday, June 6. It was an exceedingly 
 hard campaign to make, much of the time requiring a 
 day's travel by stage, running well into the night, ter- 
 minating with accommodations that were unpleasant in 
 the extreme; but the game was big and worth a pro- 
 tracted struggle. 
 
 George M. Brown, of Roseburg, was the attorney for 
 that district and a candidate for re-election. He had 
 read that I was going into Coos and Curry counties, 
 and as they were a part of his district, he wrote asking 
 me to come to Roseburg on the evening before I was 
 to speak at Myrtle Point, some seventy-five miles from 
 Roseburg, saying that we would leave by private con- 
 veyance at six o'clock, drive twenty miles of the distance 
 in "the cool of the evening," and thus make a shorter 
 trip the next day. I accepted his invitation and we 
 started to the western coast at six o'clock from Rose- 
 burg over a splendid road, "every foot of which I am 
 familiar with, and I know all the people along it like 
 
 410 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 411 
 
 a book," said Brown. "We will drive until dark and 
 stay all night with some of my old friends. Any of 
 them will be glad to see us." 
 
 It was a most delightful drive, being one of the first 
 balmy days in May. The farms along the road were at 
 their best — and a well-kept southern Oregon farm is a 
 delight to look upon, even to live upon. We enjoyed the 
 beautiful turns in the road, shaded by the ancient black 
 oaks, and the delicious perfume of the freshly budding 
 wild flowers that abounded everywhere. V/e discussed our 
 respective prospects for election, detailed the many mis- 
 takes the enemy had made — as we saw them — and the sun 
 was setting before we realized the lateness of the hour. 
 But the moon was kind and we appreciated the benefi- 
 cence of Dame Nature, unlike the colored man who, being 
 something of a philosopher, moralized after this fashion : 
 "I don't see no use of the moon, nohow. He never 
 shines only on a right light night, and when it's dark 
 he neber shows hisself !" But Brown and I were in a 
 different mood. Every prospect was pleasing and only 
 man was to be distrusted. Finally, about eight o'clock, 
 Brown said : 
 
 "Now, there is a house where a splendid man lives 
 and we will stay all night with him." 
 
 When we drove up in front of the house, seeing his 
 friend in the yard. Brown shouted to him as only a candi- 
 date can greet a man when a campaign is on: 
 
 "Hello, there, old man! We are out campaigning 
 and would like to stay all night with you. How is it?" 
 
 "Why, hello. Brown !" he said. "I am awfully glad 
 to see you, but the fact is we have company to-night and 
 are chuck full. Sorry." 
 
 After a short conversation on local topics, we drove 
 on a mile farther, when we came to the home of another 
 of Brown's friends and found him sitting on the fence 
 by the front gate. Brown at once introduced me and 
 said we would like to stay all night and get feed for 
 our horses. 
 
 "Why," said the man, "I have room for you two men, 
 
412 FIFTY YEARS IX OREGON 
 
 but haven't a grain of horse feed left. Not long till 
 harvest, you know, and I sold all my oats last week. 
 But Smith, on ahead two miles, has a lot of oats left, 
 I'm sure." 
 
 So we drove on to Smith's and found him going from 
 his barn to his house, and, sure enough, he had an 
 abundance of oats, but his son-in-law and wife were 
 there on a visit and his spare rooms were all occupied. 
 He, also, regretted the circumstance which made it im- 
 possible to entertain us. 
 
 "Well," said Brown, as we proceeded on our way (it 
 vv'as now past nine o'clock), "the next man has a large 
 house and a big farm, and I'll bet that we will find 
 things all right there." It was but a mile farther on 
 to this place and soon, as were made a curve in the road. 
 we saw the house. It was apparently lighted from 
 cellar to garret. They were at home, all right, and 
 things looked good for us — almost too good, I remember 
 I said to Brown. It looked as though they might be 
 giving an entertainment. Arriving at the house. Brown 
 gave a shout that brought the owner of the premises 
 out to the gate and he gave us a very hearty greeting. 
 Brown told him our troubles and said he hoped we could 
 get lodging and feed for our horses, as it was then ten 
 o'clock and we were as hungry as hired men. 
 
 "Well, now," said the farmer, "it's too bad. I've 
 got all kinds of horsefeed and several spare rooms, but 
 the fact is. Brown, we are expecting an addition to the 
 family any minute now and, really, you know, it would 
 be a little embarrassing to have company at such a time, 
 especially the District Attorney and the next Governor 
 of Oregon!" 
 
 This information occasioned all three of us much mer- 
 riment, and we finally concurred in the opinion of our 
 friend that it would be a little awkward to remain there 
 over night. As we resumed our journey Brown said: 
 
 "Well don't this beat h ?" But we voted it great 
 
 fun. 
 
 About four miles farther on we came to Camas 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 413 
 
 Prairie, where lived a preacher named Coon, one of the 
 old-fashioned kind who was about three-fourths re- 
 tired, being then fully eighty years of age. Brown knew 
 him well, he said, and though it was then just twelve 
 o'clock, he was sure we could get accommodations with- 
 out trouble. His good wife was seventy-five years old, 
 so we felt that at least one of the obstacles we had 
 encountered would not meet us here ; and, as for the 
 horses, it would be better for them to rest without food 
 than to travel without it. 
 
 We found the old people had retired, of course, but 
 by a persistent rapping at the door we aroused the old 
 gentleman. Upon ascertaining who it was, he was 
 hospitality itself. He dressed himself, went with us to 
 the barn, fed the horses and upon returning to the house 
 explained that, as it was very late, perhaps we would 
 not object to going to the pantry and helping ourselves 
 to whatever we could find. In fact, we were ready to 
 suggest this ourselves when he had said perhaps we 
 would "want a bite to eat." The result was Brown and 
 I stood in the pantry of old Mr. Coon at a half-hour past 
 midnight, and ate such a hearty meal of cold biscuits 
 and potatoes, sandwiched with ham, as would have 
 done credit to two hungry harvest hands. 
 
 At Marshfield, two days later, I was joined by 
 Charles S. Moore, of Klamath County, the Republican 
 candidate for State Treasurer, and we traveled together 
 from that date until the close of the campaign. We 
 made the trip from Lakeview to Burns, some two 
 hundred miles, across what is known as the Desert, most 
 of the houses being about fifty miles apart. He proved 
 a most congenial traveling companion, as he afterward 
 did a very obliging and efficient State Treasurer. He 
 made no speeches but did the "glad hand" act to per- 
 fection. He frequently explained to people privately 
 that I did the public talking, while he was along to add 
 respectability to the affair. He was then judge of 
 Klamath County, with a salary of seven hundred dollars 
 a year. At that time the constitutional salary of the 
 
414 FIFTY YEARS L\ OREGON 
 
 Treasurer of Oregon was but eight hundred dollars, it 
 being the custom for that official to lend the State funds 
 that might be on hand at intervals and retain the interest 
 thus secured. His bonds were very heavy, and since the 
 salary was so small, it was necessary to justify in this 
 manner his acceptance of the office. Owing to that 
 custom it was the most remunerative position under the 
 State Government. 
 
 When the meeting at Drain, in Douglas County, was 
 held, I was introducing Mr. Moore to several of the 
 farmers who had come to hear the speaking, having 
 myself been there in many previous campaigns, and had 
 said to Mr. Jones : 
 
 "Meet Hon. Charles S. Moore, of Klamath County, 
 our nominee for State Treasurer. He is now judge of 
 that county." 
 
 Farmer Jones was pleased to meet Mr. Moore and, 
 by way of making conversation, said : 
 
 "What is the salary of a judge in Klamath County?" 
 
 "Seven hundred dollars a year," replied the Judge. 
 
 "And what does the State Treasurer get?" continued 
 Jones. 
 
 This was a stunner to Moore, but, with a smile on 
 his face as he glanced toward me, he replied, 
 
 "Eight hundred dollars," for there was nothing else 
 to say, since there was no law, statute or constitutional, 
 for any other remuneration. 
 
 "Well," said Jones, "of course a hundred dollars is 
 worth looking after these times," and the incident was 
 over, the farmer being perfectly satisfied that Judge 
 Moore was justified in making the change, since the 
 additional returns would be a cool hundred dollars. 
 
 In traveling from Lakeview to Burns one is obliged 
 to furnish his own transportation, and since that point 
 was the terminus of the stage line Judge Moore and 
 I hired a team and buggy with which to make the 
 journey, going by way of Paisley. We also hired a 
 boy to ride on horseback to Burns to take the team back 
 to Lakeview. For this we paid fifty dollars, and we 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 415 
 
 agreed, as we rode along discussing every topic we could 
 think of from Adam's probable delinquency in that dress 
 parade afifair in the Garden of Eden to the prevailing 
 price of hops, that we could ordinarily buy on any 
 Indian reservation in Oregon two such horses as we 
 were driving for ten dollars each, while the buggy was 
 not worth a cent more than twenty dollars. We were 
 sorry we hadn't bought the outfit outright, giving it 
 afterwards to some man in Burns who was financially 
 able to accept it, for no really poor man could afford to 
 maintain it. 
 
 One day on this trip we drove from morning till 
 night without seeing a house. When evening came we 
 stopped with a family consisting of a man and wife, and 
 some eleven children, of course. Why they were there 
 we never knew, but we voted it a dispensation of Divine 
 Providence that they had not located elsewhere. The 
 night was cold and we had a huge fire in a very large 
 fireplace, the fuel used being a thrifty growth of sage- 
 brush. The fireplace was as large as the entire end of the 
 room. As building material was very expensive in that 
 remote region, of course there was a feature of economy 
 in thus saving nearly one- fourth of the cost of the shack. 
 The man had a wheelbarrow on which he had constructed 
 a light frame almost as large as the ordinary farm hay- 
 rack, and with this he would make raids on the adjacent 
 ridges and hollows, returning with a load of sage-brush 
 which, after being dumped out, would make a pile rival- 
 ing the house itself in its proportions. Of course this 
 sort of fuel was soon consumed and the individual who 
 did the wheelbarrow stunt was kept so busy at his job 
 that he had no use for the artificial heat his fuel 
 produced. 
 
 Judge Moore and I were put in a bed that night which 
 was supported by a single post placed some feet from 
 the wall ; on this rested two "rails," — real rails, too, — 
 which reached to the two walls. This was not particu- 
 larly objectionable, considering the circumstances (and 
 the nature of our mission), but about two o'clock, while 
 
4i6 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 I was dreaming of the avalanche which I hoped was 
 going to overwhelm Will R. King, I was conscious of 
 a falling sensation, which developed into the sudden dis- 
 covery that the connection between the rails and the 
 supporting post in the middle of the room had been 
 severed in some way and that Judge Moore and I were 
 nearly in a sitting posture. To remain in that attitude 
 until morning was impossible and the only alternative 
 was to call upon our host for assistance. This was soon 
 furnished, and with the aid of a hammer and nails, 
 which he found after a diligent search of a half an hour, 
 we repaired the breach — I doing the actual carpenter 
 work, while the other two indulged in near jokes at my 
 appearance, all of us arrayed in costumes which would 
 have been more appropriate for the beach or a fashion- 
 able ballroom. 
 
 There were no further mishaps, other than those which 
 might naturally be expected, and we reached Burns in 
 the afternoon of the third day of our journey. 
 
CHAPTER LIV 
 
 Much of the journey from Lakeview to Burns, a 
 distance equal to the width of many of the Eastern 
 States, is across a cheerless desert, as before stated, 
 covered largely with sage-brush. Much of it is very 
 rocky, and yet in the winter and early spring months it 
 is surprising to see what great herds of cattle and sheep 
 are supported by native winter grass which, in some 
 astonishing way, obtains and maintains a foothold. For 
 this reason it is a fine stock country at that season of 
 the year when the better ranges require a rest. 
 
 At Burns we were joined by Malcolm A. Moody, who 
 had defeated Mr. Ellis for the Republican nomination for 
 Congress at Astoria, and from then until the close of 
 the campaign he traveled with us. Mr. Moody is the 
 eldest son of ex-Governor Z. F. Moody, a native son of 
 Oregon, and was elected by a large majority. He was 
 re-elected two years later, but was defeated for a re- 
 nomination in 1902 by J. N. WilHamson, of Prineville. 
 Mr. Moody developed a splendid talent for the work 
 of a Western Congressman and had won the esteem of 
 all his colleagues when, owing to an unfortunate fight 
 within the ranks of the Republican party, he was set 
 aside. This action of the Republicans of his district was 
 not only a disappointment to Mr. Moody but was a de- 
 cided loss to the public service. He has frequently been 
 urged since then to re-enter the political arena, but has 
 steadfastly declined, giving as a reason the uncertain 
 tenure of political life, the petty motives which so often 
 govern those who, for the time being, have the power 
 to control situations and the capricious tendencies of 
 men who shovild be above the influence of passing fads. 
 "Never again!" says Moody, and the public has lost 
 the able services of an industrious worker. 
 
 417 
 
4i8 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 At Burns we also found J. W. Morrow, the Demo- 
 cratic candidate for State Senator for that district, who 
 we suspected had come thither at that time in order to 
 reap such benefits as might accrue to his candidacy 
 from being present at the big Republican meeting of 
 the campaign. At any rate, he was there, and engaged in 
 shaking more Republican hands, inside the hall and out, 
 than all the Republican candidates combined. There was 
 no stage line then running to Canyon City, the next 
 meeting place, and since there were, all told, about a 
 dozen candidates who desired to make connections with- 
 out fail, we hired a "carry-all" and started toward that 
 famous mining center of the early '6o's. We had no 
 driver, at least none who had the courage to tackle a 
 four-horse proposition, and in this extremity "Billy" 
 Morrow offered his services. Most of us were little 
 inclined to accept them, since he was the only Democrat 
 in the crowd and several of us were running for some 
 mighty big offices. We feared that he was an emissary 
 of the Democratic State Committee looking for this very 
 opportunity to put us out of commission, especially as 
 we had known him for thirty years and had never heard 
 of his having anything to do with horses in any capacity, 
 though he assured us that he had driven a stage for a 
 good part of his life. The road from Burns to Canyon 
 City is for a great part of the way over a mountainous 
 country, and in places the grades are along the sides of 
 precipitous slopes where a designing driver could maim 
 a dozen passengers and at the same time save his own 
 life. 
 
 But "Billy" proved not only game but reliable and 
 "landed" us at Canyon City the second day, himself 
 covered with glory and dust. Incidentally, he was 
 elected to the State Senate in that strongly Republican 
 district. 
 
 Canyon City was one of the best known of the mining 
 camps in eastern Oregon during the boom of 1863-4. 
 I had never been there before and was especially pleased 
 to visit the spot where my father had spent two years 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 419 
 
 when the mining excitement was at its height. It was 
 here, also, that Joaquin Miller, Oregon's famous poet, 
 made his home ir. the early days and where he served 
 as judge of the new county of Grant. His old home was 
 still there, surrounded by unkept apple trees of his own 
 planting in 1863, which almost hid from view the little 
 house which he built with his own hands before the 
 poetic muse claimed him for her own. 
 
 It was in Canyon City, also, that Phil Metschan, one 
 of Oregon's most prominent and popular citizens, settled, 
 in 1862, in his early manhood. Mr. Metschan's career 
 reads more like fiction than fact, and proves once more 
 that pluck and a character which will win the confidence 
 of his fellows are the very best assets with which a young 
 man can be equipped when he starts out on his life- 
 work. 
 
 Mr. Metschan was born in Hesse-Cassel, Germany, in 
 1840. When fourteen years of age he decided to come 
 to America and spend his life in the Western world. His 
 mother's brother had already come to this country and 
 was engaged in the butchering business in Cincinnati. 
 When Phil decided to come to America he did not know 
 one word of English, but his people were anxious for 
 him to join his uncle and carve out his future under the 
 more favorable circumstances which prevailed in this 
 country. 
 
 "When I got ready to start," said Mr. Metschan, "my 
 mother packed all my belongings in a trunk which was 
 nearly as big as one of the horse-cars that were used 
 on the streets then. They saw me aboard the ship at 
 Hamburg and I had no trouble until I got to New York. 
 I couldn't speak a word of English, but as there was 
 nothing to do on ship but eat and sleep, and as both 
 could be done in one language as well as in another, all 
 went well until we landed. Then my troubles began. I had 
 a ticket out to Cincinnati, but the railroad lines in those 
 days did not belong to one company, as now, and only 
 ran from one big city to another. But my trunk was 
 my salvation I found that when it came time to change 
 
420 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 cars I would have no difficulty if I followed my trunk. 
 So, when we arrived at a new terminus, I would get 
 out on the platform and closely watch the operations 
 at the baggage car. If my trunk was left aboard I would 
 re-enter my coach and remain there, but if I saw it 
 changed to another train, I would board that and remain 
 with it until it was changed again. By this means I 
 reached Cincinnati without any mishap and was thankful 
 that it was no worse." 
 
 "Then you really traveled on a trunk line, even in 
 those days," interposed a listener to his interesting narra- 
 tive. Phil smiled and added that, come to think of it, 
 "that must have been the first trunk line running west 
 of New York." 
 
 Arriving in Cincinnati, Metschan remained with his 
 uncle four years, thoroughly learning the butcher's busi- 
 ness. In 1858 he went to Kansas, the next year to Cali- 
 fornia, and after drifting about for a year spent the 
 winter of 1861 working on a ranch in the Sacramento 
 valley. He avers that he actually drove a team and 
 plowed for several months, but his friends, who ordi- 
 narily believe anything he says, have never quite ac- 
 cepted that statement. Nothing they can conjecture 
 would at this time afford a more ludicrous spectacle than 
 to see Phil Metschan between two plow handles, while 
 a span of mules was receiving his directions and objur- 
 gations in a language that was neither English nor 
 German. 
 
 After settling in Canyon City Mr. Metschan was elected 
 city treasurer for two terms, two years as county clerk, 
 four years as county judge, and afterwards another term 
 as county clerk. There were no other offices in Grant 
 County at that time, so it was necessary to "rotate" Phil 
 in order to satisfy the public. 
 
 In 1890 he was nominated by the Republicans for 
 State Treasurer and was elected, being reelected in 1894, 
 serving in that responsible position for eight years. 
 Soon after his retirement he purchased an interest in the 
 Imperial Hotel in Portland, and has since, with his four 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 421 
 
 sons as partners, secured the entire stock of that popular 
 hostelry. 
 
 Within a week after he was nominated for State 
 Treasurer I visited my father in Union County. He 
 was inquiring with much interest about the personnel of 
 the State ticket and finally asked me who the man 
 Metschan was who had been nominated for State Treas- 
 urer. I replied that I had never heard of him before, 
 but that he was from Canyon City, had lived there for 
 thirty years, and that some one had told me that he was 
 a butcher. After studying a moment, father suddenly 
 said with much animation : 
 
 "What's his first name?" 
 
 "Thil," I said. 
 
 "Well, by George," said he, "I'll bet it's 'Phil, the 
 Butcher.' " 
 
 And it was. I was sufficiently interested then to 
 inquire further when I had an opportunity, and ascer- 
 tained that in the early days in Canyon City, as was 
 usual in mining camps, Metschan's first name was all 
 anybody knew or cared to know. So many men went 
 to the mines as adventurers whose chief desire was to 
 cut themselves loose from their former associates and 
 acquaintances that it was often painful to be questioned, 
 so "any old name" was sufficient, and undue curiosity 
 was frequently accompanied by undesirable consequences 
 to the "butter in." 
 
 My father had lived in Canyon City only during the 
 first two years of Metschan's residence there, and though 
 they were intimate friends during that period, "Phil, the 
 Butcher" was the only name by which the future State 
 Treasurer was known among his customers and every- 
 day acquaintances. 
 
CHAPTER LV 
 
 Upon entering Burns after our long desert ride we 
 discovered that the Democratic State Committee had 
 secured large lithographs of Mr. King, the Democratic 
 candidate for Governor, and had the town plastered 
 with them. They were to be seen on every telephone 
 pole, barn, fence and other object large enough to hold 
 one. I was not a little chagrined to know that this very 
 effective means of advertising had been adopted by the 
 opposition. Of course it was quite expensive, and, as 
 there had been no proposition to pursue a like course 
 among our people, I at once took high grounds against 
 such an unseemly method of exploiting one's candidacy. 
 Many of my friends at Burns inquired why this mode 
 had not been adopted by the Republican State Com- 
 mittee, expressing the opinion that it was very effective 
 in increasing the popularity of a candidate, especially if 
 he was a good-looking man, as King was. To this I 
 replied that, although nothing had been said on the sub- 
 ject by our State Committee before leaving Portland, I 
 was very much opposed personally to such a loud method 
 of advertising — it was in bad taste; furthermore, I re- 
 garded it as an exhibition of the weakness of the candi- 
 date that it was necessary thus to depend upon his facial 
 expression rather than his merits, natural and acquired. 
 
 On the way over to Canyon City we found King's 
 picture on every rim-rock and stump along the road and 
 the town was full of them. Again I felt the necessity 
 of explaining to my inquiring friends that there was 
 nothing in that sort of advertising except to emphasize 
 the weakness of the candidate who would resort to it, and 
 that, besides, there was a species of vanity about it from 
 which I, being a very modest man, naturally shrank, etc. 
 My companions were disposed to "josh" me about the 
 
 422 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 423 
 
 enterprise shown by Mr. King's friends and they all 
 seemed convinced that it would gain him many thous- 
 ands of votes — perhaps result in my defeat unless coun- 
 teracted in some manner. To this I replied that I would 
 not adopt such unseemly methods to secure votes, even 
 if I were assured that such neglect would cost me the 
 prize for which I was contesting. I took a high stand, 
 and ridiculed the extreme measures to which parties in 
 these degenerate times would stoop to attain success. 
 
 I remember that about one mile before we reached 
 Sumpter, in Baker County, there appeared to be a King 
 picture on every shrub and log, not counting the stand- 
 ing trees, and, as a means of suppressing the comments 
 of my companions as to how many votes the matter 
 would cause King to run ahead of his ticket, I began 
 again to moralize on the bad taste of thus flaunting one's 
 countenance before the world with the hope of securing 
 votes, adding that the probable effect would be to drive 
 thoughtful men away, etc., etc. Suddenly, as the stage 
 swung around a bend in the road and we came in full 
 view of a new barn, Moody shouted: 
 
 "Hello, whose picture is that? Hey, look here, boys." 
 
 And there, tacked on the side of the barn, within 
 two feet of one of King's pictures, was one of the writer 
 of these lines, almost life-size and executed in the highest 
 degree of the lithographer's art. Everybody looked, of 
 course, and the shout of laughter that rent the mountain- 
 side quite equaled in volume a clap of rollicking thunder. 
 The driver stopped the team, all hands got out and 
 examined the specimen at close range and, by turns, 
 dragged me hither and yon, until I was not only sore 
 physically, but at my traveling companions as well. 
 
 It was a great joke at my expense, to be sure, and 
 I did not hear the last of it until we finally disbanded 
 on the night before the election — for those horrid 
 pictures, though very true to life, were plastered so 
 thickly over every available object, not otherwise ap- 
 propriated, throughout the State that King's little edition 
 appeared like a feeble experiment only. 
 
424 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 My colleagues on the State ticket who did more or 
 less active campaigning were, besides Judge Moore, F. I. 
 Dunbar, candidate for Secretary of State, and J. H. 
 Ackerman, candidate for Superintendent of Public In- 
 struction. Mr. Dunbar had been for four years recorder 
 of Clatsop County and was at that time just concluding 
 two terms as county clerk. He had been a very capable 
 officer and came to his nomination with an exceptionally 
 good record for efficient services, though he was not 
 known at all throughout the State. 
 
 There was another Dunbar living in Astoria who had 
 been publishing a paper there which appeared to be little 
 more than a blackmailing sheet. His bitter attacks on 
 local men had involved him in serious trouble many times 
 and he was very much disliked. In fact, he served quite 
 a long sentence in the county jail at one time for 
 defamation of character. It was about this time that 
 F. I. Dunbar had been nominated for recorder. As was 
 customary, several candidates hired a carriage and made 
 a trip into the interior of the county in the interest of 
 their respective aspirations. Their first trip was into the 
 Nehalem Mountains, about thirty miles away, where 
 there was a small store and a post-ofifice. Arriving there 
 after dark, the candidate who had charge of the team 
 and did the driving introduced his associates to the land- 
 lord, who, by the way, was the post-master and store- 
 keeper. When the two had gone to the barn with the 
 team, the host said to the driver, with whom he was well 
 acquainted : 
 
 "So that's Dunbar, is it? Well, I've been reading a 
 good deal about him lately and he has got a jail-bird 
 face, all right, hasn't he ?" 
 
 As the joke was too good to keep under cover, the 
 driver told it to Dunbar the next day. It came to me 
 one day after the election, and when Moore, Dunbar and 
 I, as the State Land Board, after concluding our busi- 
 ness for that sitting, were recounting the different kinds 
 of experiences, ludicrous and exasperating, one en- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 425 
 
 counters when engaged in a protracted political cam- 
 paign, Dunbar himself related it. 
 
 Dunbar served for eight years as Secretary of State 
 and made one of the most efficient and systematic 
 officials that branch of the State government has ever 
 known. He is now living a very quiet life in his home 
 town, Astoria, to whose interests he is very much 
 attached. 
 
 J. H. Ackerman, who was chosen Superintendent of 
 Public Instruction, had for many years been connected 
 prominently with the schools of Multnomah County and 
 came to his new position unusually well equipped for 
 the duties of that responsible position. Ackerman is so 
 well endowed by nature with those qualities which con- 
 stitute the agreeable man that nothing could pry him 
 loose from his position until he had served three suc- 
 cessive terms of four years each, a record only equaled 
 once before in the history of Oregon — by E. B. McElroy, 
 in the same position. Ackerman had not been in office 
 three months until he had visited nearly all the schools 
 in the Willamette valley, and before his first year had 
 ended he had been in every remote part of the most 
 distant county. By that time it was surmised that he 
 intended to be a candidate for re-election — killing two 
 birds with one stone, since his visits were always helpful 
 to the schools. Before the end of his first term he had 
 secured the active support of ninety-nine per cent, of the 
 teachers of the State, and the other one per cent, had no 
 choice. The records show that fully ninety-nine per 
 cent, of the teachers in the public schools of Oregon are 
 women, who, although having no direct vote, do have 
 and exercise wonderful influence along lines where they 
 are interested. 
 
 I did not know Ackerman well until we made our first 
 trip to visit the State Normal School at Ashland. We 
 had our breakfast in a "diner" together and I ordered 
 a fairly good meal — having been a farmer and being 
 accustomed to that sort of thing in the morning — includ- 
 
426 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 ing a good steak, eggs and their customary accessories. 
 We were busily engaged in talking and I had paid no at- 
 tention to his order, which was delivered first. I noticed 
 then that he had duplicated my selection. My order was 
 for some reason delayed, and in the meantime Ackerman 
 had devoured the best part of the steak and all the eggs. 
 My portion, when it came, consisted of a small piece of 
 sickly toast and a dish of rice. I was naturally aston- 
 ished and told the waiter that he had taken my order 
 wrong. He replied, with a look of surprise, that he had 
 by mistake changed the two. 
 
 I immediately glanced at Ackerman. His amused look 
 was a plain admission that he had seen the possibility 
 of securing a good breakfast at a minimum of expense 
 by continuing the conversation on normal schools with 
 enthusiasm, for the Governor was at that time obliged 
 to pay all his expenses out of his own pocket, or did, 
 while the Superintendent, while allowed his traveling 
 expenses, was obliged to render an account even to details 
 to the Secretary of State. 
 
 From that time I knew Ackerman quite well — well 
 enough to be always on the watch for a practical joke, 
 for he was not only an exceptionally good official, under 
 whose management the school system of Oregon has 
 become one of the best in the United States, but he is 
 a born wag. 
 
 He is now the principal of the reorganized State 
 Normal School at Monmouth, where he has an op- 
 portunity to contribute still further toward the improve- 
 ment of our educational system. 
 
CHAPTER LVI 
 
 The issues which characterized the campaign of 1898 
 were not particularly exciting, consisting merely of those 
 which divided the Republican from the Democratic and 
 the Populist parties. The Spanish War had just begun, 
 and that fact assisted in a way to further the prospects 
 of the "party in power," though it should be remembered 
 that all parties were supporting the administration in its 
 determination to "remember the Maine." The election 
 passed ofif quietly and the Republican ticket was tri- 
 umphant with a majority of ten thousand. Incidentally, 
 I may be pardoned for adding that my majority was 
 represented by that figure, which was the largest by 
 almost two to one ever given any candidate for Gov- 
 ernor of Oregon, before or since. This was attribu- 
 table, of course, to the fact that the party had united 
 on me in the State Convention, there being no opposi- 
 tion — a condition not since existing in any campaign. 
 For this very flattering honor bestowed upon me by the 
 people, I here desire again to express my thanks, and 
 to add that, while I have been defeated for a nomination 
 I have never failed to receive an affirmative vote when 
 appealing directly to the people of Oregon. I have a 
 right to feel proud of this fact and to refer to it— 
 modestly, I trust — while expressing my gratitude. 
 
 In the nature of things this book is personal and in 
 a manner reminiscent, but it is not my purpose to extol, 
 criticise, defend or otherwise consider the merits of my 
 administration of the public affairs of Oregon during 
 the four years from January, 1899, to January, 1903. 
 To do so would not be seemly on my part. I leave that 
 to the future historian, to whom it properly belongs. 
 There was no exciting feature during the course of my 
 
 427 
 
428 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 administration; all the departments of the State Govern- 
 ment discharged their functions without other friction 
 than was the result of counter political aspirations and 
 the usual trouble engendered by disappointed office- 
 seekers. This led to my defeat for renomination in 1902, 
 but, since I have no apology to make for the acts which 
 displeased those who were in control of the party at 
 that time, a discussion of them would be useless. Where 
 questions come up for an ultimate decision and the Gov- 
 ernor as the agent of last resort is compelled to settle the 
 matter one way or the other, it is to be expected that 
 somebody will be disappointed, dissatisfied, and dis- 
 gruntled. And since the dissatisfied, disappointed and 
 disgruntled ones outnumber those who meet with suc- 
 cess, "it follows as night the day" that the one man 
 who under the law is required to decide important ques- 
 tions will have a very hard task to discharge, especially 
 if he belongs to the dominant party in his State. And 
 I did ! Enough said. 
 
 In the summer of 1899, six months after my inaugura- 
 tion, the Spanish War was brought to a close and the 
 Second Regiment of Oregon, which had shed such glory 
 on the State by its marvelous intrepidity and uniform 
 readiness for action at all times, was returning home. 
 It was the first to land on foreign soil in that conflict 
 and was the first mustered out of the service. 
 
 The regiment was due to arrive in San Francisco 
 about July 10 and I went to that city, accompanied by 
 my full staff, to welcome them home in the name of 
 their State. The people of Portland had made very 
 elaborate arrangements to receive them, supposing they 
 would travel from San Francisco to Portland by water. 
 A large local fleet was to proceed down the Columbia 
 and escort the heroes home amid the plaudits of the 
 people, the waving of banners and the belching forth of 
 friendly cannon. The program was fully arranged and 
 the expense of it all had not been considered for a 
 moment. I proceeded to San Francisco to extend the 
 glad hand and to bid them God-speed as they left the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 429 
 
 Golden Gate on their return trip after a rest in the Bay 
 City. 
 
 Of course the actual time of the arrival of the two 
 transports bearing the regiment could not be ascertained, 
 and I remained in San Francisco two days waiting for 
 tidings. On the third day, in company with Governor 
 Gage of California, we sighted the incoming boats out- 
 side the bar and met them inside the Bay, near the 
 Presidio. As we stood watching the vessels, at first mere 
 tiny specks, grow larger and larger, realizing the while 
 that their passengers were all Oregon boys who had more 
 than performed their duty as soldiers battling in the 
 defense of their country against a savage and super- 
 stitious foe, it seemed one of the most thrilling sights 
 of my life. Almost the entire population of San Fran- 
 cisco, it seemed, had assembled on the shores of the Bay 
 and were enthusiastically shouting their appreciation of 
 American valor. 
 
 As our boat finally swung alongside the two transports, 
 I could easily recognize the familiar features of Colonel 
 Owen Summers, the beloved commanding officer of the 
 regiment, who shouted: 
 
 "Hello, there, Governor ! We are awfully glad to see 
 you." 
 
 I returned the salutation, recognizing at the same time 
 several of the boys who greeted me with their shouts. 
 Under the circumstances I thought it my duty to make 
 a short address of welcome, but when I began to say a 
 few words there was a general yelling: 
 
 "Muster us out in San Francisco! Muster us out in 
 San Francisco!" 
 
 I waited a moment for the interruption to subside, 
 when I again attempted to let them know how glad the 
 people of Oregon were to know of their return and how 
 proud they were that, etc., etc., when my voice was 
 drowned by the repeated shouting by a thousand throats : 
 
 "Muster us out in San Francisco!" 
 
 This second demonstration convinced me that I did 
 not want to make any speech, anyway, and there was 
 
430 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 every reason for belief that they were not wanting to 
 hear a speech. I then boarded the "Ohio" and began shak- 
 ing hands — also to get some valuable information. 
 Colonel Summers at once informed me that before leav- 
 ing Manila the boys had heard of the intention of the 
 people of Portland to give them a hearty welcome upon 
 their arrival, and that they at once rebelled at the propo- 
 sition. They had worked hard, had endured many hard- 
 ships, lived on such food as was to be had, marched 
 under a burning sun to be met by the treacherous Fili- 
 pinos, and they were not looking for further demonstra- 
 tions of any kind, especially one that would mean another 
 sea voyage after being on land for two weeks at San 
 Francisco. 
 
 Besides, they had given their service for very small 
 remuneration, and if formally mustered out at San 
 Francisco they would be entitled to travel pay from that 
 point home. This would mean a goodly sum for each 
 one of them, and, they said, they would need that upon 
 arriving home far more than a demonstration which 
 would be "all show and no money." 
 
 I had not talked with the General and the boys ten 
 minutes until I fcould see that Portland reception going 
 a-glimmering. The boys were true soldiers, but the 
 proposition to force them to go home by way of the 
 Columbia River did not look good to them, and it looked 
 no better to Colonel Summers. I at once called up Port- 
 land and got in communication with H. W. Scott, of the 
 Oregonian. After I had told him how the matter stood, 
 he remarked in his usual sententious manner: "I ex- 
 pected as much." 
 
 The next day I telegraphed the situation to Secretary 
 of War Root and asked permission to muster the Second 
 Oregon Regiment out in San Francisco. The request 
 was granted, and peace once more reigned within the 
 ranks of the famous regiment. 
 
 I returned home and two weeks later met the regiment 
 at the California State line, where each one of the boys 
 wore a grin as wide as a full-grown hard-tack. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 431 
 
 Three months later I was invited by President Mc- 
 Kinley, with the Governors of all the other States, to be 
 present at the laying of the corner-stone of the new 
 Federal Building at Chicago. I had been trying for 
 some time to secure a cannon from the Philippines — one 
 that had been captured there by the American troops, if 
 possible — out of which to manufacture appropriate 
 medals to be presented to the members of the Second 
 Oregon Regiment, as a souvenir from the State of 
 Oregon. I had not succeeded at the time this invita- 
 tion came from President McKinley, and since the Sec- 
 retary of \A^ar was to be in Chicago on that occasion, it 
 occurred to me that the opportunity would be presented 
 there to explain the matter to him personally and thus 
 secure his assistance. 
 
 Upon arriving at Chicago I learned that Secretary 
 Root was there, but the papers the next morning an- 
 nounced that he had returned to Washington on a night 
 train in answer to a telegram demanding his immediate 
 presence at the national capital. Of course this changed 
 my plans, but having traveled that far in the interest of 
 the medals I decided to extend the trip to Washington. 
 This I did. Upon presenting the matter to Secretary 
 Root, he said: 
 
 "I thought that cannon had been ordered already. I 
 remember your request and that it had my sanction." 
 
 After I had explained the question in detail, admitting 
 that there was a measure of sentiment in wanting the 
 medals made out of a cannon brought from the Philip- 
 pines, he said he would write at once to the authorities 
 there to send one along without further delay. 
 
 "But," I said, "A^lr. Secretary, two months have 
 already elapsed since this matter was taken up and so 
 far nothing at all has been accomplished. At this rate, 
 the Spanish War will be partly forgotten before those 
 medals can be manufactured and distributed among the 
 boys. They are all young now, to be sure, but these 
 medals should be given them before they become grand- 
 fathers." 
 
432 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 At this the Secretary smiled, thought a moment, then 
 said: "Well, I guess Uncle Sam can stand the expense 
 of a cablegram in the interest of those Oregon boys." 
 And, reaching for a pen, he wrote an order for the im- 
 mediate shipment of a cannon to Portland, showed it to 
 Cie, and called a messenger to have it sent at once. 
 
 Within a month the cannon arrived in Portland. 
 Shortly afterwards the medals were made and distributed 
 among the survivors of the Second Oregon. 
 
 While in San Francisco waiting for the arrival of the 
 Manila transports, I was the guest of General Shafter, 
 who had seen active service in Cuba and was at that 
 time in command of military affairs in San Fran- 
 cisco. He was a most affable man, for one accustomed 
 for so many years to military discipline, and I enjoyed 
 his company very much. He was a man of enormous 
 proportions, physically, weighing fully three hundred 
 pounds. On the day of the public reception of the 
 Second Oregon by San Francisco, he appeared on horse- 
 back, riding with all the dignity expected of one of his 
 position. How he mounted his steed I was not able to 
 discover. He had a ranch not many miles from San 
 Francisco and one day visited it, returning late in the 
 afternoon heated in body and mind. As soon as he had 
 regained his composure enough to engage in conversa- 
 tion he said : 
 
 "I had a deuce of a time this afternoon. I am en- 
 deavoring to drain some land down there and am having 
 
 more trouble trying to manage twenty d d Chinamen 
 
 than I had in Cuba directing twenty thousand soldiers." 
 And he was mad, indeed. 
 
CHAPTER LVII 
 
 On May 8, 1901, the battleship Ohio was launched 
 at San Francisco and President McKinley was present 
 to participate in the attendant ceremonies. He had ar- 
 ranged an extensive itinerary which included all the 
 Pacific Coast States, but while in San Francisco, the 
 severe illness of his wife, by whom he was accompanied, 
 made it necessary for him to cancel all his dates north of 
 that city, much to the disappointment and regret of our 
 people. 
 
 I went to San Francisco to attend the ceremonies of 
 the launching and to extend an official invitation to the 
 President to visit Oregon, but he was compelled to return 
 to Washington and was assassinated at Bufifalo a few 
 months later. He was never in Oregon, though this 
 State was always especially loyal to him. 
 
 Governor Nash, of Ohio, was present at the launching 
 of the ship named after his State and I became well 
 acquainted with him. We made several side trips 
 together and I found him a very genial companion and 
 most anxious to know more about this coast. On one 
 of these little journeys he became inoculated with poison 
 oak, or ivy, and was sorely afflicted for the remainder of 
 his stay in San Francisco, being obliged to remain away 
 from the public reception given the Ohio visitors by the 
 people of that city. On his way home he was compelled 
 to remain over at Salt Lake for a day and upon his 
 arrival at his home in Columbus was unable to enter a 
 carriage without assistance. He never regained his 
 health and died the next year, many thought from the 
 lingering effect of his exposure to the poison oak in San 
 Francisco. 
 
 Governor Nash was renominated in the summer fol- 
 lowing, though his physical condition would have pre- 
 
 433 
 
434 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 eluded such a thing had it not been for the general esteem 
 in which he was held by the people of Ohio. When the 
 campaign opened I received an invitation from the Re- 
 publican State Committee of Ohio to take a part in the 
 speech-making. Though I had declined a similar one 
 the year before, I had a very friendly feeling for Gov- 
 ernor Nash, and as the invitation from Chairman Dick 
 was followed a few days later by a letter from the Gov- 
 ernor, saying that he hoped I would come, I accepted. 
 Soon after this, however, President McKinley was shot 
 at Buffalo and the formal opening of the campaign, by 
 the mutual consent of both political parties, was post- 
 poned until time should tell the result of his wound. 
 
 Owing to the subsequent death of the President the 
 Ohio campaign was limited to two weeks. My first date 
 was at the little city of Waverly, about twenty miles 
 north of the Ohio River, and the time was equally divided 
 between Senator Mark Hanna and myself. I had never 
 seen that distinguished gentleman until we met on the 
 platform a few minutes before the speaking began, and 
 the impression he gave me was decidedly a favorable one. 
 He was as plain in his manner as a farmer. As we rode 
 in a carriage through the streets, after the meeting, it 
 was scarcely possible to drive the team through the 
 crowds, so great was the jam of people who walked 
 beside the vehicle and insisted on grasping the hand of 
 the Senator. There were continual shouts for "Uncle 
 Mark," and "Hurrah for Uncle Mark!" etc. He was 
 a candidate for re-election, had been endorsed by the 
 Republican State Convention and was stumping the 
 State advocating the election of a Legislature that would 
 be favorable to him. There was no doubt of his re- 
 election, by the popular vote, at least, — none to those who 
 saw the demonstrations of that day. 
 
 Senator Hanna invited my wife and me to spend the 
 following Sunday at his home in Cleveland, which we 
 would gladly have done, but that we desired to visit the 
 Buffalo Exposition and it was possible to do so only on 
 that day. When I told the Senator I was the cousin of 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 435 
 
 Homer Davenport, who cartooned him so unmercifully 
 in the campaign of 1896, he at once began making in- 
 quiries about him and where he got his artistic ability. 
 He said he had met Davenport several times and really 
 liked "the fellow," but added that he didn't approve of 
 his cartoon treatment of himself. I told him I never yet 
 had found a man who could really enjoy a good cartoon 
 of himself, though everybody else might regard it as 
 a work of art. He said that he never cared "a peg" for 
 Davenport's cartoons, but that his wife hated that artist 
 "worse than snakes." He remarked that he had in- 
 structed his secretary to save all the cartoons of himself 
 that had appeared in the papers, but that they were to be 
 kept from his wife, if possible. 
 
 The last week of the Ohio campaign I traveled in com- 
 pany with Governor Nash, except while I was at Marys- 
 ville, where my time was divided with Warren G. 
 Harding, since elected Lieutenant Governor and who 
 was last year defeated for Governor by Harmon. 
 
 So far as I could see there was no difference between 
 campaigning in Ohio and Oregon or Washington or 
 Idaho. My previous experience served to illustrate very 
 forcibly the fact that ours is a great country and, what 
 is better, that we are essentially one great people. An 
 American citizen of Ohio has all the characteristics of 
 the American citizen of Oregon, Maine or Florida. This 
 fact is more keenly realized when, in campaigning in 
 States widely separated geographically, one discovers the 
 sameness of the issues involved. 
 
 My wife and I spent Monday of the last week of 
 the campaign in Cleveland as the guests of Myron T. 
 Herrick, afterward Governor of Ohio, and in the even- 
 ing visited the city of Ravenna, some ninety miles south 
 of Cleveland, where Governor Nash and I addressed a 
 meeting whose proportions fully sustained Ohio's reputa- 
 tion for not "doing politics" by halves. Upon arriving 
 at Ravenna, a committee met me at the train. Governor 
 Nash having gone there early in the day to look after his 
 local fences. After reaching the hotel, the chairman said 
 
436 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 he wanted to put me on my guard as to a characteristic 
 of the people of his town. 
 
 "They always pay the best of attention to a public 
 speaker and appreciate his coming. You will have a 
 crowded house; but they never give any demonstration 
 of approval, such as clapping of hands, stamping of 
 feet, etc. We account for it to outsiders by claiming 
 that our people are highly intellectual," said he, with a 
 twinkle in his eye; "but those not used to their ways 
 are likely to misconstrue their attitude." He said that 
 when Senator Allison of Iowa was there the year before, 
 he was greatly incensed at what he termed the coldness 
 of the Ravenna people and declared he would never hold 
 a meeting there again. 
 
 When I returned to Columbia after the campaign had 
 closed, Chairman Dick, in talking over the situation, 
 inquired what kind of a meeting I had had at Ravenna. 
 After I told him it was a "stem-winder" and a great 
 success in every way, he said he had been a little afraid 
 of it, since the people there were noted for their lack of 
 enthusiasm in public meetings. Chairman Dick was then 
 a member of the lower House of Congress and Ravenna 
 was in his district. While on this subject he told me this 
 story : 
 
 Fifty years before, when Tom Corwin was in his prime 
 as a famous stump-speaker and orator — and wit — he at- 
 tended a meeting at Ravenna. After returning to his 
 home in Cincinnati, while relating some of his campaign 
 experience, in the State, he said : "Ravenna, though, is 
 the d st place yet. Why, up there they are so long- 
 faced that they open their political meetings with prayer 
 and close by singing the Doxology. I spoke there last 
 week to a crowded house and the prospects for a suc- 
 cessful meeting could not have been better. But I had 
 spoken for fully half an hour without bringing out any 
 applause or smile whatever. This was unusual, so I 
 thought I would wake them up by telling a story. I 
 told one of the best I knew, and told it as well as I 
 could ; it fell perfectly flat. There was not a hand-clap nor 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 437 
 
 a smile. I went on for another twenty minutes without 
 any response from the audience other than the very best 
 of attention. At this point I thought I would try another 
 story on them. So I selected one of my best and did 
 my utmost to tell it well; but it was as great a failure 
 as the first. 
 
 "This made me mad, and I really cut my speech short 
 on account of the dullness of the people — or their 
 stupidity, or incapacity, or something — but I decided to 
 give them just one more story and see what it would do. 
 Now, of course, I know I have some reputation as a 
 story-teller, and I felt a degree of personal pride in 
 making an effort to rouse that audience. I closed with 
 a story that would cause the dead to rise up and laugh, 
 and used whatever art I possessed in relating it well, but, 
 do you know, there was not the slightest indication in any 
 quarter of mirth — no applause nor demonstration of any 
 kind. Not even a smile. 
 
 "So the meeting was adjourned. Afterwards several 
 of the leading men of the city gathered around me and 
 one of them, speaking for the others, it seemed, said: 
 
 " 'Corwin, that was one of the best speeches I ever 
 heard. It was logical, eloquent, unanswerable and right 
 to the point — just what we needed here. And do you 
 know, Corwin, your stories — why, when you told that 
 last one, / came mighty near laughing right out loud'' " 
 
CHAPTER LVIII 
 
 Before leaving for Ohio I had decided to employ a 
 day or two after the campaign was over in visiting my 
 father's birthplace, which I knew was somewhere near 
 London, in Madison County. He was born there in 1828 
 and was twelve years old when his father moved to 
 Illinois. Thousands of times I had listened with great 
 interest as he related his boyhood experiences, and had 
 always entertained a longing to see the old farm. This, 
 it appeared, was my opportunity and I decided to make 
 the most of it. 
 
 I was most agreeably surprised, therefore, upon re- 
 porting to Republican headquarters soon after arriving 
 at Columbus, to discover that the third place assigned 
 me in the campaign was London, and an afternoon meet- 
 ing at that. The meeting was held in an old skating 
 rink, of ample dimensions, which was filled to its utmost 
 capacity. Several persons explained to me, with pardon- 
 able pride, that McKinley had often during the last 
 twenty years spoken in that same building. 
 
 I opened my speech by saying that, although a native 
 Oregonian, I felt at home in Madison County, Ohio, for 
 the reason that my father was born there seventy-three 
 years before. This announcement put me on good terms 
 with the people, and I added that I would deem it a 
 personal favor if, at the close of the speech, those in 
 the audience who could tell me where the old Geer farm 
 was located would remain long enough to give me that 
 information. 
 
 When the meeting adjourned at least a dozen people, 
 both men and women, began to make their way through 
 the crowd toward the platform. Each one of them 
 knew exactly where it was, though more than sixty years 
 
 438 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 439 
 
 had elapsed since my grandfather lived there. Finally, 
 one man said he had seen the present owner in town that 
 day. After a little search he was found and the county 
 committee at once placed a carriage at my disposal for 
 the following afternoon. My next appointment, luckily, 
 was for the evening of the next day, thus giving us 
 ample time for this most pleasant visit. 
 
 There have been few happier days in my life than the 
 one on which I visited the birthplace of my father. It 
 was a most delightful October day and the autumn 
 foliage of the Ohio forests was at its loveliest. I 
 imagined I could see my father, with his brothers and 
 sisters, as they were living in that by-gone time, knowing 
 nothing then of the great land on the far-away Pacific 
 Coast to which they were destined to go later on and 
 in the development of which they were to do their part 
 as brave pioneers. Ohio is a beautiful State in the 
 autumn — if you don't stay there too late — and the woods 
 at that time of the year are delightfully attractive. We 
 traveled along one country lane where for a quarter of a 
 mile plank fences on either side of the road were con- 
 structed of walnut lumber. Our driver explained that it 
 had been built thirty years before, but that at that time a 
 walnut tree was worth a small fortune; that the year 
 before a representative of an Eastern manufacturing 
 concern had been through that part of the country buying 
 every old walnut stump he could find in the woods or 
 pastures, some of them bringing as much as forty dollars. 
 Their roots, he said, would be followed until they were 
 no more than two inches in diameter. 
 
 When my father was a boy in Ohio, every member of 
 the family who was large enough had to work in the 
 walnut timber, burning logs and digging stumps, in order 
 that the land might be cleared for agricultural purposes. 
 Conservation of natural resources was not then a burn- 
 ing question, though the destruction of the walnut timber 
 was I 
 
 The house built by my grandfather in 1836 was still 
 
440 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 standing when the present owner purchased the farm 
 some twenty years before, but was burned the next year. 
 The one standing in 1901 had been built immediately 
 back of the one destroyed and the foundation of the 
 latter, consisting of large, flat stones at each of the four 
 corners, had never been disturbed. They were just even 
 with the top of the ground and were partly covered with 
 blue grass. I could almost imagine they were speaking 
 to me, as I saw, in my fancy, my grandfather or some 
 of the "boys," placing them there during the summer 
 that Martin Van Buren was elected President of the 
 United States. 
 
 But the identical log barn my grandfather built was 
 still there and doing daily service. As we drove past it 
 there was an enormous Poland China sow stretched out 
 in the shade of a shed, vigorously scratching fleas, the 
 outcome of the contest being in apparent doubt. And the 
 barn looked every day of its age. 
 
 I went to the spring under the hill, fifty yards from 
 the house, and drank from it. Overshadowing it stood 
 a huge hickory tree which had sheltered my father in his 
 boyhood years. It is well to remark, in passing, that 
 nearly every farmhouse I have seen in the Mississippi 
 Valley States is built at least fifty yards away, often 
 twice as far, from the spring which supplies the family 
 with water — and the water is always to be carried up 
 hill ! The law of gravitation seems never to have been 
 discovered by the benighted people in those sections of 
 our country. 
 
 The daughter of a man named Willard, who owned 
 the farm joining that of my grandfather in the days he 
 lived in Ohio, became the wife of Ralph C. Geer, who for 
 fifty years was a well-known farmer of the Waldo Hills. 
 Willard's son owned the place when I was there, a man 
 then seventy-five years of age. He was my father's 
 playmate, of whom I had heard him speak thousands of 
 times. I stopped a few minutes at the Willard farm and 
 found the old man out in a woods pasture trimming the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 441 
 
 limbs from the young hickory trees, for the purpose, he 
 said, of forcing them to grow straight enough to be sold 
 later for wagon spokes. His hair and beard were snow- 
 white and he had never been out of the State of Ohio 
 more than a month, all told, in his life. 
 
 When I returned home I wrote an account of my 
 Ohio trip to my father's brother, Carey, in California. 
 He was then eighty years of age and had not seen Ohio, 
 or any other place east of the Rocky Mountains, since he 
 came to Oregon "on his own hook" in 1845. I thought 
 by writing him of the scenes of his early boyhood I 
 would arouse in him a feeling of homesickness, a longing 
 to see them himself; but in answer to my question 
 whether he ever entertained a desire to visit once more 
 the old place, he replied : 
 
 "I have never wanted to see Ohio since I left there 
 in 1840, nor do I desire to see any other part of the 
 United States except the Pacific Coast. Why, I wouldn't 
 give an acre of ground in Oregon or California for all 
 of any one State in the Mississippi Valley. There's Jim 
 Willard you wrote about. We were little boys together, 
 and though he is now seventy-five years old he has never 
 been out of sight of the smoke of his father's chimney. 
 Bah !" 
 
 Our driver returned to London by way of the cele- 
 brated Darby Plains, one of the richest and most beau- 
 tiful sections of Ohio. We had not traveled far with 
 him, however, before we discovered he carried a bottle 
 of spirits of generous proportions which he interviewed 
 with surprising frequency. After a while he became so 
 jolly that he insisted that I share his potations, and my 
 refusal served only to increase his desire to empty the 
 bottle. Just before reaching London we had to drive 
 down a long incline, at the bottom of which the road 
 narrowed to the width of a culvert. We were going at 
 a fearful rate, the horses plunging in a fast run, with 
 their heads pointed in a direction which, if kept, would 
 miss the bridge by at least ten feet. Before reaching it, 
 
442 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 I rose from the back seat, snatched the lines from his 
 hands, and without doubt thus prevented the occurrence 
 of a fearful accident. He accepted my interference as 
 a joke, remarking that " 's no danger — horses zhawl 
 right." 
 
 After safely crossing the culvert we drove along a 
 small creek bottom which had been in corn that summer, 
 and the stalks, still standing, showed that the yield had 
 been very light. The ground was weedy and parched 
 and showed the effects of an overflow some time during 
 the growing season. I remarked to the driver, partly 
 in order to take his mind from the little experience we 
 had had : 
 
 "Those spindling corn-stalks seem to show that the crop 
 there this year was very light." 
 
 "Yes," he returned, as he felt for his bottle, "we had 
 a great fluency of rain here last spring!" 
 
 We left Ohio on our return trip to Oregon on Novem- 
 ber 6, and by that time the trees were swept perfectly 
 bare of their leaves and the storms had begun. There 
 had already been quite a snow-storm in Wisconsin and 
 in Ohio the rains were freely interspersed with spitting 
 snow. It was very disagreeable and we were glad to 
 turn our faces once more to the Pacific Coast. As we 
 passed across Wisconsin there were large patches of 
 snow still on the ground here and there and I remarked 
 to my wife, as we were looking at the dreary scene: 
 "Isn't it strange that people will live in this climate 
 when there is room for millions of people on the Pacific 
 Coast, where the climate is always temperate, and where 
 even now the trees are bearing their leaves ?" 
 
 As we were traveling through Minnesota the outlook 
 was still more cheerless, and I frequently remarked how 
 singular it was that people would settle in such a country, 
 and remain there, when they had surely heard of the 
 magnificent climate of the Coast. 
 
 In Dakota it was worse, if possible. Passing through 
 a blizzard, we saw herds of cattle and sheep, here and 
 there, huddled together for mutual protection. We later 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 443 
 
 crossed Montana and the outlook was still more dis- 
 couraging. It was colder and the snow was flying on 
 a level at a speed of eighty miles an hour — at least, so it 
 seemed. 
 
 On the same car with us was a man whose home was 
 in Helena, Montana. At the time of which I am writing, 
 our train was speeding along through a most terrific 
 wind-storm, interspersed with a "fluency" of snow, and 
 I was saying to my wife : 
 
 "Just take note of that, will you? Isn't it awful? 
 And right now in the Willamette valley all the trees 
 still have their foliage and people are picking apples. 
 No doubt there are late raspberries to be had, here and 
 there, and every thing is lovely. I can't understand why 
 people will live in such a country as this when, by making 
 a trip of only forty-eight hours, they can leave it all 
 behind them. Most of them have surely heard of 
 Oregon and " 
 
 Just then a brakesman entered the car and shouted: 
 
 "Helena !" 
 
 And, sure enough, we could see the dome of the State 
 Capitol in the distance. I was resuming my commentary 
 on the mental condition of people who, having heard of 
 Oregon, would yet remain in such a God-forsaken sec- 
 tion, when somebody touched me on the shoulder. 
 Looking up, I saw it was my Montana friend, who said, 
 as he stooped to look out of our window while he was 
 fastening his overcoat collar, which reached a foot above 
 the top of his head : 
 
 "Well, sir, it does a fellow good to get back to God's 
 country again." 
 
 He had been in New York for two weeks! 
 
 This circumstance served to open my eyes somewhat 
 to the fact that the progress of any country or section 
 depends altogether upon the loyalty of its citizens to its 
 interests. There are no people anywhere more firmly 
 attached to their State than the people of Montana, and 
 few States have made greater strides in material develop- 
 ment during the last generation. 
 
444 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 After this remark by my Montana acquaintance I still 
 marveled at his "make-up," provided he had ever heard 
 of Oregon's matchless climate, but had a profound ad- 
 miration for the fealty he exhibited toward the land of 
 his adoption. 
 
CHAPTER LIX 
 
 In the last chapter reference was made to Homer 
 Davenport's share in making Mark Hanna famous in the 
 campaign of 1896, and this suggests that, as he is an 
 Oregon product, he deserves a word of special mention 
 in these pages. His mother was my first cousin and I 
 have known him well since his birth. He is the son of 
 T. W. Davenport, one of Oregon's best known pioneers 
 and public men, who died this summer at the age of 
 eighty-seven years. 
 
 To those who have known Homer since his childhood, 
 it will not seem an exaggeration to say that few men in 
 this or any other day are justly entitled to more credit 
 for the fame they have won than he. Until he was past 
 twenty-one years of age he gave little promise, although 
 he never had any bad habits, unless the indisposition to 
 apply himself to anything which might prove of ultimate 
 benefit to himself might be so termed. He had no educa- 
 tional advantages beyond those furnished in the common 
 schools, and his most intimate acquaintances cannot recall 
 any great application on his part even there. He was 
 not given to applying himself steadily to any one thing. 
 To be sure, he had a liking for sketching, wearing out 
 every bit of chalk he could get hold of on old board 
 fences, drawing figures of horses and chickens; but this 
 was held to be a sad and distressing evidence of general 
 worthlessness — to be discouraged, if possible. 
 
 When the old "narrow gauge" railroad was built 
 through Silverton Homer's general shiftlessness and 
 good nature drew him to the engineers and firemen, who, 
 since much of their time was unoccupied, invited him to 
 make the trip to the terminus, fifty miles farther south, 
 as a diversion for themselves. In those days there was 
 a train on that road each way every other day, and con- 
 
 445 
 
446 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 sequently there was ample time to indulge in sports of 
 different kinds. It was about eighty miles from Port- 
 land to the terminus and it required all day to make the 
 trip — one way. At that time the Chinese pheasants, 
 which had been imported into Oregon some time 
 previous, were becoming so plentiful that the ban against 
 shooting them had been removed. It was the custom for 
 the train to stop a dozen times a day, when a flock of 
 pheasants was sighted, to permit the crew to make the 
 rounds of the adjoining field with their guns, which they 
 always carried for this purpose. They usually returned 
 with a fine lot of birds. They did their own cooking at 
 Ray's Landing — the terminus on the Willamette River 
 where the men lived in a "bunk house," similar to a 
 logging camp — and these contributions to the larder were 
 always welcome. 
 
 This sort of life appealed strongly to Homer Daven- 
 port. He was a good shot, and the railroad men for 
 that reason the more appreciated his company. Ordi- 
 narily, he would make his "keep" and some to spare. 
 
 Then, too, Homer was quite crazy about dogs. I 
 may say the condition was mutual. A dog would make 
 friends with him on sight, and the more friendless the 
 dog, the more friendly it would be with him — especially 
 if it was frightfully homely and bereft of any redeeming 
 quality that would appeal to anybody else. 
 
 Not long since an ex-railroad man told me that one 
 day he was running the engine on that road, with Homer 
 as a helper, when they saw a dog standing in a field by 
 the track, apparently without an owner. Homer at once 
 begged the engineer to stop, as he wanted to investigate 
 the situation and to get the dog, if possible, promising 
 to meet the train at that point the next day. At the 
 speed the train was running it was but a question of 
 walking back fifty yards. So a stop was made and the 
 engineer made the remainder of the run alone. But 
 although he looked for Homer next day all along that 
 stretch of track for ten miles he didn't see him — ^nor did 
 he afterward see him for more than three weeks, when 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 447 
 
 he came to the Silverton station one day, the dog by his 
 side, to inquire how the engineer was getting along, 
 anyway ! 
 
 He himself has informed the public how he finally 
 went to San Francisco and secured employment on one 
 of Hearst's papers, after drifting about some time, and 
 how, at the opening of the McKinley campaign in 1896, 
 he was transferred to New York, where his merciless 
 cartoons of Mark Hanna made him famous. 
 
 At the time Homer first went to San Francisco his 
 father was troubled with a weak eye, on account of which 
 he had for several years worn a leather "patch" over 
 it. He had been so adorned when serving in the State 
 Senate and, thus disfigured, was familiarly known to his 
 acquaintances over the State. Within two weeks after 
 Homer's tearful departure from Silverton a letter was 
 received at the post-office there with no writing on 
 the envelope but the address, "Silverton, Oregon." Just 
 above the address, however, was a life-like picture of 
 T. W. Davenport, arrayed in his slouch hat, long 
 whiskers, and a patch over one eye — the latter slightly 
 enlarged. 
 
 It was Homer's first popular cartoon, and after his 
 father had read the letter the envelope was placed in the 
 front window of the post-office where it was an attrac- 
 tion for the next ten days. The idea was illustraltive of 
 Homer's native wit and was one of the first indications 
 of his future career as a successful cartoonist. The Sil- 
 verton boys were all proud of that envelope and Frank 
 Simeral, Matt Brown, Trent Hibbard, Milt. Fitzgerald 
 and Tom Blackerby, as well as the "belle of Silverton," 
 spent much of their time showing it to those who chanced 
 to come into town from the country. 
 
 Within two weeks after the election in 1898, which 
 was in June, I received a letter of congratulation from 
 Homer. On the last page was a very clever cartoon — an 
 Oliver Chilled plow, standing at rest in the field, and a 
 placard hanging on the handle bearing the words, "To 
 Let." It was very suggestive and was highly appreciated 
 
448 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 by me. It has been preserved to this day and will be 
 found reproduced on one of the pages of this book. 
 
 By his native wit, agreeable presence, cultivated 
 talent and association with the great men of the country. 
 Homer Davenport has made a world-wide reputation of 
 which the friends of his boyhood days, still living in and 
 around Silverton and the beautiful Waldo Hills, are 
 justly proud. This short chapter is dedicated to him 
 in memory of the early days when he was a barefoot boy 
 begging doughnuts from his Grandmother Gear. 
 
CHAPTER LX 
 
 Within a short time after the adjournment of the 
 Legislature in February, 1899, a party consisting of 
 State Senator A. W. Reed, of Douglas County, Hol- 
 lister G. McGuire, State Fish Commissioner, Adju- 
 tant General B. B. Tuttle and myself, went to Roseburg 
 for the purpose of locating a salmon hatchery at some 
 point on the Umpqua River a few miles below that city, 
 though General Tuttle and I intended to pay an official 
 visit to the Soldier's Home, also. 
 
 Our presence in Roseburg was the occasion of a semi- 
 public reception at our hotel during the evening which 
 was attended by many of the prominent citizens. It was 
 Reed's home county, and as he had just succeeded in 
 securing the passage of a law creating a normal school 
 at Drain, much of the attention of the people was justly 
 given to him. 
 
 "Al" Reed was a prince of good fellows and no man 
 enjoyed a practical joke more than he. That evening, 
 among his home friends, he was at his best, greeted 
 everybody with a hearty salutation, and passed cigars 
 around among such of them as were smokers. He had 
 purchased a half-dozen small explosives which he secreted 
 in the "front end" of several cigars, the result being that, 
 in a few moments, the fire having ignited the mixture, 
 an explosion would occur that for an instant frightened 
 the victim completely out of his wits. This joke had 
 been played on several of the visitors as they came in, 
 those previously victimized enjoying the game to the 
 utmost. It certainly was great fun. 
 
 Toward the latter part of the evening Representative 
 J. T. Bridges came in, and Reed, having no loaded cigar 
 at the moment, retired to his room across the hall to 
 prepare one out of a bunch of three. Upon returning 
 
 449 
 
450 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 he offered one to Bridges, which he affably accepted, 
 and took one of the others himself. The crowd awaited 
 developments, their eyes in the meantime fixed on 
 Bridges. When the time had arri/ed for the worst to 
 happen to Bridges, there was a fearful explosion in the 
 direction of Reed, and the cloud of smoke enveloping 
 his head, together with the frightened and surprised 
 countenance he presented, served to show that he was 
 the victim of his own joke. 
 
 The entire assemblage at once gathered around Reed, 
 and while the house rang with shouts of laughter, he 
 was hauled here and there, stripped of his coat and vest 
 and made to submit to the application of a huge wet 
 towel, though he was not hurt at all. The only man in 
 the crowd who seemed nonplussed at the proceedings was 
 Bridges. 
 
 During the same evening McGuire surprised even his 
 most intimate friends by giving several recitals which 
 proved him a skilled elocutionist, an accomplishment 
 which few were aware he possessed. The evening was 
 one long to be remembered by those present as one of 
 especial enjoyment among friends of long standing. 
 
 The next morning Reed, McGuire and a few others 
 boarded the train for Winchester, ten miles away, at 
 the point where the road crosses the North Umpqua. 
 Here they took a skiff and proceeded down the river for 
 the purpose of inspecting locations which might be avail- 
 able for the establishment of a fish hatchery. The trip 
 could have been made just as well by land, and the 
 danger of passing through the rapids every few miles 
 was clearly explained. But this warning seemed only 
 to make Reed more determined to make the journey by 
 water; he knew every foot of the river, he said, and was 
 not at all afraid. 
 
 They finally secured a skiff at Winchester — not a very 
 good one at that — and proceeded down the river. About 
 five miles from their starting point one of the men re- 
 marked that he seemed to hear the roaring of water just 
 beyond the bend they were approaching. While they 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 451 
 
 drifted and listened, they whirled around an abrupt turn 
 in the river and before anything could be done toward 
 effecting a landing their frail bark was drawn into the 
 angry, boiling water and overturned. One of the men 
 was able to swim to the shore. While he was struggling, 
 he afterward said, he saw Reed clinging to the over- 
 turned boat, but he was never seen afterward. McGuire 
 was not seen at all, but a week later his body was found 
 a few miles below; Reed's was recovered months after- 
 ward. Thus sadly ended a trip that began under cin 
 cumstances that promised the highest degree of pleasure. 
 
 General Tuttle and I visited the Soldiers' Home that 
 afternoon. While resting at the hotel, about four o'clock, 
 a runner came from Winchester bearing the news that 
 Reed and his party had been drowned. For some time 
 it was thought the report was one of Reed's jokes, 
 attempted at the expense of those who had expressed 
 their fears for the safety of the party, and not until 
 the report came again, with some of the particulars of 
 the tragedy, did the city awake to a realization of what 
 had actually happened. 
 
 "Al" Reed was a member of the Lower House in the 
 Legislature of 1891, when I was Speaker, and I had 
 become warmly attached to him as a man of splendid 
 impulses and great activity. He was elected to the State 
 Senate in 1896, had been a member of that body during 
 the famous "hold-up" session of '97, and at the time 
 of his death had just completed his term of office. His 
 home was at Gardner, at the mouth of the Umpqua 
 River, and he was one of its leading business men, being 
 extensively engaged in the dairy and sawmill business. 
 
 Hollister McGuire was less well known than Reed, 
 but he had been a very efficient Fish Commissioner and 
 had made a thorough study of the mysterious habits of 
 the Chinook salmon, his report on that question having 
 added much to the meager information then possessed. 
 His death was a distinct loss to the State of Oregon. 
 
 Through McGuire's activity a State hatchery had been 
 established on the Clackamas River about sixty miles 
 
452 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 east of its confluence with the Willamette River, and 
 as members of the State Fish Commission, Treasurer 
 Moore, Secretary of State Dunbar and myself visited 
 that place in the fall of 1900. Accompanying us was 
 F. C. Reed, successor to McGuire and State Senator 
 Andrew C. Smith, of Multnomah, who went along by 
 invitation. The trip is most delightful at any time 
 during the summer or fall months. It is well back in 
 the Cascade Mountains, the last twenty miles being made 
 over a trail on riding-horses and packhorses. The scenery 
 is not to be surpassed anywhere. Part of the trail runs on 
 the top of ridges at least a mile above the river, which 
 at some points may be seen winding its way towards the 
 west like a thread of silver among the great trees, losing 
 itself as it abruptly darts around some bluff or rock which, 
 perhaps, towers above it fully one thousand feet. Mt. 
 Jefferson is not far away and Mt. Hood can frequently 
 be seen from the highest points of the trail. 
 
 At the hatchery we found a goodly representation of 
 the Warm Spring Indians already present, their purpose 
 being to secure the dead salmon which the hatchery men 
 throw away after the eggs have been taken from them. 
 These they dry for their winter use by smoking them 
 over a slow fire. A female salmon always dies after 
 spawning, but postpones this operation until she reaches 
 (he highest possible point of the stream she selects for 
 this purpose. After entering fresh water, the salmon 
 refuses food and, as may be imagined, by the time she 
 has traveled against the swift waters of a mountain 
 stream for a week she is not a very attractive object upon 
 which to feast. The last thing a female salmon does is 
 to die ( !), and the next to the last thing is to spawn. 
 It is in this condition the hatchery men find them, and 
 by catching them in seines and killing them, the eggs are 
 taken from them and hatched artificially. 
 
 But the Indians are not too particular. All fish look 
 alike to them. I remember that when we arrived there 
 was a large salmon lying at the bottom of the pond 
 which, the men said, had been there for at least ten days. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 453 
 
 Presently we saw an Indian dive for it. He secured it 
 after the third trial and added it to his rare collection of 
 smokable delicacies. 
 
 One morning, after the stripping of the eggs from all 
 the female salmon that appeared to be "ripe," we went 
 down the river a hundred yards to watch the Indians 
 drying salmon. We found they had erected frames of 
 poles, about six feet from the ground, on which they 
 hung their fish and keeping slow fires beneath them until 
 the consistency — and odor, I suppose — had reached a 
 satisfactory state. They had about two hundred fish then 
 in all stages of preservation, — though that is really not 
 the correct word to use in this connection. 
 
 There was a young squaw sitting on the ground near 
 a large fir tree, engaged in weaving a basket. None of 
 us had ever before seen an Indian basket in the course 
 of construction and the process was quite interesting. 
 We stood about ten feet in the rear of the young woman, 
 who was, apparently, unconscious of our presence, after 
 the manner of the true Indian, and never looked in our 
 direction. Finally I said to my companions: "Why 
 not open a conversation with the copper colored beauty?" 
 Having made the suggestion, I was importuned to try the 
 experiment. I had before this remarked that when a 
 boy in Salem I was a master of the Chinook jargon and 
 could talk it perfectly. This, then, they said, was my 
 opportunity. There was a young papoose strapped to 
 a board, leaning against the tree, to whom the woman 
 would occasionally direct a look or word, apparently of 
 reassurance. Assuming that she was the mother of the 
 kid and, follow^ing the same line of reasoning, concluding 
 that she had a husband, I began: 
 
 "Kah mika — man?" I failed to recall the Chinook 
 word for husband, so substituted the English word, the 
 question being: "Where is your husband?" 
 
 Without showing by her manner the slightest indica- 
 tion of a knowledge of our presence or that she had 
 been spoken to, she replied : 
 
 "Home." 
 
454 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 This "come back" in English at once subjected me 
 to the jibes of my companions and there was a per- 
 ceptible smile on the face of the woman. Not to be 
 outdone, or undone, I went at it again. 
 
 "Mica — man — ^mammook — baskets ?" 
 
 My question was an inquiry if her husband could 
 make baskets, couched, to be sure, in mixed Chinook and 
 English. Without showing any special interest in the 
 matter, she answered : 
 
 "Nope." 
 
 Another round of laughter, tinged with ridicule, came 
 from my heartless associates; but this only spurred me 
 on, so I said: 
 
 "Then mica man cultus man?" the meaning of which 
 was intended to be, "Your husband is no account then ?" 
 
 And here came a revelation, to wit, that an Indian is 
 not altogether devoid of the sense of humor. With a 
 quickness that was surprising, the woman for the first 
 time showed some interest in the conversation and, turn- 
 ing toward me slightly, though keeping at her work, 
 said: 
 
 "Do you make baskets ?" 
 
 Then I knew what was coming, and so did my villain- 
 ous companions, who made no effort to restrain their 
 merriment over my discomfiture. Of course, I made the 
 answer that I knew nothing of the art of making baskets, 
 when she retorted quickly : 
 
 "Then yoti are a 'cultus' man." 
 
 At this the two-legged hyenas who were standing 
 around, and who I had supposed were my friends, ex- 
 hibited every known symptom of insanity, some of them 
 falling prone upon the ground and shouting like the 
 lunatics they were. 
 
 The fact was, the girl had attended the school at the 
 Government Agency at Warm Spring and could speak 
 as good English as anybody, and didn't use any other 
 language except upon special occasions — and this was not 
 one of them. 
 
 This incident proves that one never knows what is 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 455 
 
 coming when talking to a stranger anyway, even if the 
 other man, or woman, be white. I recall that when living 
 on my farm in the Waldo Hills, I heard one day that the 
 old Elijah Smith place had been purchased by a man 
 from Ohio. The newcomer had been in possession of 
 his home for three months before I happened to meet 
 him, though I had heard that he was a very talkative 
 man and grew well acquainted with you at first sight. 
 
 One afternoon I was in the road between the house 
 and barn when a man came along driving a team and, 
 stopping, asked me, after calling my name, if I had any 
 relatives in Ohio. I told him I had, that my father was 
 born there and that many of the family name had been 
 in that State for over half a century. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I lived in Lima, in that State, for 
 twenty years, and there was a man there of your name, 
 a lawyer, who had one side or the other in every im- 
 portant case in the Circuit Court at every term. He 
 nearly always won his side of the case, too, was a popu- 
 lar public speaker and always in demand during political 
 campaigns. Everybody liked him and " 
 
 "Oh, well," I interrupted, "from the description I 
 know he was one of our family, and close in, at that." 
 
 "It might be," was his quick reply, "but he had a 
 brother in the insane asylum," and I was left stranded, 
 wondering what had become of my attempt at facetious- 
 ness. 
 
 That reminds me of a circumstance that occurred 
 during the summer of 1902. I was invited by Colonel 
 Judson, the industrial agent of the O. R. & N. Co., to 
 visit his experimental farm in the Walla Walla valley. 
 After we had inspected his ranch and the results of dry 
 farming, we went to the Marcus Whitman monument, 
 some miles out of town, which is erected on a low hill 
 overlooking the spot where Dr. Whitman was massacred 
 by the Cayuse Indians in November, 1847. After our 
 return to Walla Walla, Levi Ankeny, afterward United 
 States Senator from Washington, entertained our party 
 
4S6 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 at the Commercial Club. Ankeny is the richest man in 
 the State of Washington, though in his early days he 
 ran a pack-train from the Umatilla Landing to Lewiston. 
 His boyhood was spent in Oregon, his father having 
 been one of the pioneers of Portland. Levi Ankeny 
 owns several large wheat ranches in the Palouse country 
 which he rents out, but each fall he visits his farms 
 during harvesting time, gratifying his great liking for 
 hunting at the same time. 
 
 The year before our visit he had gone as usual to his 
 farms in August and, dressed in the garb of the ordinary 
 hunter, was going from field to field with his gun on his 
 shoulder, bagging an occasional bird and inspecting the 
 result of the year's efiforts. 
 
 Coming to one field where a steam thresher was at 
 work, he walked through the heavy stubble to where the 
 huge engine was driving the machine. It was one of 
 the kind that burns straw for fuel, but Ankeny, as he 
 stood there, saw the fireman throwing large forksful of 
 headed wheat into the furnace. After he had done this 
 several times, Ankeny approached him and said: 
 
 "I see you burn headed wheat in this engine, though 
 it is a straw burner." 
 
 "Yep," replied the fireman, as he pitched another fork- 
 ful of wheat into the furnace and slammed the door shut. 
 He paid no attention to Ankeny, save to show his an- 
 noyance at being bothered by a stray hunter. 
 
 After a minute Ankeny said: 
 
 "But I'd think the man who owns this grain wouldn't 
 like you to use his wheat this way when there is an 
 abundance of straw which will be burned in bulk after- 
 ward to get it out of the way. Burning wheat, when it 
 is ninety cents a bushel, is an expensive proposition, 
 don't you think?" 
 
 At this the man opened the door again, hurled a lot 
 of the wheat into the devouring flames and said, as he 
 slammed the door shut and wiped a stream of perspira- 
 tion from his face with his sleeve: 
 
 "Oh, the man that owns all this country is an old dufifer 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 457 
 
 down to Walla Walla that is so rich, they say, that he 
 doesn't know what to do with his money. Don't make 
 no difference to him. Besides, he'll never know anything 
 about it." 
 
 Ankeny said the assurance and composure of the 
 fellow were so sublime that he said nothing further to 
 him — but that night the whole "outfit" moved out of his 
 field and the job was finished by other and more con^ 
 scientious men. 
 
 All of which illustrates how necessary it is, in ex- 
 changing confidences, to be sure you are right well 
 acquainted with the other fellow — and even then feel 
 your way with some caution. 
 
 Speaking of loyalty to one's State or community re- 
 minds me of an instance occurring in Oregon a few years 
 ago that forcibly illustrates the value of such fidelity and 
 the tangible results of advertising, as the newspapers say. 
 
 In June, 1902, the national gathering of the Ancient 
 Order of United W^orkmen met in Portland. After its 
 adjournment the delegates made a trip to Astoria, whose 
 people treated them to a huge salmon bake. After the 
 repast was over one of the leading men of the party 
 related this circumstance : 
 
 "Oregon is a great country — ^great far beyond our 
 most exaggerated anticipations. Here we are at the 
 mouth of the Columbia River and I am going to tell you 
 how it all happened. 
 
 "I was a visitor to the Omaha Exposition in 1898, and 
 while passing through the Oregon exhibit there saw on 
 a plate what purported to be three cherries. They were 
 so very large, so far beyond anything in the cherry line 
 that I had ever dreamed of, that I said to my companion, 
 'That is a pretty good representation of a cherry, isn't 
 it?' and he agreed with me. 
 
 "There was a young man behind the table, in charge 
 of things, and I said to him : 'Big cherries, aren't they?' 
 'Yes,' he said, 'fairly good size.' He said it so unaf- 
 fectedly that I admired him for his coolness in trying to 
 fool a visitor more than I did the excellent art which had 
 
458 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 produced such a faithful representation of a cherry. In 
 a moment, however, when his back was turned, I picked 
 up one of them, disregarding the sign 'Hands Off," and 
 I must confess to you that I was never more surprised 
 in my Hfe than to discover that it was a real, red-blooded 
 cherry. I replaced it on the plate and went my way, 
 wondering what sort of a country Oregon was, anyway. 
 
 "Last year while our National Convention was in 
 session I was engaged in some committee work one day 
 when I had occasion to pass through the Convention hall. 
 The delegates were considering the always interesting 
 and more or less exciting question as to where they would 
 next meet, when I heard a delegate call the name of 
 Portland, Oregon. At once I recalled that cherry at 
 Omaha, and it occurred to me that I would like to see the 
 country that could produce such a wonderful specimen 
 of luscious fruit as that was. I always go to these great 
 gatherings, so I stopped right there and then, got into 
 the fray, rustled around among my friends, inducing 
 them to vote for Portland and, by a very small margin, 
 we won out. 
 
 "So, here we are, friends, eight hundred of us, coming 
 from every part of these United States, all of us boosters, 
 and when we go to our respective homes in all the States, 
 we will have endless good things to say to an almost 
 endless number of people about this great country — and 
 it all comes about on account of that pheriomenally big 
 cherry you had on exhibition at Omaha in 1898." 
 
CHAPTER LXI 
 
 At the last minute of the last night of the session of 
 the Legislature in 1901 John H. Mitchell was elected to 
 the United States Senate for his fourth and last term. 
 The term of George W. McBride was about to expire, 
 and though he was a candidate for re-election and had 
 the support of Mitchell, he could not secure a sufficient 
 number of votes to insure his success at any time. A 
 number of Republicans warmly supported Mitchell who 
 would not vote for McBride, and it was freely and 
 publicly said during the entire contest that the ultimate 
 purpose was to prevent McBride's election, though osten- 
 sibly favoring him, until the last moment, when the 
 "game" was to bring Mitchell into the race and force 
 his election under the guise of a necessity to avoid a 
 vacancy in the Senate. 
 
 H. W. Corbett was an active candidate against both 
 McBride and Mitchell and remained in the field until the 
 very last minute, but he could never muster the required 
 number of votes. Therefore, "as a last resort," and 
 "according to program," as many said, the name of 
 Mitchell was sprung just before adjournment and, amid 
 one of the most exciting experiences ever seen or felt 
 in a Senatorial election, he was chosen by receiving the 
 necessary forty-six votes fully fifteen minutes after the 
 hour fixed for adjournment had arrived. 
 
 A ballot had been taken five minutes before midnight, 
 the last to be had — which was realized, — and Mitchell, 
 after the result had been canvassed, still lacked one vote. 
 There were at least twenty of his faithful adherents on 
 the floor of the House working "like beavers" among 
 such members as they considered doubtful supporters of 
 Corbett, urging them personally, "for God's sake," to 
 change to Mitchell and not "disgrace the State and them- 
 selves by adjourning without electing a Senator." 
 
 459 
 
46o FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 Mitchell was not chosen on the first ballot after his 
 name had been presented, and this sort of personal 
 soliciting had been prosecuted vigilantly for an hour. 
 
 When it was known, however, that the last ballot was 
 taken, and there still lacked one vote, there was such 
 skirmishing and rushing about among the members as 
 one would scarcely believe would be tolerated in a leg- 
 islative body. When that scene is recalled, with a faith- 
 ful picture of all its sidelights, one can scarcely wonder 
 at the tenacity with which the people cling to and support 
 what is known as the present "Oregon System" of Sen- 
 atorial elections. 
 
 The result of the last vote had been counted by 
 Charles W. Fulton; but he knew, as did every man in 
 the vast audience of spectators, that there was lacking 
 one vote and that there was no election. Fulton saw 
 there were a score of men on the floor darting here and 
 there among the members, working like mad trying to 
 induce some one man to change his vote — any man, — 
 and for this reason did not "see" the clerk, who him- 
 self had delayed the matter until he could not invent 
 another reason for not presenting the tally to the pre- 
 siding officer. But with the skill of a trained politician, 
 and with that fidelity to Mitchell which he had always 
 displayed, Fulton continued to watch the efforts of those 
 who were begging members to change their votes "to 
 save the good name of the State," and "overlooked" the 
 clerk, who held the tally sheet as high as he could reach. 
 
 Finally, three men surrounded Mattoon, of Douglas 
 County, who had supported Corbett loyally through the 
 entire contest, and, with tears in their voices, if not in 
 their eyes, urged him "for the love of the State and for 
 his own good name to be the one man who would 
 subordinate his personal desires to the public welfare and 
 change to Mitchell." Literally, they lifted him to his 
 feet and, as he stood, he addressed the presiding officer. 
 This was the signal for a possible change, and at once 
 the tremendous din which filled the house ceased, as it 
 was realized that something was to happen. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 461 
 
 I was standing by the side of Mitchell in the large 
 committee room which joins the Representative Hall on 
 the northeast, from the connecting door of which we 
 could see the proceedings. When Mattoon rose to his 
 feet and remained "put" after his "assailants" had taken 
 their hands ofif him, I said to Mitchell : 
 
 "Senator, there is your forty-sixth vote." 
 
 "No," he said, and his face was not more barren of 
 color when I saw him in his coffin a few years later, 
 "that's Mattoon, and he is merely going to give his 
 reason for not changing his vote." 
 
 But Mattoon said: 
 
 "Mr. President, as is well known, my choice for United 
 States Senator has been, and is at this moment, Hon. 
 H. W. Corbett, but it is now plain to be seen that he 
 cannot be elected; therefore, in order that we may not 
 adjourn without the election of a Senator I change my 
 vote to Hon. John H. Mit ," 
 
 At that moment such a yell arose in that hall as 
 seemed to jar the very foundations of the Capitol itself, 
 and as it has recently been claimed that it is not really 
 safe, and that cracks are to be seen in its walls, my 
 opinion is that the damage was begun at that time. 
 
 It was not generally known that Mitchell was a spec- 
 tator of the dramatic scene; but of course a few knew 
 where he was, and when the vote was finally declared, 
 he was called for by thousands of voices and, almost 
 carried on the shoulders of a score of friends, was taken 
 to the President's platform where he made a very 
 felicitous address, thanking the legislators for their 
 "partiality" and expressing his gratitude for their "con- 
 tinued confidence," etc. 
 
 And that was John H. Mitchell's last election to the 
 United States Senate. Before that term expired he was 
 in his grave, safe from further political or personal 
 attack, sent hither prematurely, it is generally admitted, 
 by reason of his prosecution for complicity in land frauds 
 against the Government. 
 
462 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 The election of Mitchell in 1901 was marked by a 
 surprise to the people of Oregon in that it was accepted 
 with good grace by Harvey W. Scott, the veteran editor 
 of the Oregonian, his political and personal enemy 
 during a bitter warfare of thirty years' duration. Asked 
 for an explanation of his abandonment of the "fight 
 against Mitchell" by those who had been his warmest 
 supporters in that ugly crusade, and who were not dis- 
 posed to permit any cessation of it merely because he had 
 been successful again, Mr. Scott said, in substance : 
 "What's the use? Shall it be continued until the end? 
 And for what? The people of Oregon appear to like 
 Mitchell, and nothing appeals to them as against 
 Mitchell's personality. I'm done. If anybody wants to 
 keep up the fight, well and good, but I am getting along 
 in years and do not propose to follow further the fight 
 against Mitchell." 
 
 And he did not. Even during Mitchell's last days — 
 days of sorrow, adversity and of disgrace — Mr. Scott 
 avoided any personal spleen in the discussion of the 
 affair and they were, at least on the surface, good 
 friends. On Mitchell's return to Portland, after his elec- 
 tion in 1 901, his friends gave a little supper in his 
 honor, and my recollection is that Mr. Scott was present 
 and extended his congratulations. Afterward they fre- 
 quently met in public and private, and gave every evidence 
 of a disposition to forget the bitterness of the past and to 
 recognize that they were both gray-haired men who had 
 reached that time of life when charity is a better personal 
 characteristic than malevolence and persecution. 
 
 For thirty years the "fight between Scott and Mitchell" 
 was the dominating factor in Oregon political life. All 
 the difficulties of the Republican party, and they have 
 been legion, have been directly traceable to the break 
 between these two really strong men when they were 
 both young, and such successes as the Democratic party 
 has had in this State can be as directly followed to that 
 source. 
 
 Mitchell and Scott were as unlike in temperament and 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 463 
 
 method as it is possible for two men to be. Scott was 
 able, irascible, unrelenting in his pursuit of an antagonist, 
 and during the fifty years of his active life had at his 
 disposal a newspaper of wide circulation, which last 
 leverage he did not fail to use to its fullest power. And 
 it was great. He was a very positive man, courageous, 
 without question, and a master in the use of incisive 
 English. He was a born fighter and critic. It was 
 usually only the man whom he thought wrong that he 
 discussed in the Oregonian. His opinion was, evidently, 
 that to do right is to be expected of a man, and as 
 long as that was his course, he was not worth a mention ; 
 but the moment he espoused a cause or expressed an 
 opinion that Scott thought wrong, or incorrect, his 
 vitriolic pen was brought into service with a vigor that 
 compelled one's admiration — provided it was the other 
 fellow who was under consideration! 
 
 Some men have been thought to have a "double," but 
 Harvey Scott had none. For forty years he had at his 
 command the only paper in Oregon which had any con- 
 siderable circulation; the Oregonian was of such char- 
 acter that it "printed all the news" and was read by the 
 general public of all parties. Whatever Mr. Scott said 
 was known and commented upon everywhere, and his 
 opinions were not successfully combated for the reason 
 that there was no way of disseminating an opposite 
 opinion. He could belittle a cause, or a man, before 
 thousands of people, and the other side was powerless to 
 retaliate because there was no possible way of reaching 
 the public ear. 
 
 It was the reason, I think, that Mr. Scott developed 
 in the course of his lifetime an overbearing disposition. 
 He had little patience with opposition. He could batter 
 down by the sheer force of his powerful pen, aided by 
 the unopposed circulation of the Oregonian, any man 
 or cause which incurred his displeasure and, quite nat- 
 urally, in the course of forty years of such experience, 
 to dominate became his second nature. 
 
 ^[r. Scott was a man of moods. A visit to his sanctum 
 
464 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 was always the occasion of speculation on the part of 
 the caller as to the kind of reception he would receive. 
 Sometimes he would be the very personification of affa- 
 bility and his greeting would be effusive to a degree, but 
 on other occasions he would look like a cloud-bank por- 
 tending a Texas cyclone. But it may at least be said in 
 his defense that he was not hypocritical. 
 
 I remember that I once called upon him, while in 
 Portland, during the days when I lived on the farm, and 
 found him decidedly in what might be called the 
 "dumps." He was in his familiar coatless costume and 
 hard at work at his desk. After the usual greetings, I 
 said: 
 
 "Well, how are you getting along, Mr. Scott ?" 
 
 "Oh, poorly enough!" was his reply. "Working 
 myself to death and getting little for it. If there's noth- 
 ing in life but ceaseless hard work, what is it all worth?" 
 
 "But," I said, "you have built up a great newspaper 
 here, and at least have made a name for yourself that 
 is well and favorably known all over the United States." 
 
 "There's nothing in a so-called great name," he re- 
 plied. "You are missed and mourned for a day after 
 you are gone, and that is the last of a 'great name'?" 
 
 "But, even if that were so," I continued, endeavoring 
 to lead him into a more cheerful train of thought, "here 
 is the Oregonian, which is admired and quoted every- 
 where for its ability and enterprise. It is something to 
 have been identified with it as its editor for thirty years 
 and more." 
 
 As we were talking, we were standing by one of the 
 
 windows in Mr. Scott's editorial rooms. From that great 
 
 elevation we could clearly see Mt. Hood, fifty miles 
 
 ,' away, presenting one of the most magnificent pictures 
 
 ' which Nature's brush has painted an3rwhere on the face 
 
 of the earth. Mr. Scott resumed : 
 
 "But the Oregonian can never have a big circulation. 
 If I had cast my lot in New York or Chicago I might 
 have something to show for my endless toil ; but as it is, 
 we have only a narrow strip up the valley and eastern 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 465 
 
 Oregon on which to draw for support — and what does 
 that amount to — what does it promise ? Now, look at that 
 mountain out there" — pointing to Mt. Hood — "how far 
 do you suppose it is through it at its base?" 
 
 "Oh, about twenty miles, perhaps," I answered, not 
 seeing the drift of the conversation. 
 
 "Well," he continued, "then it covers in the neighbor- 
 hood of four hundred square miles, a huge pile of rocks 
 that we call beautiful — and it does well enough to look 
 at. But suppose it was a prairie country, like Illinois — 
 there would be thousands of readers of the Oregonian 
 where now there is not one !" 
 
 And, of course, there was no fitting answer to that. 
 
 Another phase of Mr. Scott's moods was shown when 
 I called upon him, in answer to his request, just before 
 the Astoria Convention in 1898. There were two Re- 
 publican conventions in Multnomah County that year, 
 the "Mitchell" and the "Simon," each electing a full 
 delegation to the State convention, and the situation 
 promised much trouble there. I had already carried 
 Marion County in the contest for the nomination, for 
 Governor, which virtually settled the matter in my favor, 
 but I was not the real choice of either faction in Mult- 
 nomah County, though they seemed to have acquiesced 
 in the sentiment which prevailed in the State at large. 
 
 I had gone to Portland to see Mr. Scott on the day 
 these two conventions met, though I did not know the 
 date of the approaching events. I was talking to a 
 friend in the old "Multopor" Club rooms when somebody 
 'phoned the news that the Mitchell convention had passed 
 resolutions warmly endorsing me for Governor. This 
 was a surprise, since I had not expected it and did not 
 know the convention was in session, and, furthermore, 
 I had not yet seen Mr. Scott, and was fearful lest such 
 action would incense him and, possibly, turn his support 
 from me, since he had been an active advocate of Gov- 
 ernor Lord's renomination. 
 
 It was for this reason that I went to the Oregonian 
 office, dreading that I should find Mr. Scott in a great 
 
466 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 rage. But when I entered his office he was in the best 
 of humor, which led me to surmise that, since he did 
 not mention the fact, he had not yet heard the news of 
 the action of the Mitchell convention. This made the 
 siuation more disagreeable than ever, as it now devolved 
 upon me to break the news to him, and to be a witness 
 of the explosion which was sure to follow. After a 
 few minutes I said: 
 
 "Have you heard what the Mitchell convention has 
 done, Mr. Scott?" 
 
 "No," he said, looking up with an expression of 
 inquiry, "what has it done now?" 
 
 "Why, it passed resolutions endorsing my candidacy," 
 I said, expecting the worst. 
 
 "Well," he said, with the utmost calmness, "you want 
 all the support you can get — anybody does, always." It 
 was one of Mr. Scott's good days. 
 
 Mr. Scott was a very vigorous man physically, as 
 well as mentally, and was in robust health until an un- 
 expected complication appeared in the early part of 
 1910. In August of that year, accompanied by his 
 family, he went to Baltimore for a consultation with an 
 eminent specialist, but was unable to rally from the 
 effects of an operation and died on Sunday afternoon, 
 August 7. In his honor memorial services were held 
 at Pacific University, Forest Grove, on September 29. 
 In closing my estimate of this truly great man I cannot 
 do better than to incorporate here the following address, 
 delivered by me on that occasion : 
 
 At the close of Mr. Scott's life it could have been 
 truly said that he had filled a larger place in the history 
 of the State of Oregon than had any other man — and 
 this is in itself a wonderful tribute when it is remem- 
 bered that Oregon has had its full share of men who 
 have won their way to an eminent place in the annals 
 of the nation. But Mr. Scott's life-work was in an 
 entirely different channel from that of his contem- 
 poraries, and comparisons of relative merit or intel- 
 lectual powers are, therefore, impossible. It has been 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 467 
 
 well said by some one that he graduated from this 
 institution in a class by himself and remained in that 
 class during his entire career. 
 
 In approaching the duty of saying a few words as to 
 Mr. Scott's work and his characteristics, tempera- 
 mentally, I find myself confronted by the impression 
 that he was a man most difficult to analyze, though this 
 is made much easier when it is accompanied by the re- 
 flection that his work was of such nature that it in 
 large measure prevented his association with his 
 fellows. The performance of the stupendous ends 
 he accomplished week in and week out, not only for 
 a decade but for nearly fifty years, never permitted 
 any loitering or other waste of time. And beyond this 
 was the necessary preparation which supplied the 
 foundation for the intellectual battles he waged all 
 this time in a manner which, whatever else may have 
 been said by his adversaries, never failed for want of 
 dynamic force nor revealed any lack of familiarity 
 with the essential facts. And this concession was al- 
 ways made by his opponents. 
 
 To those who take the time fairly to study Mr. 
 Scott's life-work, therefore, the reason for his apparent 
 moroseness or lack of affability is easily understood. 
 The wonder is that he could find sufficient time during 
 his waking hours to qualify himself for the duties 
 he undertook and which he performed with such 
 marked ability. He was never unprepared, and his 
 preparedness meant not only a familiarity with the 
 literature of the day — ^newspaper, magazine, periodi- 
 cal and book — but a sustained knowledge of ancient 
 history in all its bearings upon modern questions, 
 political, religious, social and economic. In this con- 
 nection I feel disposed to say that I believe Mr. Scott 
 was widely conversant with more subjects than any 
 other man who has taken part in the public affairs of 
 Oregon, and this will probably be universally con- 
 ceded. Indeed, the boundaries of Oregon might be 
 extended to include the nation itself without bring- 
 ing to light a very great number of serious com- 
 petitors in this respect. 
 
 And all this is not to be wrought by the idler or 
 the man who is prone to build up a reputation as 
 
468 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 a "hail fellow well met." To the man who has had 
 to do with a daily newspaper, even of the more unpre- 
 tentious sort, the value of time down to hours and 
 minutes is understood to be a matter of vital import- 
 ance, and there are many times each day when the 
 editor has not a moment to spare, even with his best 
 friend, from the duties which call for immediate at- 
 tention. At such a time, if a man with an idle hour 
 on his hands drops in for a chat with the editor, he 
 is likely to meet with a reception strikingly lacking 
 in that effusive cordiality which he thoughtlessly and 
 fondly expected. 
 
 In other words, the busy editor of a great daily 
 newspaper is necessarily a man who lives much to 
 himself and gradually becomes the companion more 
 of books and exchanges than of his personal friends 
 and acquaintances. 
 
 I belong to the "Constant Reader" class of the 
 Oregonian, having relied upon its news columns for 
 information as to the world's doings and been a stu- 
 dent of its editorial department for more than forty- 
 five years. I remember quite well when Mr. Scott 
 became connected with the paper and the marked im- 
 provement in its tone which people generally said 
 was noticeable. Since the spring of 1869, now forty- 
 one years ago, I have been a subscriber in my own 
 name to the Oregonian, though at that time I was 
 but eighteen years of age. 
 
 Aside from his family and his immediate asso- 
 ciates and co-workers, I 'knew Mr. Scott as well, per- 
 haps, as did almost any other man, and I desire to 
 bear this testimony to the undoubted fact that he 
 was in great measure misunderstood by the body of 
 the people of Oregon, to whose welfare, material, 
 moral and social, he devoted the best years of his 
 life. He never traveled over the State, seldom 
 visited the State Fair, for instance; rarely, if ever, 
 paid a visit to the smaller towns ; was an entire 
 stranger to most of its interesting localities off the 
 main line of its railroads — and for these reasons was 
 not well known personally to many of its people. And 
 yet, for all this, he was in close communication with 
 a greater number of the citizens of Oregon every day 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 469 
 
 in the year for half a century, and upon a greater 
 variety of subjects in which they were vitally in- 
 terested, than any other twenty-five men whom the 
 State has produced during that time. 
 
 Mr. Scott's aggressiveness was proverbial, for he 
 was in no wise a "mollycoddle." Upon all questions 
 of general concern his opinions were firm and his ex- 
 pression of them was always outspoken. During the 
 many bitter contests that have been waged in this 
 State during the past forty years Mr. Scott was al- 
 ways on the firing line, and the files of the Oregonian 
 during that time bear eloquent witness to his magnifi- 
 cent fighting qualities, and usually to his superior gen- 
 eralship. On the greater questions of national import 
 he was able, by reason of his comprehension of under- 
 lying principles, as established by the experience of 
 mankind, to take the right side and his greater claim 
 to fame rests upon the fact that he was a deep thinker 
 and a ripe scholar. He was not to be moved from safe 
 ground, as proven by the experience and experiments 
 of other people, by the clamor of the hour or the 
 mouthings of the demagogue. Here is where Mr. 
 Scott stood as a mighty sentinel for the people's good, 
 and though for a time he might stand alone, he never 
 swerved from an unquestioned loyalty to his convic- 
 tions. This marked him as a great man among his 
 compeers and both created and sustained his repu- 
 tation — wide as the nation — as one of the few great 
 editors of his generation. 
 
 In this connection it should be said that in the 
 successful career which Mr. Scott made for himself 
 during fifty years of persistent endeavor he was 
 very fortunate in his environments, for at the time 
 of his graduation, and when he was in search of a 
 vocation, Portland, then in its infancy, was just be- 
 ginning to attract attention as the coming chief city 
 of the Northwest, and the Oregonian was taking its 
 place as probably the leading newspaper of the new 
 country. To this should be added the other favorable 
 circumstance that the paper was directed then and 
 ever since by a business man of unusual sagacity; 
 it lacked only a man well qualified as an able and 
 vigorous editorial writer. A great emergency, if it 
 
470 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 may be properly termed such, was calling for a man 
 fully prepared to accomplish great things and Mr. 
 Scott, who was but little past his majority and not 
 yet fully settled, appeared as the right man at the 
 right place at the right time. Twenty years later, 
 or ten, or at any time since this would not have been 
 possible, but it must be said of Mr. Scott that he fully 
 met the requirements of the situation then and signally 
 filled the succeeding demands of a great business 
 as it reached out into every section of the Northwest. 
 
 From personal conversations with him I know that 
 at times Mr. Scott felt, that, in a sense, his would have 
 been a greater fame had his lot been cast in one of 
 the larger Eastern cities, since he realized through 
 the restricted opportunities presented in a sparsely 
 populated section of the country his efforts through a 
 half -century of persistent application would have been 
 better appreciated had his field included millions of the 
 people instead of thousands. Nevertheless, his attach- 
 ment to the "Oregon Country" was deep as its lovely 
 rivers, high as its majestic mountains and broad as 
 its fertile plains. He was distinctly loyal to its 
 every interest, had an abiding faith in its great future 
 and felt an unbounded admiration for the pioneer men 
 and women who wrested it from the savages and who 
 did so much toward transforming it into the magni- 
 ficent commonwealth which it is to-day. 
 
 Considering the great work he was ' doing for the 
 material and moral uplift of the people of the North- 
 west, and that he had at his disposal one of the best 
 newspapers of the United States as a vehicle for 
 reaching them every day, Mr. Scott's death may be 
 regarded as the deepest affliction which the King 
 of Shadows has wrought upon them, as a whole, since 
 the days of the intrepid Whitman and the generous 
 McLoughlin. In the very nature of things no one man 
 will ever take his place, for the position he filled in 
 Oregon journalism will never be open to another. 
 There are thousands of native Oregonians of my age, 
 or near it, who cannot remember anything of im- 
 portance relating to the history of the state in which 
 Harvey W. Scott was not an active character on the 
 public stage and an influential moulder of public 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 471 
 
 opinion. To us, especially, his death leaves a void 
 which seems ever present, as the removal of a prin- 
 cipal figure in a cherished landscape materially alters 
 and apparently dwarfs every other feature which has 
 hitherto seemed of transcendent beauty. 
 
 The name of Harvey W. Scott is writ large in the 
 history of the State he did so much to exploit, and 
 after life's fitful fever he has passed on to the land of 
 the Great Unknown. He came from the common 
 people, was the product of early self-denial and per- 
 sistent industry, was an exponent of the simple life, 
 which he illustrated in his daily methods of living, 
 hated cant and mere pretense, was a great student, was 
 a most genial companion when the demands of duty 
 would permit it, conducted a great newspaper which 
 was kept comparatively free from those things which 
 should not be read in the home, and, better than these, 
 he was a kind father and a devoted husband. More 
 than this can rarely be said of any man. 
 
 In many respects the career of John H. Mitchell has 
 not been duplicated by that of any other public man in 
 the history of the United States. He was a candidate 
 for the United States Senate in 1866 and was defeated 
 by the narrowest margin; was again a candidate in 1872, 
 and elected; was retired at the end of his term in 1878; 
 was again a candidate in 1882, but defeated; was again 
 elected in 1885 by the aid of Democratic votes; was re- 
 elected in 1 89 1 without opposition in his party — for the 
 first time; was defeated in 1897 by his enemies who pre- 
 vented the organization of the Legislature with that end 
 in view; was again elected in 1901 and in the middle of 
 his term was indicted in the Federal courts for complicity 
 in land frauds against the Government, was tried, con- 
 victed and sentenced to pay a heavy fine and to a term of 
 imprisonment, the latter of which he escaped only by the 
 interposition of the King of Shadows. 
 
 Yet, there is no doubt that, if the matter could have 
 been left to a popular vote of the people of Oregon after 
 the verdict had been rendered, they would have given 
 him an overwhelming endorsement and a ringing exon- 
 
472 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 eration from all blame, for there is a general belief among 
 the people he served so long and faithfully that he was 
 literally "hounded to his grave" on the thinnest of tech- 
 nicalities. 
 
 Kind hearted to a fault, he had at all times left nothing 
 undone for his constituents that was within his power to 
 accomplish and, especially, was due to him, more than to 
 any other dozen men, the National aid to the Lewis and 
 Clark Exposition in Portland in 1905, the result of which, 
 as a means of advertising the great resources of Oregon, 
 has been worth more in the material advancement of the 
 State than all that had preceded it since the first settle- 
 ment of the Northwest. Concerning this latter public 
 service, Harvey W. Scott, his lifelong political enemy, 
 wrote him the following letter on November 28, 1903, 
 Mr. Scott being the President of the Board of Directors 
 of the Centennial Exposition : 
 
 Hon. John H. Mitchell, United States Senate, Wash- 
 ington, D. C. 
 
 My Dear Sir : On behalf of the Board of Directors 
 of the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition I desire 
 to extend to you our thanks for the earnest and effi- 
 cient service you are rendering in bringing the claims 
 of this Exposition forward for National recognition. 
 It is impossible to imagine better work than you are 
 doing in securing for this great undertaking the con- 
 siderate attention of Congress and of the country. 
 
 Such service, moreover, is appreciated by the whole 
 people of Oregon and of the entire Northwest. Wish- 
 ing for you continued health and success in all your 
 work, I am. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 H. W. Scott. 
 
 A short time after the death of Senator Mitchell the 
 State Bar Association held a meeting in Portland in 
 honor of his memory, at which the principal speaker was 
 Hon. George H. Williams, Oregon's "grand old man," 
 during the course of which he gave this estimate of the 
 dead Senator's work and characteristics: 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 473 
 
 "He represented every locality, every interest and every 
 party in the State. Whenever a citizen of the State 
 wrote him a letter he was sure of an answer, and when- 
 ever an Oregonian went to Washington while he was 
 there he was sure of kindness and civilities from the Sen- 
 ator. He deserves to be remembered particularly for his 
 efforts in behalf of the Lewis and Clark Centennial. He 
 knew how to do things in Washington. He gave a 
 banquet to which he invited a number of influential con- 
 gressmen and there, between the sherry and the cham- 
 pagne, he had them pledged to vote for an appropriation 
 for the Fair. I was talking with a lady the other day 
 who said the Senator had visited her house and, while 
 conversing about public affairs, referred to his work for 
 the Lewis and Clark Fair. 'And now,' said he, 'my 
 right to visit the grounds is hardly recognized,' and his 
 eyes filled with tears as he made the remark. I have been 
 classed as a Mitchell man in the foolish differences in the 
 Republican party, and will say here that I have been 
 favorable to his election because, in my judgment, with 
 his influence, experience and standing in the Senate he 
 could do more for Oregon than any other man who could 
 be elected." 
 
 Of the charge upon which Mitchell was tried and con- 
 victed. General Williams said: 
 
 "What I want to say is that there was no moral turpi- 
 tude in what he did. He injured no one, he wronged no 
 one. His employer willingly paid him for his labor. 
 
 . . Everybody who knew Senator Mitchell knows 
 that in thousands of cases he has rendered similar or 
 greater services for individuals in the departments with- 
 out any compensation therefor. Such was his common 
 practice. In this particular instance he appears to have 
 received fees, but there is little doubt that he would have 
 rendered the same service upon request if no fees had 
 been paid. . . . Senator Mitchell had a right to go 
 to the departments to urge the issuing of patents for any 
 other lawful purpose, and, so far as his influence with the 
 departments was concerned, it made no difference 
 
474 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 whether he rendered his services gratuitously or not. He 
 committed an error and not a crime. 
 
 "Senator Mitchell is now beyond the praise of friends 
 or the malice of enemies. When the winter comes the 
 flowers of summer fade, the leaves fall to the ground, 
 the storm-clouds gather and there is gloom instead of 
 sunshine, and so with Senator Mitchell; he has passed 
 into the winter of life. All the summer flowers of his 
 career had faded — the joyous fruits of his labor had per- 
 ished — a storm-cloud gathered over his head and in its 
 shadow he laid down and peacefully passed to where 
 winter and storm can never disturb the serenity of God's 
 eternal years. Senator Mitchell sleeps in the bosom of 
 the State in which he lived so long and served so well, 
 and if I were to erect a tombstone at the head of his 
 grave, I would have no inscription on it but the name, 
 'John H. Mitchell,' and, underneath, in large and lasting 
 letters, that beautiful, comforting and consoling word, 
 'Rest' " 
 
 Senator Mitchell died on the 9th of December, 1905, 
 five days before which event he had written a letter to his 
 daughter, Mrs. J. P. Fawcett, in Canton, Ohio, in the 
 course of which he said : 
 
 "My health is far from robust, the terrible strain 
 through which I have passed during the last year is fast 
 telling upon me, and I feel that I cannot stand it much 
 longer. Oh, God ! how I have wished many and many a 
 time that I might have died before this disgrace came 
 upon me, my children and my State. I ha\'e this one 
 consolation, that notwithstanding the verdict of the jury, 
 I am absolutely an innocent man." 
 
 At the meeting of the Bar Association, Judge William 
 D. Fenton said: 
 
 "Had Senator Mitchell remained at the bar and de- 
 voted the time to himself and his family that he did to 
 the people of Oregon and to his country in general, he 
 would have been worth a million instead of a paltry 
 estate of $3,000, against which are debts amounting to 
 $10,000. This man sacrificed his life in the service of 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 475 
 
 the State. He measured up to the standard of public 
 usefulness." 
 
 The feeling at the time of Senator Mitchell's trial was 
 that he was more sinned against than sinning, that 
 through the promptings of a generous heart he merely 
 did that for pay in a few instances which he did thou- 
 sands of times without thought of remuneration, and 
 that a useful public servant was sacrificed on the rising 
 but ephemeral tide of "Muckrakism." If living to-day, 
 in the face of all that was proven, though, indeed, he 
 committed some errors, and did some foolish things as 
 his troubles were approaching which operated against 
 him during his trial, it would doubtless be a safe wager 
 that few men, if any, could poll a higher popular vote 
 for United States Senator than Hon. John H. Mitchell. 
 
 During the last days of Senator Mitchell's life he had 
 no more devoted friend than Col. David M. Dunne, 
 United States Collector of Internal Revenue, who, within 
 a few weeks will begin a campaign for dollar subscrip- 
 tions for the purpose of erecting a ten thousand dollar 
 monument to the memory of Oregon's Senator who for 
 a full generation stood so close to the hearts of the 
 common people. 
 
 After thirty years of acrimonious warfare, Harvey W. 
 Scott and John H. Mitchell, intellectual giants, are rest- 
 ing beneath the sod in Riverside Cemetery which over- 
 looks the beautiful city of Portland, free from that strife 
 that was theirs almost unceasingly for almost a full half- 
 century. 
 
CHAPTER LXII 
 
 There had been so many miscarriages and "hold-ups" 
 in the various Senatorial elections in Oregon that one 
 may not wonder at the conception and adoption of the 
 "Oregon System," — "Statement No. i," as it is popu- 
 larly called — by which members of the Legislature are 
 required to pledge themselves to vote for that man who 
 has previously been selected by the people as their choice 
 for United States Senator, — irrespective of the political 
 complexion of the candidate or the Legislature. 
 
 In 1882 Dolph was elected at the very end of the ses- 
 sion, though Mitchell had been the caucus nominee and 
 voted for from the beginning. In 1885 Hirsch was the 
 caucus nominee, but the opposition was strong enough 
 to defeat him and there was an adjournment without any 
 election. In the fall of the year Governor Moody called 
 a special session for the one purpose of choosing a 
 Senator. In 1889 Dolph was re-elected on the first ballot, 
 as was Mitchell two years later. But in 1895 there was 
 a struggle which lasted until the last minute of the ses- 
 sion, when McBride was elected, and in 1897 there was 
 no organization of the House at all, in order to prevent 
 the re-election of Mitchell. 
 
 Governor Lord appointed H. W. Corbett to fill the 
 vacancy thus made, but after considering the matter for 
 several months the Senate decided that, since the Legis- 
 lature had been in session and had failed to elect a Sen- 
 ator, it was not within the power of the Governor to fill 
 such a vacancy. As a result of that decision the Gov- 
 ernor called a special session in October, 1898, at which 
 time Joseph Simon was elected. 
 
 The deadlock in 1901 has just been described and its 
 counterpart was had two years later. Thus, out of seven 
 elections of United States Senators, five of them re- 
 
 476 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 477 
 
 quired the entire time of the session — two of these re- 
 sulting in no election at all, and one of them in no 
 organization of the House, with no legislation on any 
 subject whatever. 
 
 It is a disgraceful record and furnishes abundant jus- 
 tification for the change which the people of the State 
 have forced until such time as the Federal Constitution 
 may be amended providing for the popular election of 
 United States Senators. 
 
 The contest for United States Senator in the session 
 of 1903 was different in one important respect from its 
 predecessors in the line of deadlocks. At the preceding 
 session there had been passed a law providing for a popu- 
 lar vote on Senators. It was known as the Mays law, 
 for the reason that it had been introduced by Senator 
 Pierce Mays and was fathered by those known as Mitchell 
 Republicans for the purpose of forcing Senator Simon, 
 whose term was just expiring, to a popular vote, the 
 assumption being that on account of the charge against 
 him of being a political "boss" he would not fare well in 
 a popular vote and that his defeat would be more nearly 
 assured than if it were left to the management of a 
 Legislature — where he was as nearly "at home" as any 
 man in Oregon. Simon had been a member of the State 
 Senate for nearly twenty years and had been its president 
 five times, occupying that position when elected to the 
 United States Senate in 1898. 
 
 But at the end of Simon's term conditions were such 
 that he was not a candidate before the Legislature for 
 re-election and the authors of the Mays law had no use 
 for it. In the meantime, I had been defeated for re- 
 nomination for Governor through a series of combina- 
 tions by the friends of the Mays law and decided to 
 become a candidate for United States Senator under its 
 provisions. Frankly, I had two purposes in this political 
 move — first, to become a United States Senator, if I 
 could secure the popular vote, and, secondly, to show, if 
 I could, that my defeat for a re-nomination was not 
 endorsed by the people and was utterly contrary to their 
 
478 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 wishes. At any rate this was my purpose, and I wa« 
 willing to put the matter to a popular test. 
 
 The result of this move proved that I had not mis- 
 understood the feeling of the people, but that I was mis- 
 taken as to the sincerity of the men who had passed the 
 Mays law. Many of them were still in the Legislature, 
 but they paid no attention to the popular vote whatever, 
 though I had complied with every legal requirement. I 
 had received thirteen thousand more votes than my 
 Democratic opponent, C. E. S. Wood, who himself had 
 received a larger popular vote than many of his Demo- 
 cratic colleagues on the State ticket. 
 
 When the Legislature met in January, 1903, and began 
 voting for United States Senator, Charles W. Fulton 
 was the leading candidate and ultimately won the elec- 
 tion. It was known that he would be a candidate early 
 in the year, and as he was a supporter of the Mays law 
 when it was enacted, it was my purpose to force him to 
 submit the question to a popular vote, but this he declined 
 to do, preferring to trust to his chance of controlling 
 the Legislature in the old way. 
 
 The Mays law was discredited in the house of its 
 friends — it was emasculated before it produced any 
 results. It was held to be a mere joke. I had taken no 
 part in the preceding State campaign, preferring to allow 
 the popular vote to be cast without using any personal 
 solicitation for support, in order that no man might say 
 I was unusually active, or, indeed, active at all, in my 
 own behalf. My name was at the head of the official 
 ballot, but I remained at home and made no speeches, 
 wrote no letters — asked no help in any direction. 
 
 This utter indifference to the popular vote for United 
 States Senator laid the foundation for the direct primary 
 law, the direct vote for Senators after the method known 
 as Statement No. i , and, indeed, the entire "Oregon Sys- 
 tem," and it would be as difficult to stem successfully the 
 tides of the ocean as to secure a return to the old system 
 in Oregon. To be sure, it has its imperfections which 
 are patent to every observer, but so disgusted are the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 479 
 
 people with the old methods that they look with suspicion 
 upon even a reasonable proposition for improving the 
 new order of things. 
 
 Upon the last day of the balloting the name of H. W. 
 Scott was presented, with the expectation on the part of 
 some of my supporters that he would draw a sufificient 
 number of votes from Fulton to win the election ; but this 
 was soon found to be impossible, and just as the hour 
 for adjournment had arrived a stampede for Fulton was 
 effected, as had been the time-honored custom in Oregon, 
 "to save thvj good name of the State" and that "you 
 may not go home to your constituents without having 
 elected a Senator." The old plan worked once again — 
 but for the last time. 
 
 Charles W. Fulton, the successful candidate for Sen- 
 ator, was born in Ohio in 1853, but moved to Iowa when 
 a youngster, afterward to Nebraska, was admitted to 
 the bar in that State and came to Oregon in 1876 to 
 grow up with the country. He came at once to Portland 
 and applied for a position in a lawyer's office. Having 
 failed in his first attempt, he went to another, but with 
 the same result. He then went, in turn, to every lawyer's 
 office in the city and found them all "full." As he 
 arrived in Portland with but ten dollars in his pocket, 
 he began at this juncture to take a serious view of the 
 situation. Finally concluding that, as he had been reared 
 on a farm, he could handle horses as well as anybody, 
 he tried to get employment in a livery stable, but the 
 stables were all supplied with an abundance of help. 
 There was not a vacancy anywhere. 
 
 At this point he walked up the river one morning past 
 the old "White House," with no definite purpose in view 
 other than to find something to do — an3rthing. Just out 
 of town he came across three men cutting cord wood on 
 the bank of the river, and he thought that if the worst 
 came to the worst — and it had about arrived at that 
 point that morning — ^he would try his hand at the end 
 of a rriaul, with a wedge attachment. Here he remem- 
 
48o FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 bered, however, that when at home with his four brothers 
 the one thing he disHked above all others was chopping 
 wood. He had often traded with the boys at chore time 
 and agreed to do everything else if they would "get in" 
 the wood. So he "passed up" that prospect. 
 
 Upon returning to town he met a lawyer who told him 
 that George R. Helm, of Albany, was a young man of 
 great promise, a popular politician and had no partner — 
 perhaps he could get a foothold with him. This looked 
 and sounded good to Fulton, but that morning he had 
 but twenty cents in his pocket and couldn't well get to 
 Albany or anywhere else. But he decided that he must 
 see Helm, so he sold an old silver watch his father had 
 given him years before for three dollars and seventy-five 
 cents and went by boat to Albany. 
 
 There was a "rate war" on at the time between the 
 Willamette River boats and the fare was but fifty cents 
 to Albany, so Fulton went there in search of his fortune ; 
 but Helm was in ill health and did not want any partner 
 or even an assistant. He then called upon J. K. Weather- 
 ford who had just been elected superintendent of county 
 schools, and Weatherford did not want any help in his 
 ofifice — he was an attorney, also — but he said the directors 
 of the Waterloo district, up on the Santiam, wanted a 
 teacher and that if he could teach school he might get 
 the job. 
 
 Fulton replied that he had never taught school but 
 that he thought he could get a third-grade certificate — in 
 fact, he'd have to. Accordingly, he walked to the 
 Waterloo district, twenty miles away in the foothills of 
 the Cascades, saw the directors and secured the school. 
 He walked back to Albany the next day, obtained his 
 certificate, for which he paid two dollars and fifty cents, 
 and returned to Waterloo — on foot. His salary was 
 forty dollars a month and "found," that is, he boarded 
 around with the pupils. At the end of the three months' 
 term he was worth one hundred and twenty dollars in 
 money. 
 
 With this capital he went to Astoria and opened a law 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 481 
 
 office. Business, however, was slow in coming his way 
 and the records in the county clerk's office will to-day 
 show thousands of pages copied in Fulton's handwriting 
 — work done in order that his income might cover his 
 office rent and other "necessaries of life." 
 
 In conversation with Fulton this summer I asked him 
 his reason for locating in Astoria instead of Portland, 
 where he removed a year ago. His reply was that, in 
 common with thousands of others at that time, he 
 thought the coming city of the Northwest would, of 
 course, eventually be at the mouth of the Columbia 
 River, and he went there in order "to be on the ground 
 floor and grow up with the city." 
 
 In 1878 Fulton was elected to the State Senate from 
 Clatsop County and served for four years. He did not 
 again appear in public life until his election to the Senate 
 in 1890, when he served another four years. He was 
 again elected in 1898 and a fourth time in 1902. He 
 was a member of the State Senate at the time of his 
 election to the United States Senate and was president 
 of that body in the sessions of 1893 and 1901. 
 
 I first met Mr. Fulton in the session of 1880 when I 
 M'as a member of the House and he of the Senate. Since 
 that time we have always been warm personal friends, 
 though often arrayed against each other in political war- 
 fare. He is a man of generous impulses, always loyal to 
 his friends, and was for thirty years an unswerving 
 disciple of John H. Mitchell, whose colleague he was 
 at the time of the latter's death. Since his entrance into 
 the State Senate in 1878 he has been an active force in 
 Oregon politics, as the preceding resume will show, but 
 met his first decisive defeat when, upon the expiration 
 of his term in the United States Senate, he ran afoul of 
 the "Oregon System" and was retired. 
 
 Mr. Fulton was a candidate for the nomination for 
 Governor in the Republican State Convention in 1894, 
 but after a warmly contested campaign was defeated by 
 Judge W. P. Lord. In the senatorial deadlock in 1895, 
 when Dolph was defeated for re-election, Fulton was the 
 
482 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 candidate voted for several times by the opposition, but 
 without success. Several of his earlier aspirations were 
 frostbitten — as were some of mine — and he was con- 
 soled by those who failed to be impressed properly by his 
 claims — as I was — ^by the assurance that he "was young 
 yet" — that his time would come later. This sop after 
 awhile ceased to heal, even partially, the wounds inflicted 
 on our pride and to us became a very tiresome joke. 
 After Fulton's defeat for the nomination for Governor, 
 in 1894, I wrote him a letter of consolation — endeavored 
 to cheer him up with the assurance that he "was young 
 yet," and must not expect too much until everybody else 
 who wanted good public positions had died of old age, 
 etc. 
 
 To this letter he responded very kindly, saying that 
 other people perhaps understood such things better than 
 he did, but that he would feel a d — sight better if they 
 would express themselves honestly and say in plain 
 English that he was incompetent or dishonest or thor- 
 oughly undeserving. "But," he concluded, "here I have 
 been in the State Senate for eight years, was president 
 of that body one session, have stumped the State several 
 times and am getting gray-haired, stoop-shouldered and 
 wear glasses— and now to be regarded as a political ever- 
 green at my time of life would make a man prematurely 
 old where everything else would fail. However, there 
 is a whole lot of satisfaction in knowing that you are 
 as young as I am. May you remain so." 
 
 In talking over his early experiences in Oregon, Fulton 
 said that when he hadn't a dollar in his pocket, couldn't 
 get any kind of employment and didn't have an acquain- 
 tance on the Pacific Coast, even that morning when he 
 saw the three men cutting cordwood along the river 
 south of Portland, after he had been turned down by 
 all the livery stables in town, he was not at any time 
 especially anxious, as he remembers it now, for he was 
 young and strong, in good health, and had no fear of 
 starvation or even of want. "Such powerful assets," 
 he said, "are youth and good health ! I had worked all 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 483 
 
 my boyhood on a farm and I guess I must have thought 
 that no man has a surer grip on a living than a farm- 
 hand — grub and clothes. Rockefeller doesn't get any 
 more than that out of his millions, that I have ever heard 
 of, does he? No, I have had a thousand times more 
 real worry over some dirty campaign lie than I had then 
 with no money, no friends and no job. You see, I was 
 young then, and nothing can permanently down a young 
 man with good health — not if he wants to stay up!" 
 
CHAPTER LXIII 
 
 The death of Thomas H. Tongue in 1902, member of 
 Congress from the First Oregon District, was a loss to 
 the public service which was keenly felt at the time and 
 is still recognized. He was born in England, but when 
 a small boy came to Oregon with his parents and settled 
 in Washington County. After arriving at the age of 
 manhood he became a farmer, devoting his attention 
 largely to the raising of blooded horses. He was also 
 admitted to the bar and for many years before entering 
 Congress was recognized as one of the leading lawyers 
 of the State. He succeeded Binger Hermann in Con- 
 gress in 1897, remaining there by successive elections 
 without opposition until his death. 
 
 Mr. Tongue was one of the best public speakers in 
 Oregon, aggressive, ready, forceful and witty. He was 
 elected to the State Senate in 1888, serving in that body 
 with distinction for four years. He was always a promi- 
 nent figure at gatherings of Republicans and twice was 
 president of the Republican State Convention. 
 
 Mr. Tongue was noted for his illegible handwriting, 
 and it was a standing joke among his friends. He 
 gave thanks to the man who first invented a typewriter 
 and often remarked that his friends were more thankful 
 than he was. I recall that, one year, he wrote a letter 
 descriptive of Washington County for the New Year's 
 edition of the Oregonian, to which his signature was 
 attached in fac simile, as were those of the writers of 
 articles descriptive of the other counties. My paper 
 came to me during the holidays, while two Salem teachers 
 in the public schools were visiting at the farm. Upon 
 its receipt I discovered Tongue's letter, and his signature 
 looked so much more like anything else one might 
 imagine that I called the two teachers and asked them 
 
 484 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 485 
 
 if they could decipher it. They, with my two daughters, 
 looked over my shoulder, as I sat in my chair, and 
 guessed almost every other name under the sun except 
 that of Tongue. 
 
 The next day I wrote to Tongue the following letter : 
 
 Macleay, Oregon, Jan. 2. 
 Hon. Thos. H. Tongue, 
 
 Hillsboro, Or. 
 My Dear Tongue: 
 
 The New Year's Oregonian, just received, con- 
 tains an article descriptive of the resources of Wash- 
 ington County, which is so very admirable that I should 
 like to know the name of its author. His name is at- 
 tached to it, to be sure, but it is printed in fac- 
 simile and I cannot make it out. In fact, there are 
 two school-ma'ams visiting at my home this week, 
 and as I sat in my chair they came and, looking over 
 my shoulder, failed utterly to decipher the signature. 
 
 Knowing that you are well acquainted in Washing- 
 ton County, it occurred to me to write you and make 
 an effort to ascertain the author of the very excellent 
 article, for I should like to compliment him on his 
 splendid and thorough treatment of his subject. 
 Yours sincerely, etc. 
 
 Within a week I received the following letter, to appre- 
 ciate which it is necessary to say that my own hand- 
 writing was little, if any, better than Tongue's, and that 
 in order to retain the respect of my friends I purchased 
 one of the first typewriters that came from the factory: 
 
 Hillsboro, Or., Jan. 10. 
 Hon. T. T. Geer, 
 
 Macleay, Or. 
 Friend Geer: 
 
 I am after information. I received a letter a day 
 or two ago written in such a wretched hand that I can- 
 not make out who it is from, and I write to you, for 
 the reason that the envelope has the postmark 
 "Macleay" on it and, so far as I recall, you are the 
 only person living there whom I know. I wish you 
 
486 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 would make some inquiry about the matter, for the 
 poor devil may want to know something of import- 
 ance that I can tell him. The only thing I am sure 
 about is that the letter came from Macleay and that 
 its author was sitting between two school-ma'ams 
 when he wrote it. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Thos. H. Tongue. 
 
 In the month of August, 1902, Mr. Tongue joined a 
 party of about twenty-five people who visited Crater 
 Lake, in Klamath County — which, by the way, is one 
 of the greatest natural wonders on the globe, being a 
 sunken body of water on the very summit of the Cascade 
 Mountains, six miles across, the surface of the water two 
 thousand feet below the surrounding country. Teams 
 and automobiles are driven to the verge of these bluffs, 
 from which point one of the grandest scenes afforded 
 in all the handiwork of Nature is presented to the 
 beholder. These tremendous walls are almost perpen- 
 dicular and the water's edge is accessible in one place 
 only in all their vast extent. 
 
 Official soundings have been made by the government 
 to ascertain the depth of this body of water, and it was 
 found that the average is about fifteen hundred feet, 
 though several measurements showed a depth of two 
 thousand feet. On one side of this lake is a cone-shaped 
 island composed of burnt shell lava whose summit is 
 eight hundred feet above the surface of the water — all 
 of which gives an abundant field for speculation as to its 
 origin. Undoubtedly, however, there once stood where 
 this lake now lies a huge mountain, probably similar to 
 Mt. Hood, which was blown to atoms in some convulsion 
 of Nature in distant ages, leaving its summit to settle into 
 the vast chasm thus created. This afterward filled with 
 water, at least to within two thousand feet of the surface, 
 and, finding some subterranean outlet, remained at that 
 stage — for Crater Lake has neither an inlet nor outlet 
 that is visible. 
 
 One of the most singular and beautiful features of 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 487 
 
 Crater Lake is that its water is as blue as the darkest 
 indigo, looked at from a distance or while riding on its 
 bosom in a skiff, but if dipped into a cup it is as clear as 
 the purest mountain stream. This coloring is supposed 
 to be caused by the atmospheric effect, in conjunction 
 with the reflection of the sky into such an enormous 
 cavity in the earth's surface. Taken as a whole, there is 
 nothing in the world which will rival any of its remark- 
 able features, and it is destined to become a most popular 
 resort for those who are investigating the causes and 
 effects of Nature's mysterious ways. 
 
 Mr. Tongue joined our party on this outing, not only 
 for the reason that he had never seen Crater Lake, but 
 in the hope that his health, which had not been good for 
 a year, would improve. The trip was made under the 
 auspices of Will G. Steel, the veteran boomer of Crater 
 Lake. We camped the first night out from Medford at 
 Eagle Point, a delightful typical country village in a 
 splendid agricultural section. The people in the neigh- 
 borhood came to our camp after dark, and by huge 
 bonfires several speeches were made, Mr. Tongue being 
 especially happy in his remarks. But it was frequently 
 remarked by different members of the party that he was 
 in an enfeebled physical condition. When we made our 
 camp on the banks of the picturesque Rogue River and 
 most of us began fishing for the delicious mountain trout 
 with which that stream abounds. Tongue spread his 
 blankets down and rested, explaining to me that his con- 
 dition was worse, he feared, than most people supposed. 
 
 The next day the teams all stopped when we came to 
 a small stream which flowed across the road. Tongue 
 sat down for a rest on an old rail fence which had not 
 been repaired for a generation, it seemed. I suggested 
 to him that Steel get his kodak and take his picture, to be 
 printed in the Oregonian and under it the words : "Con- 
 gressman Tongue in his favorite attitude." 
 
 At that moment I was picking up a rail from the 
 ground with which to make myself a seat, and Tongue 
 quickly retorted : 
 
488 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 "All right, I've no objection, but let him take one of 
 you also, with the explanation: 'Governor Geer still 
 mending his fences.' " 
 
 The day following our arrival at the lake the entire 
 party descended the precipitous path which leads to the 
 water's edge, took a couple of treacherous skiffs that 
 were there, and rowed across to "Wizard Island." It 
 was a very foolhardy thing to do, considering the sort 
 of boats we used, but we arrived safely and made the 
 very difficult, because exhausting, ascent of the island, 
 every step sinking a foot into the loose lava (I mean 
 sinking a foot a foot deep into it). In descending, one 
 would often slide ten feet at a time after taking one step, 
 moving a rod square of loose rocks in the operation. 
 
 The climb out of the lake was a most fatiguing under- 
 taking and we scattered out in the ascent as each one felt 
 able to proceed. We had all reached camp far ahead of 
 Tongue, and were discussing the advisability of sending 
 some one after him when he appeared at the top of the 
 cliff not far away. Everybody remarked the awful pallor 
 of his countenance and his lips were of such a deep 
 purple color that general alarm was felt. He sank down 
 on a near-by bunk, completely exhausted, and was unable 
 to talk for several minutes. He soon recovered, how- 
 ever, and seemed once more himself ; but when his death 
 was announced some four months later as having oc- 
 curred suddenly at Washington, it was not at all surpris- 
 ing to those who were his companions during his last 
 vacation. 
 
CHAPTER LXIV 
 
 Taken all in all, Oregon, considering that it is situated 
 on the western verge of the continent, has had a most 
 interesting, almost romantic, history. The very difficulty 
 by which it was reached in the early days made it doubly 
 attractive to the adventuresome spirit which dominated 
 the men who took possession of it sixty and seventy 
 years ago. As I approach the point where this work 
 ■must be drawn to a close, I realize what an abundance 
 of material there is relating to many prominent men 
 who wrought here in those days which I have not touched 
 upon at all. It is a "far cry" from the present "Oregon 
 System" of choosing public officers to the manner of 
 controlling a Legislature in the "days of '49," when the 
 first territorial lawmaking body met at Oregon City, 
 then the capital. Nothing has been said of Jacob Conser, 
 Samuel Parker, John Grim, H. N. V. Holmes, "Bob" 
 Kinney, A. J. Hembree, Wesley Shannon, Nathaniel 
 Ford — all members of that body — or of Fred Waymire, 
 James McBride, Ralph Wilcox, Ben Simpson and others 
 who were members of the next Legislature, all men of 
 force, character and patriotic impulses, the salt of the 
 earth. 
 
 One of the prominent men in Oregon for many years in 
 its formative period was Benjamin Simpson, who bears 
 the distinction of being the only man in the history of 
 the State who has served in the Legislature from four 
 dififerent counties. He was a member of the House in 
 1850 from Clackamas County, from Marion County in 
 1851, and again in 1852; in 1853 he was a member of 
 the council from Marion County, and served a single 
 term. In 1862 he had located in Polk County, and ap- 
 parently from force of habit went to the Legislature 
 from that subdivision of the State. In 1872 he was 
 elected from Benton County, thus establishing a record 
 
 4S9 
 
490 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 that stands alone in this State. A few months before his 
 death, which occurred in Portland in the summer of 1910 
 at the advanced age of ninety-two years, he told me a 
 number of incidents of his early experience in Oregon 
 public life. As to his election to the Legislature from 
 Benton County in 1872, he said : 
 
 "One of the most amusing incidents connected with 
 my public life happened in the election in June, 1872. I 
 had been living for a number of years in Salem, but in 
 that year was engaged in building a schooner over at 
 Yaquina Bay. I had taken a twenty-two thousand dollar 
 contract and was employing a large number of men. I 
 was there myself practically all the time and when the 
 campaign opened I conceived the idea of going to the 
 Legislature. I had no trouble in getting the nomination, 
 but at once the Democrats got busy in an effort to defeat 
 me on the ground that I was a carpet-bagger, an importa- 
 tion, etc. From the day of my nomination the campaign 
 was red-hot and it kept myself and friends busy explain- 
 ing that under the laws of Oregon I was, under the cir- 
 cumstances, a citizen of Benton County and that, further, 
 I was there engaged in developing its maritime resources 
 and that, in my judgment, Yaquina Bay was destined to 
 become one of the greatest seaports on the Pacific Coast, 
 etc. 
 
 "But this argument had no effect toward lessening the 
 bitterness of the Democratic campaign, and I found 
 myself in the midst of the fight of my life. I voted at 
 Yaquina and the next day went over the mountains to 
 Corvallis, where the results of the election were being 
 received. I arrived there late in the afternoon and saw 
 a large crowd of men standing in front of the court- 
 house. When I had reached a point two blocks away I 
 was recognized, and one of my most enthusiastic sup- 
 porters and workers started toward me and shouted at 
 the very top of his voice: 'Hurrah, Ben; hurry up. 
 You're elected by sixty majority, and if you had really 
 been a resident of the county you would have beat 'em 
 by at least four hundred.' 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 491 
 
 "Of course the joke was on me, but I had won the 
 election all right and it was only one of the incidents in 
 the game of politics. 
 
 "In 1849 I took an active part in bringing out 
 Samuel R. Thurston for Congress. I wanted to beat 
 Jim Nesmith, who concluded that he would like to rep- 
 resent the new territory at Washington, and Thurston 
 was the best timber we had to do it with, I thought. He 
 was nominated and elected and on the morning he was 
 going to start away a crowd of us had gathered on the 
 bank of the Willamette at Oregon City. Thurston lived 
 just across the river in Linn City, which at that early 
 day was a serious rival of both Oregon City and Port- 
 land. I had a store and sawmill at Clackamas, another 
 ambitious and promising town on the Willamette at the 
 mouth of the Clackamas River. The day before Thurs- 
 ton had been down to my store and bought a bottle of 
 vinegar. I furnished the bottle and he promised to 
 return it the next morning as he started to Washington. 
 We had not stood long on the bank of the river watch- 
 ing for him when he appeared and went down toward 
 the bank to take the ferry-boat. There was a woman 
 there also, with an umbrella in her hand, and when 
 Thurston started to board the boat we could see that the 
 two began a vigorous conversation, attended by a series 
 of gestures which indicated a decided difiference of 
 opinion. The argument didn't last long, however, for 
 the woman began to hunt for Thurston's solar plexus 
 with the point of her umbrella, and a broadside sent his 
 hat to grass, while the Congressman-elect grabbed her 
 wrists and held her until her ire subsided and he was 
 allowed to depart in peace. 
 
 "The melee furnished our party a deal of fun and 
 when he arrived on our side of the river Thurston ex- 
 plained that he and his antagonist had had some differ- 
 ences (I have now forgotten what the trouble was 
 about), and he added, 'Ben, in the scufHe I dropped your 
 bottle and it broke in a thousand pieces.' He offered to 
 pay for it, bottles of any kind in those days being worth 
 
492 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 money, but I told him to let it go as the fun was worth 
 the price of a full-sized demijohn." 
 
 Samuel R. Thurston, of whom Simpson speaks in the 
 foregoing incident, was a prominent figure in the early 
 territorial days, being the first delegate to Congress after 
 the establishment of the territorial government. He was 
 born in Maine, in 1816, was a graduate of Bowdoin 
 College, and came to Oregon from Iowa across the plains 
 in 1847. After his election to Congress, in 1849, he 
 went to Washington, served one term and on his way 
 home died at sea between Panama and Acapulco. His 
 remains were buried at the latter place at the time, but 
 a few years afterward, the territorial Legislature having 
 appropriated money for the purpose, they were exhumed 
 and reinterred in the Odd Fellow's Cemetery at Salem. 
 The State has since erected a monument over his grave, 
 on which are these words : 
 
 "Here rests Oregon's first delegate ; a man of genius 
 and learning, a lawyer and statesman; his Christian 
 virtues equaled by his wide philanthropy. His public 
 acts were his best eulogium." 
 
 Thurston was a very popular man, proof of which 
 permeates the early records of Oregon history; but not 
 the least conclusive is the fact that nearly every boy 
 born in the territory in 1850 or 1851 has Thurston for 
 either his front or middle name; among the latter the 
 writer of these lines is duly registered. 
 
 One of the best known of the early pioneers was 
 Samuel K. Barlow, who crossed the plains in 1845. ■^'"" 
 riving at The Dalles and finding that those who had 
 preceded him had made the remainder of the journey to 
 the Willamette valley by rafting their belongings down 
 the Columbia River, he decided it was time somebody 
 built a wagon road across the Cascades. The result was 
 the making of what was for fifty years known as the 
 Barlow road, over which, late in the season, he and his 
 companions reached their destination. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 493 
 
 Barlow settled on a beautiful small prairie just south 
 of Oregon City which to this day is known as "Barlow's 
 Prairie." He came from Indiana and after a few years 
 began to yearn for the walnut trees with which he had 
 been familiar in that State. Walnut trees do not grow 
 indigenously in Oregon, but when transplanted thrive 
 fully as well as in the Mississippi Valley. To gratify his 
 longing for walnut trees in his new home he arranged 
 with Thurston, before his departure for Washington, to 
 bring back with him a bushel of walnuts which he would 
 write his people in Indiana to send to the national capital 
 before his return. This was done and they were aboard 
 the vessel when Thurston died. This event unsettled the 
 ordinary course of things and Barlow's walnuts were not 
 heard of — or from — in fact, he had no assurance that 
 Thurston had started with them. After a couple of 
 months, however, he received word from an agent in 
 Portland that there was a bag of something there which 
 apparently belonged to him and that there was a charge 
 of fifty dollars on it — for freight. 
 
 Barlow at once wrote the agent that he would never 
 pay such an outrageous price for the walnuts and that 
 he could keep them for his debt — that if he was going 
 to be robbed, he wanted it to be a first-class job! But, 
 in describing the circumstance afterward, he said the 
 more he thought the matter over the more unreconciled 
 he was to the fact that only fifty miles away there was a 
 bushel of real old Indiana walnuts — right from his old 
 home — and after a week of unrest he went to Portland, 
 paid the fifty dollars freight bill on his bushel of walnuts 
 and went home, happy, he said, notwithstanding the 
 robbery ! 
 
 But it proved a good financial investment, after all, 
 for he planted the nuts the following fall, nearly all of 
 them grew, and they did so remarkably well that within 
 two years he had sold fully a hundred of them at one 
 dollar each and had enough left to line the roadway lead- 
 ing from his handsome residence to the public highway. 
 To-day the beautiful archway formed by the intertwining 
 
494 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 branches of those walnut trees, now sixty-five years old, 
 is admired by passengers on the Southern Pacific Rail- 
 road as the train stops at the "Barlow" station; but not 
 many of the thousands of people, even Oregonians, who 
 have commented on their beauty, are aware of their 
 Indiana origin or the part Samuel R. Thurston had in 
 the original transfer. 
 
 Several of the beautiful walnuts to be seen on the 
 streets of Salem, and in other parts of the State, were 
 obtained sixty years ago from the Barlow importation 
 from Hoosierdom. 
 
CHAPTER LXV 
 
 Of course it would be impossible to carry on a civil 
 government without a sufficient number of office holders 
 to insure the proper administration of its laws, and, 
 equally of course, civilization would not survive without 
 civil governments — and yet it would be difficult to find 
 a man who has spent the better part of his days in the 
 public service who will not freely declare that he made 
 a great mistake and that he would have pursued a much 
 wiser course had he followed some business pursuit and 
 "left politics alone." No doubt that, from a financial 
 standpoint, the average man would have fared better had 
 he avoided the political whirlpool and remained in private 
 life, thus disappointing the "muckraker"' and contribu- 
 ting to the peace and comfort of his own mind as well 
 as to the mental tranquillity of his family. 
 
 I know that most of the men who have "passed the 
 chairs" look backward, after an active interest and par- 
 ticipation in the turmoil of political warfare — "warfare" 
 is the proper word — and wonder why it had any attrac- 
 tion for them, why so many have striven to follow the 
 same pathway, usually strewn with an appalling amount 
 of wreckage. 
 
 I have often seen a much greater scramble in a con- 
 vention over the nomination for county commissioner or 
 assessor than for that of sheriff or clerk, — the fact being 
 an evidence that there is a charm about mere office- 
 holding, regardless of the real value of the position, that 
 is irresistible to the ordinary man. To analyze the basis 
 of it leads one to the conclusion that it is founded largely 
 on vanity — and yet all of us, or most of us, must plead 
 guilty to the weakness and it is practically incurable. 
 
 Perhaps, however, it is providential, for the reason 
 already indicated — that it would be impossible to sustain 
 
 495 
 
496 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 a government unless men made such sacrifices as are 
 necessary to administer its laws. The average American 
 is a home-builder, a home-lover, a home-defender, and 
 the safety of the home depends altogether upon a stable 
 and just government. 
 
 We have seen that the first American settlers in the 
 Oregon Country did not wait long in the wilderness to 
 which they had come before making provision for a 
 government, though they came from all walks of life 
 and most of them, naturally, were without experience 
 in legislative matters. 
 
 But the raw material for the construction of a credi- 
 table Legislature was here, and when the necessity for 
 action arrived it found them ready to grapple with the 
 situation. When a Legislature was authorized its mem- 
 bers served for one dollar and fifty cents a day, "ad- 
 journed till after harvest," reassembled, after their wheat 
 had been garnered, "in the old Methodist church" and 
 did honest service, clad in buckskin trousers and often 
 coatless. 
 
 An amusing instance of the difificulties under which 
 the Oregon pioneers discharged their Legislative duties 
 was given a few years ago by ex-Senator James W. 
 Nesmith in an address before the Oregon Pioneer As- 
 sociation. 
 
 As an illustration of the honest and simple direct- 
 ness which pervaded our Legislative proceedings of 
 that day, I will mention that in 1847 I had the honor of 
 a seat in the Legislature of the provisional govern- 
 ment. It was my first step on the slippery rungs of the 
 political ladder. The Legislature then consisted of 
 but one House and we sat in the old Methodist church 
 at the Falls. Close by the church Barton Lee had con- 
 structed a ten-pin alley to which some of my fellow 
 members were in the habit of resorting to seek relaxa- 
 tion and refreshment after their Legislative toils. I 
 had aspired to the Speakership and had supposed my- 
 self sure of the position, but the same uncertainty 
 existed in political matters that I have seen so much 
 of since. Some of my friends "threw off" on me 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON A97 
 
 and elected a better man in the person of Dr. Robert 
 Newell — God bless his soul ! In the small collection of 
 books at the Falls, known as the Multnomah Library, 
 I found what I had never heard of before — a copy of 
 "Jefferson's Manual" — and after giving it an evening's 
 perusal by the light of an armful of pitch knots, I 
 found there was such a thing in parliamentary usage 
 as "the previous question." 
 
 I had a bill then pending to cut off the southern 
 end of Yamhill and to establish the county of Polk, 
 which measure had violent opposition in the body. 
 One morning, while most of the opponents of my 
 bill were amusing themselves at "horse billiards'' in 
 Lee's ten-pin alley, I called up my bill, and, after mak- 
 ing the best argument I could in its favor, I con- 
 cluded with, "And now, Mr. Speaker, upon this bill 
 I move the previous question." Newell looked con- 
 fused, and I was satisfied he had no conception of 
 what I meant; but he rallied, and, looking wise and 
 severe (I have since seen presiding officers at Wash- 
 ington do the same thing), said: "Sit down, sir! Re- 
 sume your seat! Do you intend to trifle with the 
 Chair, when you know that we passed the previous 
 question two weeks ago? It was the first thing we 
 done!" 
 
 I got a vote, however, before the "horse billiard" 
 players returned, and Polk County has a legal ex- 
 istence to-day, notwithstanding the adverse ruling 
 upon a question of parliamentary usage. 
 
 Genial, kind-hearted Newell ! How many of you 
 recollect his good qualities, and how heartily have 
 you laughed around the camp-fire at his favorite 
 song, "Love and Sassingers." I can hear the lugu- 
 brious refrain describing how his dulcinea was cap- 
 tured by the butcher's boy. 
 
 "And there sat faithless she 
 A-frying sassingers for he." 
 
 He has folded his robe about him and lain down 
 to rest among the mountains he loved so well and 
 which have so often echoed the merry tones of his 
 voice. 
 
498 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 The following extract from an address delivered by 
 Mrs. Sarelia Griffith Miller before the annual gathering 
 of the Oregon Native Sons and Daughters a few years 
 ago narrates an incident, which, aside from its ludicrous- 
 ness, illustrates how our people lived under pioneer con- 
 ditions : 
 
 A dear, sweet old lady, Mrs. Buck, of Oregon City, 
 told me the following incident in her own life : "We 
 were living," said she, "not far f-rom where Portland 
 now stands; our home was as good and as well fur- 
 nished as any of the homes in those times. It hap- 
 pened that two officers from an English vessel just 
 arrived from Fort Vancouver had been hunting, and 
 night overtook them near our house. They came and 
 asked for a night's lodging. We told them that we 
 were not prepared to make them comfortable, but 
 would make a bed on the floor if they could accept 
 that. They thanked us and said that they were glad 
 to find a house to sleep in and not be obliged to stay 
 in the woods all night. 
 
 "Well, we had supper, and we sat around the big, 
 bright fire talking until quite late, for both the gentle- 
 men were cultured Englishmen and splendid conver- 
 sationalists and we enjoyed the talk. Finally, we 
 all retired for the night, they to their pallet on the 
 floor, and husband and I to a little room which opened 
 off this room where our visitors were. Our houses 
 did not have doubled plastered walls and partitions 
 in those days, but very thin boards with quite wide 
 cracks between. One could easily hear from one room 
 to the other every word spoken — in fact, it was most 
 impossible not to hear. About the time they were 
 getting into bed, I heard one of them say, 'I wish 
 I had a night-cap.' I thought I had better get up and 
 give him one of mine, or, perhaps, both gentlemen 
 would like to have night-caps. But my caps were so 
 plain, and these were such aristocratic looking gentle- 
 men, that I did not like to offer them. He said nothing 
 more, and I concluded he had gone to sleep. By and by, 
 it seemed to me about half an hour afterwards, I 
 heard him say, 'Rae, are you awake?' and the answer, 
 'Yes.' Then the first voice again, T can never go to 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 499 
 
 sleep without a night-cap.' And the reply, 'Neither 
 can I.' 
 
 "I waited no longer," said the dear old lady; "I 
 took two of my night-caps, made of white muslin 
 with strings to tie under the chin, and going to the 
 door put my hand through and said, 'Gentlemen, here 
 are two night-caps; they are plain and rather small, 
 but perhaps you can use them.' I heard a faint sound 
 of suppressed laughter, then in an instant the house 
 resounded with the hearty laughing of those gentle- 
 men, who finally managed to tell me that my night- 
 caps were not the kind they wanted." 
 
 Among the men who participated prominently in the 
 affairs of Oregon in the early days and who was an 
 intimate and personal friend of Robert Newell — he who 
 decided that the previous question "had been passed two 
 weeks ago" — was J. J. Murphy, who during the last 
 fifteen years of his life was clerk of the State Supreme 
 Court. Murphy was very influential with the people of 
 French Prairie, where his home had been when a young 
 man, and had served the people of Marion County as 
 sheriff, clerk, and for a term or two in the Legislature. 
 He had also been Mayor of Salem. He was well past 
 seventy years of age when death claimed him, but he 
 will be remembered by his host of friends as a boy to the 
 last in buoyancy and cheerfulness and keen humor. Ad- 
 vancing age impaired his health, though he "died in the 
 harness," but after a chat with him one always felt the 
 better for it. 
 
 While the Legislature was in session in January, 1901, 
 Judge Wolverton, of the Supreme Court, gave a little 
 dinner to a few invited guests at his home. During the 
 progress of the meal we were discussing some of the bills 
 which had been introduced in the Legislature, and among 
 them one which proposed to levy a pretty stiff tax on 
 dogs, from the consideration of which we drifted into 
 a general argument as to the dog. 
 
 "I have always had a warm spot in my heart for dogs," 
 said Murphy, who, with his wife, was among the guests, 
 
Soo FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 "but Mrs. Murphy will have nothing to do with them. 
 I remember that on the day we were married, after the 
 ceremony had been concluded and we were left alone, 
 I suggested to her that, inasmuch as I would be com- 
 pelled on account of my business to be away from home 
 much of the time, I had better get a dog to keep her 
 company. I had not before discussed dogs with her, 
 there always being other subjects at hand that occupied 
 my attention, so I was naturally surprised to hear her 
 say she disliked dogs very much and that she would 
 prefer no company at all to that of a dog. 
 
 "Of course I wanted to be agreeable, especially then, so 
 I dropped the subject. But the next day I ventured it 
 again, doing so by degrees and diplomatically, but her 
 answer was the same — she could get along very well 
 without any company at all, if necessary, at such times as 
 I could not be at home, so again I let the matter drop. 
 
 "The next day I thought I would see if, under the 
 benign influence of married life, she had not conquered 
 her antipathy to dogs, but I had not proceeded nearly 
 so far as the day before, when she said : 
 
 " 'Now, it's no use to speak of getting a dog any more, 
 for I positively will not have one around the house — 
 not under any circumstances.' So, finding her mind un- 
 changed, I dropped the question permanently and we 
 finally compromised the matter and didn't get a dog 
 at all!" 
 
CHAPTER LXVI 
 
 \Vhile reviewing the political successes, disappoint- 
 ments and occasional upheavals which have overtaken all 
 of us who have been actively connected with public 
 affairs in Oregon during the past thirty years, I am 
 often reminded of a remark made to me once by Presi- 
 dent McKinley. It was while in Chicago in October, 
 1899, when he was there to officiate at the laying of the 
 corner-stone of the new Federal Building. He had in- 
 vited such Governors as had responded to his invitation 
 to be present on that occasion to lunch with him at the 
 Union League Club rooms and while we happened to 
 be alone for a few moments, he said : 
 
 "You didn't expect to be Governor of Oregon when 
 you called at my home that time on your way to Wash- 
 ington with the electoral vote of your State, did you?" 
 
 "No," I replied, "at that time I hoped to be the next 
 collector of customs at Portland." 
 
 This reference to that contest in which our delegation 
 had "turned-down" my aspirations brought a smile to his 
 face, and he said: 
 
 "Well, Governor, these defeats are often victories in 
 disguise — it was so in your case and it was in mine once. 
 You, no doubt, remember that I was a candidate for 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives at the time Tom 
 Reed was elected. I am sure I have never so intensely 
 desired to succeed in my life as I did then and the defeat 
 about destroyed my ambition to continue longer in public 
 life — in fact, I thought it had closed my public career. 
 
 "That disappointment was followed, you remember, 
 by my defeat for a re-election to Congress through the 
 gerr)Tnandering of my district by the opposition ; but the 
 growing popularity of what was known as the 'McKinley 
 Tariff Bill' came to my relief and election to the Gover- 
 norship of Ohio followed, and then the Presidency. 
 
 501 
 
502 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 "It is altogether likely that if I had been elected 
 Speaker of the House I would have remained a member 
 of that body until now, for on account of my defeat I 
 was made chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, 
 and by reason of that position was instrumental in fram- 
 ing the tariff law which bore my name. This measure 
 became very popular and had more to do with my elec- 
 tion to the Presidency than any other one thing. 
 
 "So, as I said, we never know in advance the real 
 value of a defeat — we usually think it will kill at the 
 time, but it is frequently the best kind of medicine. In 
 your case, if you had been appointed collector of customs 
 when you wanted that position the probability is that 
 )'Ou would never have been Governor of Oregon. We 
 poor mortals are not well qualified to read the future or 
 to judge correctly from the appearance of things." 
 
 That last observation by President McKinley to the 
 effect that we should not be too fast in forming our con- 
 clusions, recalls an experience I once had while travel- 
 ing through Missouri. It was in October, 1887, the year 
 in which the question of prohibition was submitted to 
 the people of Oregon as a separate proposition at a 
 special election held in November. About the first of 
 October I made a visit to the Eastern States, but before 
 going had made a few addresses in favor of the proposed 
 amendment. 
 
 Among other places I wanted to visit on this trip was 
 the birthplace of my Grandfather Eoff, in Kentucky, 
 from which he had been gone more than fifty years. He 
 was then, of course, an old man and as I started away 
 he asked me to get a bottle of the real Kentucky apple- 
 jack, such as they made when he was a boy, and to get 
 it, if possible, at the old homestead. 
 
 In the course of my wanderings I arrived at the old 
 place down in Pulaski County and found that it was 
 owned by a distant relative who remembered my grand- 
 father well. I slept that night in a room in the hickory 
 log house, nearly a hundred years old, and next day 
 told John Green Eoff of the particular request of my 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 503 
 
 grandfather. "All right," he said, "we will go right 
 by an old still where we can get just what he wants." 
 
 We walked through the woods, across country, to the 
 station, two miles distant, and on the way came to a 
 small stream on which was a rickety building called a 
 distillery. A bottle holding a pint was procured. It was 
 filled with Kentucky applejack and I put it in an inside 
 pocket of my overcoat. 
 
 I stopped in an Illinois town afterward with a cousin 
 who was a pronounced prohibitionist and in discussing 
 the question he gave me a paper containing an article on 
 the subject. As I had not the time then to read it I put 
 the paper in my overcoat pocket. 
 
 After I had become settled in my seat, upon leaving 
 St. Louis for home, I became acquainted with a minister 
 from South Carolina who was going to Astoria. After 
 awhile, drifting into a discussion of some religious ques- 
 tions, I discovered that he was a strong believer in future 
 endless punishment, to which I objected. Our friendly 
 argument lasted an hour, much to the interest of the 
 passengers, who were attentive listeners. 
 
 The next morning after everybody had been to break- 
 fast some reckless passenger suggested that "to while 
 the time away" the preacher and I engage in another 
 "debate." Something was said by somebody that 
 brought up the question of prohibition, when it tran- 
 spired that the minister was opposed to prohibition by 
 law, taking the high ground that any kind of abstinence 
 that is the result of force and not of "moral suasion" is 
 chaff — utterly worthless. 
 
 This opened the way to a somewhat heated contro- 
 versy, in the course of which he made a statement that 
 recalled a point strongly made in the paper which was 
 in my overcoat pocket. So I said : 
 
 "My friend, if you will wait a moment I will get a 
 paper from my other coat which plainly shows the 
 fallacy of your proposition." 
 
 The coat was in a vacant seat at the farther end of the 
 car and all the passengers, together with the minister, 
 
504 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 watched me as I hurried down the aisle to get my paper. 
 Arriving at the seat, I picked up the coat, by the tail of 
 course, being a man, and that measly bottle of Kentucky 
 applejack dropped to the floor in plain sight of every- 
 body, and instead of sliding at once under the seat, found 
 its place in the very center of the aisle and rolled fully 
 ten feet before it disappeared ! 
 
 To say that all the passengers roared, fell over their 
 seats, slapped each other on the back and performed like 
 a pack of idiots generally, is but to recount what I would 
 have done had I been a spectator of such a ludicrous 
 happening. 
 
 Of course I was greatly embarrassed, being an entire 
 stranger to everybody, but joined in the general laughter, 
 though I am quite sure my effort in the matter had a 
 rather sickly complexion. After the fun had subsided 
 somewhat I began to explain how it was, when the 
 preacher, wiping his eyes on his handkerchief, said : 
 
 "Oh, that's all right; it is usually the case, when you 
 find one of these prohibition cranks, that he has a bottle 
 about his clothes somewhere!" And that ended the 
 discussion. 
 
 On another occasion I was returning home from 
 Chicago, when, at a small station in Dakota, the train 
 stopped for a few minutes and all the passengers but 
 myself went out on the platform for a little exercise. I 
 was reading a book and kept my seat. When the pas- 
 sengers re-entered the car as the train started, I observed 
 a young woman who had a seat across from mine turn- 
 ing her hand-satchel wrong side out, rapidly looking 
 under and around her other belongings and appearing to 
 be very much excited. Pretty soon a neighboring woman 
 asked her if she had lost anything. She replied that her 
 purse was missing, containing her ticket from Portland 
 to San Francisco, and fifty dollars in bills. Then others 
 became interested in her misfortune, took the cushions 
 out of both seats, found a porter and had him search 
 under the seats — all without avail. 
 
 She explained that just before going out on the plat- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 505 
 
 form she had put her purse on the seat by the side of 
 her hat, and that when she returned it was gone. At 
 this point the conductor asked her if anybody remained 
 in the car while she was out, and she said, pointing to me : 
 
 "Yes, that man was here all the time, I think." 
 
 At this the conductor turned to me and, with a look 
 that plainly said, "You must be the man," inquired if I 
 had seen anybody in the car while the passengers were 
 out. I told him I had not, that I had been busily engaged 
 reading a book, and that, of course, some one might 
 have come in without being seen by me. While this was 
 taking place all the passengers were looking directly at 
 me, quite sure, doubtless, that I had "swiped" the lady's 
 purse; and I realized that I was the very picture of 
 guilt. Thus cornered, with all appearances dead against 
 me, I felt like jumping out of the window, which was 
 raised, but concluded to wait a little longer before doing 
 anything so rash. 
 
 A little sceptical of the woman's story, the conductor 
 again asked her if she was sure she had left the purse 
 on the seat. She repeated her asseveration that she had 
 done so. At this the crowd again turned their accusing 
 looks toward me and I was just ready to give myself up 
 when a brakeman entered the car, carrying a purse in 
 his hand, and asked if anybody had lost it, explaining 
 that he saw it drop from a woman's hand, or belt, as 
 the train was about to start from the last station and had 
 picked it up. 
 
 This timely entrance of the brakeman saved my life, 
 covered the face of the young woman with blushes, 
 brought from her an oft-repeated apology and made her 
 the butt of many a joke between there and Portland. 
 
 She and I became quite chatty after that, but I still 
 felt somewhat hurt over the affair until, just as we were 
 entering the Portland city limits, she confidentially told me 
 that she was not going to the Philippines to teach school, 
 as she had informed all of us several times, but that she 
 was going to meet her sweetheart who had been over 
 
So6 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 there a year — they were both from Illinois — and that 
 they were to be married immediately after her arrival. 
 After that confession I of course fully understood the 
 cause of her rattled state of mind and looked upon her 
 with the utmost pity, knowing that her complete recovery 
 was but a matter of a few days — and miles. 
 
 During four years of the last ten I was interested in 
 a daily newspaper, serving in that more or less hazardous 
 capacity of editor, and as everybody knows there is no 
 calling followed by man more full of annoyances, espe- 
 cially when the literary and the business ends of the 
 establishment are combined, and more especially if it is 
 a paper which permits its country subscribers to pay when 
 they get ready. 
 
 The incident I am about to relate occurred when I had 
 charge of the Pendleton Daily Tribune. When I entered 
 upon this work the paper had delinquent subscribers not 
 only all over Umatilla County but in all parts of eastern 
 Oregon, many of them being in arrears for five years. 
 One of the first things to do, I decided, was to send out 
 notices to these individuals informing them of the state 
 of affairs — that printers had to live, that the cost of 
 living was high, that white paper had to be paid for, that 
 "it cost money to run a daily paper," and that, in short, 
 something must be done, and that as the Tribune had 
 been sent to them for five years without any pay, it was 
 not asking too much to request a remittance — sell a calf 
 or a peck of potatoes — anything — ^but pay up, if you 
 please ! 
 
 Everybody who knows anything about the newspaper 
 business, that is, the kind of newspaper business of which 
 I am speaking, understands that the subscriber who 
 becomes delinquent for one and two years always feels 
 that he has been personally insulted if he is asked to 
 settle the bill. The exceptions to this are so rare as 
 to be unworthy of mention. 
 
 About a month after I had sent out these polite re- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 507 
 
 minders, a rough-looking old customer came in the office 
 and without vouchsafing a greeting to anybody, said: 
 "Here, I want to pay up and stop my Weekly Tribune." 
 I looked around, and there stood a man with as for- 
 bidding a countenance as one would seldom see outside a 
 jail. His face was smoky, his hair evidently had not 
 been combed for a month (and then slighted), his 
 whiskers long, tangled and one-sided, collar unfastened, 
 and his general appearance that of a Bad Man from the 
 Head of the Creek ! His manner of addressing me made 
 me angry, for that had been a hard day anyway. There 
 had not been one response out of every ten sent out to 
 the delinquents, and four out of five of those who paid 
 up ordered the paper stopped. There had been two 
 dozen phone calls that morning asking why the paper had 
 not been delivered — if it happened again they would 
 have it stopped and take the sheet down the street in- 
 stead; a linotypist had given notice that he intended to 
 quit, and there was no other in town, and the book- 
 keeper was sick that day — ^the result of which was that 
 I was in no humor to coddle the freak who stood at the 
 counter wanting to pay up and stop his paper. 
 So I said : "All right, sir." 
 
 The fact was I was almost glad he was going to stop 
 it. I felt that I didn't want to have such an unprepos- 
 sessing old duffer taking so good a paper as the Tribune, 
 and I wasn't going to bandy words with him. I found 
 his account, told him how much it was and he paid it. 
 I could see he was eyeing me very closely, but I knew 
 he was doing so hoping to pick a quarrel — wanted to 
 shoot me, doubtless — and I would not thus humor such 
 a dastardly galoot. Patience had ceased to be a virtue 
 and I would assert myself. 
 
 As the man folded up the receipt, he said: 
 "Wouldn't you like to know why I stopped my paper ?" 
 This was just the chance I wanted, so I hotly said: 
 "No, sir, I would not give a whoop in the great here- 
 after to know why you stopped it. I don't care." 
 "Well, then, I'll tell you anyhow. A neighbor of mine 
 
5o8 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 takes your daily, which I see once in a while, and I like 
 it so well that I thought I'd stop the weekly and take 
 the daily. I want to pay for it a year in advance — if 
 you'll let me !' 
 
 Honesty compels me to admit that I felt so very mean 
 and contemptible over the manner in which I had treated 
 the old fellow that I could not bring myself to apologize 
 for it, for to have suddenly changed my demeanor would 
 not have looked well ; so I let it go at that, preferring he 
 should think me so deeply immersed in thought con- 
 nected with my editorial duties that it was a case of pure 
 absent-mindedness. I became better acquainted with 
 him after that and found he was a really fine man who 
 lived on a splendid ranch up about Cabbage Hill some- 
 where. 
 
 Oh, yes, President McKinley was right in his remark 
 that it is not always safe to judge from outward ap- 
 pearances. 
 
CHAPTER LXVII 
 
 The scenery of Oregon in its grandeur and beauty is 
 unsurpassed in America, and therefore in the world. 
 This is true largely because of the gigantic scale upon 
 which Nature had done its work here. A waterfall with 
 a descent of ten feet cannot compare in beauty with the 
 one in the same stream two miles further down, which 
 drops a sheer hundred feet without a break. This is a 
 country of magnificent distances and the Almighty has 
 spread with lavish hand the materials for glorious 
 Nature pictures which elsewhere are found to be but sug- 
 gestions of what "might have been." To be permitted to 
 spend a lifetime in Oregon is in itself a generous dispen- 
 sation of Providence for which the favored one should 
 give thanks through all eternity. 
 
 The majestic rivers, the snow-capped mountains, the 
 magnificent forests, the adjacent Pacific, the fertile soil, 
 the wonderfully pleasant climate, the pure water — all 
 these combine to account for, if not to justify, the remark 
 of an old Yamhill County farmer who, somewhat skep- 
 tically inclined, said to me a year ago, apropos of the 
 hereafter: 
 
 "At any rate, rather than take any chances, if I had 
 my choice, I would be perfectly willing to live always 
 and pay taxes in Yamhill County." 
 
 I would not be guilty of extravagance in describing 
 anything in Oregon, but it must be said that Portland 
 is the most beautifully situated city in the United States. 
 None other compares with it. It occupies the center of 
 a picture which has Mt. Hood in the foreground, its 
 perpetually snow-covered peak towering to the clouds ; the 
 inspiring Cascade Range, mantled with its unbroken 
 wealth of pine and Douglas fir, to the south; the "beau- 
 tiful Willamette" at its feet and the lordly Columbia, 
 
 509 
 
5IO FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 bearing its tremendous volume of clear waters gathered 
 from all the historic Northwestern Territory, sweeping 
 by on its way to the waiting sea — these combined con- 
 stitute a wealth of beauty which all the gold of all the 
 world, if so applied, could not create for any other city. 
 
 And yet kind Nature, with prodigal hand, performed 
 this act of unparalleled generosity thousands of years 
 before the coming of the white man, countless ages, for 
 aught we know, before the son of Pharaoh's daughter 
 was discovered hidden in the mazes of the kindly bul- 
 rushes ! 
 
 For instance, Portland has a park on the Heights 
 within the municipal limits, which contains all the wild 
 and romantic scenery one could find in a two-days' 
 journey into the heart of the Cascade Mountains. In 
 this park are preserved all the native trees, shrubs and 
 flowers which abound here in such profusion — all at an 
 elevation of a thousand feet above the city proper. The 
 wealth of the earth, if devoted to the purpose, could not 
 reproduce this for Chicago, New York or Baltimore, for 
 instance. 
 
 And there stands Mt. Hood, one of the grandest peaks 
 in the world, but fifty miles away, to which tourists from 
 Portland now go and return in automobiles in a day, and 
 to climb to the summit of which is a treat so great 
 that no American can afford to die without enjoying it. 
 And shall I describe what it means to compass this great 
 feat? 
 
 The summer of 1900 was passing along rapidly, as 
 summers have a way of doing, especially as you get 
 older, and a bunch of us had not yet decided where we 
 would spend our vacation. For several years we had 
 formed a company each summer and shared the ex- 
 penses and joys of an outing, first going to the seaside, 
 then to the mountains, until we were quite familiar with 
 most of the resorts which make Oregon famous for 
 grand scenery, bracing air and the purest of water. 
 
 One day Colonel S. C. Spencer, Judge Advocate 
 General on my staff, suggested that there seemed noth- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 511 
 
 ing the matter with joining the Mazamas and climbing 
 Mt. Hood. And it proved a popular suggestion, since 
 upon inquiry it was discovered that none of us had ever 
 made that wonderful ascent, though all had been talking 
 of it for years. Glowing accounts of what such a trip 
 involved in the way of difficulties and hair-breadth 
 'scapes were familiar to us, for daring men and women 
 had been accomplishing this marvelous feat for years 
 and arousing a feeling of envy among their less fortunate 
 and courageous friends by recounting their experiences, 
 their hearers plainly revealing more or less skepticism as 
 the narrative proceeded. 
 
 In fact, for several years those who had ascended Mt. 
 Hood had been regarded as lineal descendants of 
 Ananias, the evidence of which appeared in cumulative 
 proportions as their accounts of what they saw and did 
 were given with increasing enthusiasm and fluency. 
 
 So we started with Mt. Hood and the summit thereof 
 as our destination, accompanied by expectations un- 
 bounded and a fund of grit which knew no limit. If you 
 have never climbed a snow-capped extinct volcano, 
 towering twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea, 
 and "viewed the landscape o'er," you have never yet 
 taken a vacation worth telling about or remembering five 
 minutes after it was over. 
 
 We left Portland, under the leadership of Colonel 
 Hawkins, who had already made the climb several times, 
 on the morning of the first of August. We made an 
 even dozen, four of the party being women. These 
 ladies insisted that, being the wives of four of the men, 
 they had the right not only to test their powers of en- 
 durance, but to prove the veracity of some of their ac- 
 quaintances who had preceded them in this wonderful 
 climb to dizzy heights far above the clouds. 
 
 Leading to Mt. Hood from Portland is a good road 
 winding through the beautiful foothills of the Cascade 
 Mountains, the ridges covered by a dense growth of 
 towering firs two hundred feet high, while far below, 
 
512 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 like silver threads, wind the Zigzag and the Bull Run, 
 both fresh from the melting snows. 
 
 Several of our party rode bicycles to within six miles 
 of the point where the first approach to Mt. Hood takes 
 on a more rapid ascent, but the team easily reached 
 Government Camp on the evening of the second day. 
 
 After a day's rest, clad in bloomers — that is, some of 
 us — nailed shoes, sunbonnets and alpine stocks, we 
 started for the summit on the morning of August 4 at 
 three-thirty o'clock. After a climb of two miles, laborious 
 in the extreme on account of the lightness of the atmos- 
 phere, we emerged from the timber and encountered the 
 first snow. But counteracting this was the indescribable 
 sensation of exhilaration experienced on finding one's 
 self away above all the surrounding country. At the 
 snow line we were probably six thousand feet above sea 
 level, with another six thousand feet, much of it almost 
 perpendicular, frowning upon us like a monster which 
 was at once alluring and beautiful. The snow was just 
 yielding enough to take the imprint of our feet and in 
 single file the toiling company followed the guide. Not 
 more than two dozen yards was it possible to climb with- 
 out resting for breath, but with a perseverance that was 
 as necessary as muscle the ascent was steadily pursued. 
 
 Half-way to the summit we came to "Crater Rock," 
 a half -acre on which the snow never lies because of the 
 heat. On this we took our luncheon, but found it im- 
 possible to sit at all, or to stand long in one place. From 
 a yawning gulf near by sulphuric fumes were constantly 
 issuing, rendering the sandwiohes and pickles more or 
 less suggestive of experiences which might follow on 
 account of possible stomach disturbances — but they were 
 good and appreciated. 
 
 From Crater Rock the climb was "fierce." Steeper 
 and steeper became the ridges of drifts, resembling huge 
 house tops with but a width of two feet upon which to 
 walk, while below us the precipitous sides seemed to 
 offer a fascination for a toboggan slide which would 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 513 
 
 have carried us to certain death. And these narrow, 
 snowy ridges were themselves almost on end, thus adding 
 to the extreme danger attending every move. 
 
 At last, when within a thousand feet of the summit, 
 we came to the great Crevasse, which runs along the 
 side of Old Hood for a half-mile and which can be 
 plainly seen a hundred miles away. It looked like some 
 huge scar which might have been inflicted during the 
 awful upheaval which attended its creation in the distant 
 ages past. 
 
 At this point we were compelled to creep westward 
 a quarter of a mile until we found a narrow place where we 
 could cross in safety, after which we proceeded to make 
 the last ascent, which was little less than perpendicular. 
 With a hatchet our guide cut footholds in the icy front, 
 and with our alpenstocks we then rose cautiously from 
 step to step, the while holding to the side of the moun- 
 tain — for in this perilous situation it was impossible to 
 stand upright, so appalling was it to look off from the 
 mountain into distant space. Instinctively one clings to 
 the mountainside in a leaning attitude — all the time won- 
 dering why such a trip was undertaken an3rway. 
 
 At last we reached the summit and were standing on 
 the highest square foot of the most beautiful snow- 
 capped peak in America. No word-painter can ade- 
 quately describe the grandeur of the scene which greets 
 the eye of the beholder from this point — literally stand- 
 ing in the skies and on solid ground. No mere listener 
 or reader will ever understand what it means to stand 
 on the summit of Mt. Hood. It was of such a sight as 
 this that Moses doubtless dreamed, but which he never 
 saw. 
 
 In full view were Mts. Adams, St. Helens, Ranier, 
 Jefferson, The Three Sisters and two or three others 
 farther south which we were unable to name. A heavy 
 sea of clouds had settled over all the country to the 
 west and partly to the north, through which beautiful 
 Helens had succeeded in thrusting the very tip of her 
 shining peak, reflecting the glory of the declining sun ; 
 
514 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 it seemed but a stone's throw away, but it was far below 
 us. Adams was more successful, as farther to the north 
 the clouds seemed less dense, and its proud contour stood 
 out unobstructed against the clearing skies. 
 
 To the south and west the view was beautiful beyond 
 description. The sea of fog extended well to the Pacific 
 Ocean, and in its undulating silvery whiteness, tinged 
 delicately with color, one could easily see in imagination 
 the veritable ocean, frozen to solidity by the sudden 
 gripping of King Winter. 
 
 The sensation resulting from standing on the summit 
 of one of these giant peaks is difficult of description, for 
 it puts one out of all touch with the natural. Nature 
 has not provided for this sort of thing. It was never 
 intended that one should not see at least some object on 
 a level with himself and not far away; but here one 
 looks straight ahead and the first obstruction is Mt. 
 JefiFerson, fifty miles to the south. The effect on the 
 mind and nerves as you stand in such an uncanny place 
 is to destroy the law of harmony, or of proportion, by 
 which we are surrounded every day. We never see 
 trees, for instance, that are a thousand feet high and four 
 inches in diameter, nor any a foot high and ten feet in 
 diameter. All things are in proportion. But as you 
 stand at an altitude of twelve thousand feet above the 
 level of the sea, with everything save a few rods square 
 on which you stand dropping away from you at an angle 
 of forty-five degrees (and much of it faster), and, as 
 you look straight ahead of you on a level, the nearest 
 object, save one or two, is beyond the sight of mortal 
 man, you will get your first conception of the mystery 
 of creation— of time and eternity! 
 
CHAPTER LXVIII 
 
 Although we made the ascent of Mt. Hood on August 
 4 and arrived there in the middle of the afternoon, it 
 was so cold that within five minutes after reaching the 
 top icicles had formed on the mustaches of several of 
 the men. 
 
 But the descent of the mountain was a continuous 
 round of fun. After the perilous climb down to the 
 Crevasse, more dangerous by far than the ascent, the 
 successive snow-fields were descended by a decidedly 
 novel process. The distance it required nine hours to 
 climb was descended easily in three. Here is where the 
 primitive toboggan slide is found most useful. Every 
 well-regulated Mazama provides himself, or herself, as 
 the case may be, with a gunny-sack, or piece of carpet, or 
 oil-cloth, or any other article supposed to be waterproof 
 (but which the event proves is never so), and seated' on 
 the aforesaid article, the alpenstock gripped under one 
 arm, with one end in the snow, to be used both as a 
 rudder and a brake, the start is made and the bottom of 
 that particular slope is reached in ten seconds, no matter 
 how far it may be. 
 
 This is possible for the reason that in the afternoon 
 the snow is so soft that your tracks are from two to 
 four inches deep, and you cannot be possibly injured, 
 no matter how swiftly you go nor in what position you 
 find yourself at the end of the slide. You always start 
 in a sitting posture, with your feet in front, of course, 
 but no man with a reputation as a prophet would risk 
 it by guaranteeing the position in which he would arrive 
 at the terminus of the slide. 
 
 These fields vary from two to five hundred feet in 
 length, but, no matter what the distance, you get to the 
 bottom in ten seconds — ^not necessarily "right side up 
 
 515 
 
5i6 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 with care," but you will "arrive" amid the shouts of 
 your companions as you lie buried in a snowdrift, always 
 unhurt. The first slider breaks a path about four inches 
 deep and as wide as that part of the body used for that 
 purpose, and the next one, of course, taking the same 
 route, makes the trip in much less time than his — or 
 her — ^predecessor, the result of which is frequently a 
 mix up or a collision which adds to the gaiety of the 
 occasion. 
 
 Two years after this, in July, 1902, my wife and I 
 joined the Mazamas in the climb of Mt. Adams, fifty 
 miles north of the Columbia River in Washington. 
 Adams is said to be two thousand feet higher than Hood, 
 but the ascent is much easier, being mainly a matter of 
 physical endurance. Falling behind the other members 
 of the party, who appeared to be bent on making speed 
 records, my wife and I happened to fall in with C. E. 
 Rusk, who was spending his summer on and around that 
 mountain, and he kindly ofifered to guide us to the 
 summit. Mr. Rusk afterward headed a party that visited 
 Mt. McKinley — in 19 10 — and fully exploded the claim 
 of Dr. Cook that he had planted an American flag on the 
 summit of that great northern peak by his graphic de- 
 scription in the Pacific Monthly. 
 
 Upon reaching the very top of this magnificent moun- 
 tain, our guide led the way to the edge of a snowbank 
 from which there is a sheer perpendicular fall of five 
 thousand feet. From this point we looked, one at a 
 time, into the awful depths below to the celebrated Klick- 
 itat glacier. The guide told us that in the month of 
 August it is common for large sections of this snow to 
 "let go," and as it rushes through space with terrific 
 velocity it can be heard through the surrounding country, 
 causing reverberations resembling a thunder-storm. For 
 this reason the Indians call Adams "Thunder Moun- 
 tain." When these sections, weighing hundreds of tons 
 each, strike the rocks below, snow spray is thrown into 
 the air for hundreds of feet in every direction. 
 
 As we stood on this precipice listening to the descrip- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 517 
 
 tion of the playful antics in which it sometimes indulges, 
 we remembered that August was not far away and con- 
 cluded that it was much safer to admire Mt. Hood, in the 
 opposite direction. 
 
 One of the interesting discoveries I made as I stood 
 on the summit of Mt. Adams was that a straight line 
 drawn from there to Mt. Jefferson, two hundred and 
 fifty miles away, would strike the eastern slopes of Hood 
 half-way to its summit, so nearly do these three mon- 
 archs of the Cascade Range stand in line with one 
 another. 
 
 As we were behind the main party of the climbers, it 
 was well toward sundown when we began the descent. 
 When half-way down the mountain Rusk proposed that 
 he leave us and go toward his own camp. As we could 
 see our own far below in the timber line, my wife and 
 I agreed that he had done his full duty by us and he 
 went his way. We would not have risked this, except that 
 our party had "left their mark" as they descended and 
 we thought it an easy matter to follow that; but it was 
 much farther than it looked and it began to get dark 
 while we were yet far up the mountain. We took the 
 toboggan method, of course, on all the slopes, but upon 
 reaching the head of one of them we had our first real 
 "blown-in-the-bottle" scare. The top of this incline was 
 so steep that we could not see the landing-place. Our 
 party had plainly gone down, but as its face was oval 
 and the bottom was out of view, we had no proof that 
 they had not all been killed. We were really staggered 
 at the situation. There was no time to hunt another 
 route, which besides would have been dangerous with 
 our inexperience. Then, too, it was getting dusk and 
 we were obliged to proceed. Finally I said, "Well, here 
 goes," and, seating myself in the "chute" left by the 
 sliders who had gone down, I told my wife not to wait 
 too long before following me. Then I let go. 
 
 Now, I have often read about the expression "flying 
 through space," but this was my first experience. Fifty 
 others had preceded me in that narrow track, each 
 
Si8 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 making the surface harder and smoother. By the time 
 we arrived the air was below the freezing point and it was 
 like going down an inclined icicle. It was, perhaps, three 
 hundred feet to the bottom, and if I had been racing 
 against greased lightning my competitor would have been 
 shut out by fully half that distance. At the bottom of 
 the slope was a level bench, as there is at the bottom of 
 all of them, and into a bank of snow I went feet first 
 to a distance of at least five yards. I had been a second 
 and a half in transit and, finding myself entirely unhurt 
 and the sensation so genuinely delightful, being devoid of 
 danger, I lay there shouting at the top of my voice to 
 my wife that it was safe — that she should "come on." 
 
 I had made no effort to extricate myself, so great was 
 my enjoyment of the discovery that I was not hurt, when 
 suddenly I heard a voice above me in the greatest 
 imaginable excitement calling to me: 
 
 "Get out of the way! Get out of the way!" 
 
 At once I knew what was coming — it was one hundred 
 and ninety pounds of wife traveling in my unvacated 
 orbit and due to arrive at once — ^which it did — and the 
 concussion was sufficient to have sensibly jarred any 
 object less firmly attached to the earth than Mt. Adams 
 itself. This impact sent me ten feet farther into the 
 snowbank, but as it was very soft, and as it was a 
 family afifair anyway, an immediate reconciliation took 
 place. It was several minutes, however, before either of 
 us tried to come to the surface. My wife afterwards 
 explained her sudden descent by saying she was too 
 terrified to remain alone even a minute. 
 
 It was dark when we reached camp and we found the 
 party much alarmed for our safety, but as "all's well 
 that ends well" we counted it one of our most interest- 
 ing experiences. 
 
 As we reached the first summit in our climb, which is 
 eight hundred feet below the highest point, we met the 
 main party returning. A photographer, who was a mem- 
 ber of the party, requested that my wife and I "sit" for 
 a picture, which we did. A reproduction of the photo- 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 519 
 
 graph, with Mr. Rusk near by, will be found in these 
 pages. We were provided with sunbonnets which afford 
 the best of protection against the intense rays of the 
 sun which, reflected on the dazzling whiteness of the 
 snow, cause painful sunburn. 
 
 Does it pay to climb to the summit of one of our 
 snow-capped mountains? It does. To live above the 
 clouds, if but for a moment, is worth all the effort it 
 requires. While we were admiring the lofty summit of 
 Hood, directly south of us one hundred miles, the 
 clouds slowly moved to the eastward and completely 
 obscured the sunshine from the Trout Lake valley, fifteen 
 miles away. We were several hundred feet above the 
 clouds, and since they remained some distance off the 
 mountain, we were able to see under as well as over 
 them. The effect of this sudden transformation was 
 beautiful beyond the power of words to describe. It 
 seemed like one continuous cloud to the western horizon, 
 and one could well fancy the ocean, while in one of its 
 half -turbulent moods, frozen into a sea of ice, its undu- 
 lating surface reflecting the rays of the declining sun 
 in all the gorgeous colors of an ultra-developed rainbow. 
 And, looking under this mid-afternoon interloper, every 
 ^hamlet in the Trout Lake valley could be plainly seen, 
 with the lake to the west — all with the appearance of 
 moonlight shadows, so exceedingly dark did they appear 
 by contrast with the unusual brightness surrounding the 
 entranced beholder. 
 
 Such visions as these, with the inspiration they afford, 
 never gladden the eye of the languid citizen who believes 
 that the effort of mountain climbing is greater than the 
 returns justify. Truly, a trip to the summit of one of 
 our grand, snow-covered mountain peaks in the North- 
 west furnishes an experience well worth the trouble and 
 hardships it involves. The sum total is a combination of 
 sport, exercise and information, a quicker and stronger 
 circulation, an added appreciation of the blessings of 
 life and increased love for and devotion to the Creator 
 whose miracles do continually hedge us about. 
 
CHAPTER LXIX 
 
 But Oregon is so full of interesting places that one 
 finds a pleasant summer resort at almost every turn. 
 Not only to the snowy peaks and to the beaches do its 
 people go for recreation in the vacation season, but to 
 the heart of its mountain ranges, along its rivers, and 
 to many points in the interior where an elevation of 
 from three to five thousand feet affords a change that 
 is delightful. Even in the Willamette valley, in the 
 midst of a rich and thickly settled agricultural section, 
 are hundreds of groves of native firs and oaks where the 
 heat is never excessive, splendid water abounds and all 
 the pleasures of the mountains and the coast are 
 abundantly supplied by nature. 
 
 Indeed, one of the most attractive spots on the Pacific 
 Coast of this character is Gladstone Park, within a mile 
 of Oregon City and ten miles of Portland. It is near 
 the Willamette River and is reached by the main line 
 of the Southern Pacific and by the electric cars from 
 Portland. Here eminent men of the United States, men 
 prominent on the platform in all the professions, lecture 
 annually, and the intellectual treat afforded, together 
 with the pleasures and benefits of an outing, supply all 
 the wants of a large part of the population of that section 
 of Oregon with the minimum of effort and the least sac- 
 rifice of the comforts of home life. 
 
 I recall a most delightful ten days spent at Gladstone 
 a few years ago when Robert J. Burdette, of Los 
 Angeles, was one of the speakers. His wife and mine 
 were prominently engaged in different lines of work 
 there and the four of us were much together. I had 
 intended to go to Portland some day that week, and my 
 wife suggested to me one morning that I go on that par- 
 ticular day, since she and Mrs. Burdette intended to en- 
 
 520 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 521 
 
 tertain a score of their lady friends at luncheon. So I 
 went. 
 
 When I returned in the afternoon, Burdette said : 
 
 "Well, young man, you don't know what you missed 
 by being away to-day. I dined with twenty women, and 
 not another man was present." 
 
 After my wife had explained that Burdette and I were 
 invited to join the company, but that she had not so 
 understood the arrangement, I said to him: 
 
 "Well, how did you make it with so many women on 
 your hands and no male assistance?" 
 
 "Oh," he replied, "I was like the fellow who was 
 engaged to the Harrison girl. He met a friend one day 
 and said to him, 'You want to congratulate me — I am 
 engaged to Ellen Harrison.' 'What,' said his friend, 
 'one of those twins? Why, nobody on earth can tell 
 those girls apart — nobody ever did. When you call to 
 see Ellen, how do you manage to tell 'em apart ?' 'Why, 
 I don't try,' replied the self-satisfied prospective Bene- 
 dict." 
 
 One afternoon Burdette and I were sitting in front of 
 our tent discussing men and things when we drifted 
 into the pleasant pastime of repeating such quotations 
 as we could recall, humorous and otherwise, in the course 
 of which I said: 
 
 "I once read in one of the after-dinner speeches in 
 Tom Reed's 'Modern Eloquence' — I forget who made 
 the speech — this verse, which I thought was particularly 
 good: 
 
 A famous American preacher 
 
 Said "the hen is a beautiful creature," 
 
 And the hen just for that 
 
 Laid an egg in his hat 
 
 And thus did the Henry Ward Beecher. 
 
 At this recitation we both laughed in appreciation of a 
 really good thing. I thought, however, Burdette was a 
 little lame in his manifestation of mirth over the humor 
 of the verse, but I merely said: 
 
522 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 "That is a very clever thing. I wonder who is the 
 author of it." 
 
 "Well," said he, with a perceptible degree of em- 
 barrassment, "the fact is, I wrote that when I was editor 
 of the Burlington Hawkeye some twenty years ago. Do 
 you like it?" 
 
 And Gladstone Park is only one of many resorts. 
 Ashland, in Jackson County, near the California line, 
 has its annual Chatauqua exercises in one of the finest 
 natural groves on the Pacific Coast, on the slopes of the 
 Siskiyou Mountains, which overlook the famous Rogue 
 River valley, famous for its peaches, pears and grapes ; 
 Grant's Pass, cozily situated in the heart of a beautiful 
 chain of mountains on the Rogue River, is a famous 
 resort within itself; Roseburg, located on the historic 
 Umpqua River, has a climate which is unsurpassed any- 
 where and its people are prosperous and comfortable; 
 Eugene, the seat of the University of Oregon, has its 
 Coast connections at Siuslaw and its famous, health- 
 giving Mackenzie River resorts back toward Crater 
 Lake ; Corvallis, with its popular Agricultural College, a 
 little city which boasts of having "the biggest college and 
 the smallest jail in Oregon," the "college always being 
 full and the jail empty," is on the road to Newport on 
 the Yaquina Bay, one of the most popular beach resorts 
 in the State; Albany, with its own Chatauqua and the 
 Calipooia Mountains not far away, full of ozone in the 
 heated season; Salem, the State capital, the most beau- 
 tiful "home city" to be found anywhere, is within easy 
 reach of Silver Creek Falls, Mehama and other moun- 
 tain resorts that have been liberally patronized for forty 
 years; Oregon City, the oldest town in Oregon, aside 
 from Astoria, has the famous Willamette River Falls, 
 beautiful, and harnessed to contribute to the comfort of 
 mankind ; Portland, known over all America as the City 
 of Roses, destined to become in the near future the 
 largest on the Pacific Coast and itself a summer resort; 
 La Grande, situated in that most attractive gem, the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 523 
 
 Grand Ronde valley, with its adjacent Blue Mountains 
 and the near-by Hot Lake ; Baker City, with its elevation 
 of three thousand five hundred feet, located at the point 
 where Powder River enters the splendid valley of the 
 same name, within a few miles of the Auburn Moun- 
 tains on the west and those of Eagle Creek on the east — 
 always covered with snow; Medical Springs, owned for 
 forty-five years by that prince of pioneers and good 
 fellows, Dunham Wright, where the water boils out of 
 the ground hot enough to cook an egg in four minutes; 
 Pendleton, that inland city noted for the hustle and rustle 
 of its business men, the capital of Umatilla County, 
 which every year produces one per cent of all the wheat 
 raised in the entire United States, namely, five million 
 bushels, which has its Meachem, Wenaha Springs and 
 other delightful mountain resorts such as only the Blue 
 Mountains can boast — ^all these, gentle reader, and 
 hundreds more, are to be found in Oregon. 
 
 And, then, there is Astoria, at the mouth of the ma- 
 jestic Columbia, six miles wide at this point affording 
 a full view out to the sea, with nothing to interfere with 
 one's looking directly into the heart of the Flowery 
 Kingdom save the limitations of one's visual powers — 
 Astoria, where the most extensive fisheries on the Pacific 
 Coast are located and where each year more than one 
 million dollars' worth of the famous Chinook salmon is 
 caught, packed and shipped to the waiting markets of 
 every civilized country on earth. And Seaside, Gear- 
 hart, Ocean Park, Tillamook, the last a most prosperous 
 section of the State where everybody is a dairyman — 
 or woman — and where hard times have never been 
 known; Coos Bay, a delightful, and also most promising 
 and enterprising, section of the State, rich in resources 
 and as yet in the infancy of its development; Klamath 
 Falls, Lakeview, Burns, Ontario, Prineville and all the 
 new towns of central Oregon, which is just now beginning 
 its industrial life through the impetus of two new lines 
 of railroads projected into it — these afford an attraction 
 and opportunity to hundreds of thousands of people who. 
 
524 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 for the lack of them, are leading sordid and discontented 
 lives elsewhere. 
 
 In all this vast section I have named — and I have fre- 
 quently visited every portion of it — there are no extremes 
 of climate, either of heat or cold. In all my life I have 
 seen neither a cyclone nor a thunder-storm such as 
 Eastern people have described to me. I have never 
 known a case of sunstroke nor seen a person with the 
 ague. 
 
 For forty years "Uncle Charley" Benson was one of 
 the best known farmers in Marion County. He was a 
 t)^ical pioneer, a famous hunter, and nobody ever saw 
 him wearing a coat or vest. After having lived in 
 Oregon for thirty years he visited one summer his sister 
 in Iowa, whom he had not seen since she was a small 
 girl. Upon his arrival at her home, when bedtime ar- 
 rived, explaining that they were liable at any time to 
 be visited by a cyclone, she showed him the "cyclone 
 cellar" — a dug-out affair near by. She also told him 
 that, if he heard them calling in the night, to understand 
 at once what was the matter and make a "bee line" for 
 the cellar. 
 
 He said upon his return home that, after sweltering, 
 totally devoid of any clothing, until one o'clock in the 
 morning on account of the almost unbearably oppres- 
 sive heat, he had fallen asleep when a loud shouting 
 down-stairs awoke him. Frightened out of his wits, he 
 went down three steps at a time, intending to go to the 
 cellar. It was very dark, however, and being a stranger, 
 he lost his way and landed in a cistern, made by scooping 
 out the surface of the ground for a few yards square, 
 in which rain-water was caught and saved for domestic 
 uses. By this time the storm had broken in all its fury 
 and "Uncle Charley," being afraid to change his loca- 
 tion, remained in the water up to his chin, squatted down 
 like a bullfrog, with his head only protruding. 
 
 It was all over in twenty minutes, and the family, 
 discovering that "Uncle Charley" was not in the cellar, 
 decided he had not awakened. They were not much 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 525 
 
 alarmed, since it proved to be merely an ordinary "blow." 
 When the family reunion occurred at the close of the dis- 
 turbance, and "Uncle Charley," tapping at the front 
 door, had related his experience and explained his 
 mistake — his sister in the meantime bringing his clothing 
 to him — ^he said he had had enough; that he was more 
 than delighted to have seen his folks again, that they 
 had talked over all the matters of interest, he guessed, 
 and that he would start back to Oregon the next day. 
 And he did! 
 
 Oregon has an area of ninety-five thousand square 
 miles, with a population of less than three-quarters of a 
 million. If it had as many people as Massachusetts, ac- 
 cording to landed area, its population would be at least 
 thirty million — and there is no comparison between the 
 two States in the matters of natural, agricultural and 
 other resources. Our greatest need is people — of the 
 right sort. These we are getting, by degrees, and never 
 so rapidly as now, as conditions here are becoming better 
 known in the Eastern States, and even in foreign coun- 
 tries. We have depended upon private enterprise alto- 
 gether for the dissemination of the attractions which 
 Oregon presents to the home-seeker, the State never 
 having engaged in advertising its own advantages to 
 the home-builder or the capitalist. 
 
 The Legislature did, indeed, a few years ago authorize 
 the appointment by the Governor of a Board of Im- 
 migration, but as it appropriated no money with which 
 to prosecute its duties, it fell by the wayside. I recall 
 that in selecting its five members I afterward discovered 
 that they were all Republicans. This, of course, was un- 
 intentional, and as the appointees had not yet been an- 
 nounced, I wrote to William M. Colvig, of Jacksonville, 
 that I was desirous of appointing him on the new Board 
 of Immigration, principally because I was hunting for 
 a good Democrat who would not shirk the responsibilities 
 of the position. Colvig, besides being a very able lawyer, 
 is a born wag, and in his reply of acceptance said : 
 
526 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 "With pleasure I will accept your appointment and 
 will so far try to fulfill your expectations of me that 
 within two years I hope to secure the immigration of 
 five thousand Missouri Democrats, not only because they 
 would make splendid citizens, but, if possible, I want 
 to change the political complexion of this black Repub- 
 lican State." 
 
 The joke was finally on Colvig, however, for the stand 
 the Democratic party soon afterward took on the ques- 
 tion of expansion caused him to become a Republican 
 on national questions, and his threatened inroad on the 
 Missouri Democracy was never carried into efifect. 
 
CHAPTER LXX 
 
 On these closing lines my pen lingers. Leaning back 
 in my chair, with hands clasped behind my head, I look 
 backward over a busy life of fifty years, and in rapid 
 succession there passes before my memory's vision a 
 long line of men and women whom I have known, and 
 who during that time have joined the caravan that moves 
 on to the Great Beyond. Many of them were actively 
 engaged in the ordinary pursuits of life, near neighbors 
 in the dififerent portions of dear old Oregon in which I 
 have lived, pursuing their daily vocations in an unpre- 
 tentious way, but contributing to the upbuilding of their 
 communities and to the betterment of mankind. I have 
 spent forty-five years of my life in my native county of 
 Marion, ten in Union, two in Umatilla, and three in Mult- 
 nomah. In each of these I have made a host of ac- 
 quaintances — and friends, I trust; beside which I have 
 campaigned in every county in the State, in most of them 
 several times — all of which has given me a personal 
 acquaintanceship throughout the State equaled, perhaps, 
 by no other man. After all these years of striving, meet- 
 ing with successes and disappointments, starting when 
 a child without friends or assistance, save such as I could 
 win by personal effort, and finally reaching a position 
 of trust and honor bestowed by the people upon eleven 
 men only in more than fifty years of Statehood, I am 
 passing toward the downward slope of life, along with 
 my. fellows, with no regret and without malice toward 
 a single individual on earth. A few have done me great 
 injustice, but that rests between them and their Maker. 
 I cannot afford to spoil a single moment of my life by 
 the retention of malice or a spirit of hatred. 
 
 I could wish, if to do so were not idle, that I had been 
 born yesterday and had a life of eighty years of health 
 
 527 
 
528 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 vouchsafed me in which to be a witness of the marvelous 
 development of this country. From the tallow candle 
 era to that of electric lights is a "far cry," and yet I have 
 seen the change. I remember the first mower ever 
 brought to the Willamette valley — imported by William 
 J. Herren of Salem. I recall the first self -rake reaper, 
 and, after that, the Marsh harvester, which carried two 
 men who did the binding. Afterward came the self- 
 binders, using wire, which were burned in the fields in 
 many States by men who claimed they were the work 
 of the devil, intended to deprive workingmen of that 
 employment upon which they depended for the support 
 of their families! Then came the telephone, enabling 
 men to transact a thousand times more business each 
 day than was previously possible. The Oregon pioneers 
 were six months crossing the plains with their ox teams ; 
 now it is a common report that some man has "flown" 
 from France to England, and the trip to Chicago from 
 New York is patterned after the manner of the birds 
 of the air — it is made "as the crow flies." The Oregon 
 pioneers have lived through this era of rapid develop- 
 ment until to-day the State enjoys all the advantages to 
 be found in Ohio or Vermont. 
 
 And what shall be the future of this Oregon of ours ? 
 What development shall it see? The character of its 
 soil and climate is so varied that the seeker after a new 
 home can surely be satisfied with some section of it. If 
 he wishes to enter the ranks of the stock-raiser, he can 
 find what he wants on the plains of eastern or south- 
 eastern Oregon and in the foothills adjoining; if his 
 inclination be towards fruit raising, there is splendid 
 land adapted to that purpose in practically every part of 
 the State, east, west, north or south ; if he is looking for a 
 country where he can gratify his wish to become a 
 dairyman, he can be accommodated anywhere in western 
 Oregon or along the Coast counties from the Washing- 
 ton line to the northern boundary of California, — ^not to 
 speak of opportunities equally good in many parts of 
 eastern Oregon; if he be a fisherman, he can locate 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 529 
 
 almost anywhere along the Pacific Coast and find what 
 he is seeking ; if he be a miner, there are several counties 
 where millions of gold yet remain to be unearthed; if 
 a lumberman, here he will find the best body of standing 
 timber, and the largest in area at this time remaining 
 untouched, in the United States; and if he be a retired 
 capitalist, desiring to spend his remaining days in the 
 enjoyment of an equable climate the year round, here 
 he will find ideal conditions arranged by thoughtful 
 nature. 
 
 The first word of this book was written March 12 
 and I am closing this chapter on August 8. With other 
 duties demanding my attention much of the time, it has 
 been a summer pleasantly employed. The composition 
 of the book has naturally recalled many experiences 
 which I had partly forgotten, and I have, in a certain 
 sense, re-lived my life — ^in memory. Pleasures and 
 sorrows have alternately flitted by with kaleidoscopic 
 rapidity, but I have dwelt lightly upon the latter, since a 
 busy world cares little for the personal troubles of any 
 man. The narrative would be imperfect, however, if I 
 did not record the death of my first wife, the mother 
 of my children, October 13, 1898. It occurred in Omaha, 
 where we were attending the Exposition, our objective 
 point being a visit to her old home in Missouri, which 
 she had not seen since leaving it in 1864. She had been 
 an invalid for ten years, but it was thought she was 
 strong enough to make the journey. An asthmatic attack, 
 however, together with the change of climate, was more 
 than her weakened condition could withstand and, two 
 thousand miles from the children she loved so devotedly, 
 and with no blood relative present save a sister, her spirit 
 was called away to that fairer land whose existence she 
 never doubted. 
 
 In May, 1907, my second great sorrow came in the 
 death of my oldest daughter, after a brief illness. She 
 was a lovely woman who had everjdihing to live for — 
 a devoted husband, a legion of friends, a beautiful home. 
 
530 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 To this affliction I cannot become reconciled by any sort 
 of reasoning that places the responsibility on a "visita- 
 tion of Divine Providence." This daughter was the 
 child who corresponded with me regularly, and for 
 fifteen years we had written to each other giving the 
 day upon which we heard the first mourning dove, in 
 whose doleful call we felt a strange mutual pleasure. 
 
 On a bright May morning, as the rising sun gave new 
 life and promise to the bountiful earth, while smiling 
 and talking to those she loved so well, and while I held 
 her hand, her spirit took its flight. In an instant she 
 was a comforting memory only. 
 
 Her lifeless remains were taken back to the home of 
 her early childhood and young womanhood — to the 
 beautiful Waldo Hills ; and while the birds were singing 
 their songs in the glad sunlight, and the doves were 
 cooing their mournful refrains in the nearby trees under 
 which she had played during so many hours of her happy 
 childhood, her mortal remains were laid away until the 
 resurrection morn. The world has since, in a measure, 
 seemed a lonely place, but the severance of such a tie — 
 and countless millions have experienced it — illustrates 
 how little, after all, we understand the miracle of Life 
 or the mystery of Death. 
 
 Believing that it is not good for man to live alone, 
 on June 14, 1900, I was married to Miss Isabelle Trul- 
 linger, of Astoria, the daughter of an Oregon pioneer 
 of 1848. Her father, John C. Trullinger, was one of 
 the first men to engage extensively in the manufacture 
 of lumber in Astoria — in 1875 — and was a member of 
 the Legislature in 1893 from Clatsop County; men- 
 tion of him has already been made in these pages. He 
 was a very enterprising man, establishing the first electric 
 light plant in that city and afterward purchasing the 
 gas plant. His father, Daniel Trullinger, was a minister 
 in the Christian Church, was a neighbor of my Grand- 
 father Eofif in Iowa, and arrived in Oregon in October, 
 1848, just in time to perform the marriage ceremony for 
 my father and mother. 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 53.1 
 
 The eleven years succeeding June 14, 1900, have con- 
 stituted a continuous season of domestic bliss — a honey- 
 moon which shows no sign of termination. Every 
 moment of our married life has been ideal, largely 
 because the other member of this firm has measured up 
 to every qualification of an ideal wife; and, since she 
 does not know I am paying her this deserved tribute, I 
 will dare to say that, she being fully six feet in height, I 
 often declare my appreciation of her many good qualities 
 by saying that an experience of eleven years of married 
 life has shown her to be "all wool and two yards long." 
 
 And may I prove to be worthy of her while life lasts ! 
 
 In reviewing my fifty years in Oregon — fifty years of 
 strenuous activity — I often wonder, after the manner of 
 most men who have reached sixty years, if I could have 
 spent them to better advantage. Looking backward, I 
 think I could, and yet — again like most other men — at 
 each turn in my affairs I did what seemed best at the 
 time and, realizing that regrets are useless, I cast them 
 aside and look hopefully to the future. 
 
 There are few men who do not frankly regret they 
 did not follow some other calling than that which they 
 chose. At this moment I recall a passage in a splendid 
 address delivered by the State Superintendent. of Public 
 Instruction of New York in the "Hall of Congress" at 
 the St. Louis Exposition. The substance of it was as 
 follows : 
 
 A boy who had lived on a farm all his life was taken 
 to a city for the first time by his father when he was ten 
 years old. While there he saw a messenger boy dressed 
 in a uniform, and when he went home he was miserable 
 because he envied that city boy and thought he would 
 give anything to exchange places with him. 
 
 That night that messenger boy, after he went to bed, 
 was very miserable because he wanted to be a clerk in a 
 store, for he had a chum who had such a position, and 
 he was filled with envy. 
 
 But that clerk was miserable as he closed his day's 
 
532 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 work, for he envied the merchant for whom he worked 
 — he had a carriage and fine team and rode about the 
 city a great deal. 
 
 And that night the merchant lost two hours' sleep 
 worrying because he wanted to be a banker — one of his 
 best friends was a banker and he had a mighty fine time 
 every day. 
 
 And that very night the banker was in his office late 
 at night trying to "keep tab" on his business and was 
 miserable as he went home because he wanted to be a 
 big trust magnate, whose wealth was so enormous that 
 he was not obliged to look after details — he wanted to 
 be a multi-millionaire. 
 
 But that night there was one of the largest steel manu- 
 facturers in the city, an intimate acquaintance of the 
 banker, who was worth a dozen millions, and he was 
 vainly endeavoring to get some sleep as he worried over 
 "a thousand and one things" which demanded his atten- 
 tion and, satiated with all the pleasures that wealth could 
 supply, he thought he would give it all, and ten times 
 more, if he had it, to be a barefoot boy and back on the 
 farm again! 
 
 It is quite common to hear a man who has reached 
 the age of fifty years say, "How time flies! It seems 
 but yesterday since I was a boy" ; but, though the days 
 and weeks appear to pass quickly, when I forget the 
 intervening years, it seems that it might be a century 
 since those days in the Waldo Hills when my sister and I 
 played in the log cabin on the Donation Land Claim, 
 and I rescued the family spoon from under the kitchen 
 floor as a daily task. 
 
 As I approach the last few paragraphs of this book, 
 the writing of which has occupied most of my time for 
 five months, and during which my mind has largely 
 dwelt upon the men I have known, the things I have 
 done, the different places in which I have lived, my 
 association with other people — all, of course, in the past 
 — it is but natural at this moment that my entire life 
 should rise before me as' a cotnposite picture. In the 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 533 
 
 foreground and background stand out prominently the 
 beloved Waldo Hills in Marion County, than which, as 
 the beholder stands on one of the highest knolls on the 
 Waldo homestead, no prettier panorama is presented 
 in all the magnificent stretches in American scenery. 
 
 As before related, my father moved from his home in 
 that section in 1855, and in all his changes in life, though 
 he never lived elsewhere than in Oregon, he never saw 
 the place again for nearly fifty years. In September, 
 1902, he was visiting me in Salem, and while talking 
 over old times referred to this fact. Indeed, though I 
 had always known where the farm was, having spent 
 most of my life within five miles of it, I never knew 
 precisely where pur old house stood. 
 
 The result of this conversation was that L. B. Geer, a 
 cousin, proposed that we drive out the next Sunday and, 
 with the assistance of Abner Lewis, a farmer who had 
 lived on an adjoining farm all these years, determine 
 just how far my father's memory was in accordance 
 with the fact. 
 
 This we did. After walking across Lewis's field, we 
 came in sight of a broad creek bottom on the opposite 
 side of which had once been my father's cabin — ^just at 
 the beginning of the ascending slope. Here we all 
 stopped. After studying the scene presented, my father 
 said: 
 
 "Well, over there where that bunch of willows is 
 growing there must be a spring, and there was a spring, 
 and a mighty good one, a few yards from the house." 
 
 Lewis said he was right — that it was the identical 
 spring — and we walked around to it — a half-mile. 
 
 Arriving there, Lewis asked my father to locate the 
 exact spot where the house once stood. The land was all 
 in cultivation to the very edge of the willows by the 
 spring, and as the field was fallow that summer, a dense 
 growth of fern covered the ground. My first effort was 
 to find, if I could, a piece of broken dish, for there 
 never was an abandoned building spot on earth where. 
 
534 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 even fifty years afterward, there could not be found 
 pieces of broken dishes — always blue dishes, at that. 
 
 My search was rewarded by the discovery of three 
 such souvenirs, which I sent afterward to my mother 
 in California. In a letter received in return she expressed 
 her joy at the present and easily recalled, as any woman 
 could, the cups and saucers which my father had bought 
 in Oregon City at the time of their wedding, in October, 
 1848! 
 
 While I was prowling around in the fern I was also 
 looking for some broken bricks, for they are as sure to 
 be found where an old residence has formerly stood as 
 are broken dishes. Soon I found a brickbat, some three 
 inches in diameter, and, with my foot covering it, I said : 
 
 "Father, did you have any brick in the old house?" 
 
 "No," he replied, very promptly, "no brick." 
 
 But after a moment he said : 
 
 "Oh, yes, we did, too. Yes, I remember that I bor- 
 rowed a yoke of oxen and a wagon of Dan Waldo and 
 drove to the King Hibbard place and got a hundred brick 
 which I had helped make the year before — brick that he 
 gave me because they were burnt too hard to sell well. 
 Yes, come to think of it, I had a hundred brick." 
 
 He was standing by me at the time, and after he had 
 recalled the incident I said, lifting my foot from the 
 piece it covered : 
 
 "Does this look like one of them?" 
 
 Upon seeing it, he picked it up eagerly, and seemed as 
 glad to see it and held it as fondly as if it had been a 
 nugget from a gold mine. 
 
 Further search discovered about forty whole bricks 
 in the briars that had grown around the willows, which 
 had evidently been thrown there by the man who origi- 
 nally cleared the land. I brought one of them home with 
 me and have it now as an invaluable keepsake — a re- 
 minder of the days of "auld lang s}me." 
 
 We then went to the spring — one of the splendid sort 
 that abounds in the Waldo Hills — and after all but my 
 
FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 535 
 
 father had Iain down, full length, on the ground and 
 partaken of its sparkling water, I said: 
 
 "Now, father, it is your turn." 
 
 But he objected, saying he was too old to get in that 
 position for a drink. We insisted upon it, however, 
 finally taking him and laughingly forcing him to his 
 knees, when he stretched out in the old-fashioned way 
 and drank heartily. When he had risen, I asked him if 
 it tasted natural, and he said : 
 
 "Yes, it does. That's mighty good water, but fifty 
 years is a long time between drinks, isn't it?" 
 
 Many times since I have rejoiced that we made that 
 trip to the old place, for within less than a year after- 
 ward my father passed away. 
 
 The pioneers of the Waldo Hills have organized an asso- 
 ciation which meets annually in June in a beautiful oak 
 grove on the farm of John Hunt, where in reminiscent 
 vein the old times are rehearsed and old associations 
 renewed. 
 
 I attended their meeting a year or two ago, driving 
 out from Salem with L. H. McMahon, a well-known 
 attorney of the capital and a friend of long standing. 
 Naturally, we were called upon for short talks and, to 
 my misfortune, I was named first. In order to open the 
 way well, I proceeded to apologize to the people, with all 
 of whom we were well acquainted, for coming out with 
 McMahon, explaining that there seemed no other way 
 at hand, told a humorous story or two at the expense 
 of the lawyers, and turned my attention to the memory 
 of the Waldo Hills pioneers who had passed away, 
 speaking briefly of their virtues and devotion to the 
 new country they had found in the Great West. I men- 
 tioned several of them by name, and closed by paying a 
 tribute to the memory of my uncle, Ralph C. Geer, as a 
 man esteemed by all his acquaintances, noted for his 
 enterprise and hospitality, etc. 
 
 McMahon followed with a running fire of humor, 
 
536 FIFTY YEARS IN OREGON 
 
 applied locally, which was generally appreciated, and 
 then turned his batteries toward me in this wise : 
 
 "Mr. Geer has dwelt in an entertaining manner upon 
 the character of many of our departed pioneers, all of 
 whom you knew and all of whom I knew, as a boy and 
 man. I especially appreciated what he said of Uncle 
 Ralph Geer. He was a fine man, a great help to this 
 section of the State and a man who initiated many val- 
 uable business enterprises. But do you know, when I 
 recall his many good qualities, I am impressed with the 
 notion that the Geer family is like a good hill of potatoes 
 — the best part of it is under the ground!" 
 
 In my twenty years' public speaking in Oregon, upon 
 all possible subjects and occasions, I have experienced a 
 thousand instances of give-and-take repartee, sometimes 
 holding my own and often getting the worst of it, but 
 this retort of McMahon's was as good as I ever "met up" 
 with. 
 
 As I lay down my pen, ready once more to turn my 
 face to the future, I instinctively pause and listen for the 
 voices of the departed pioneers, whose lives were given 
 largely that the younger generation might have homes 
 in peace and plenty in a land favored of God. Added 
 and growing responsibilities are leaving their stooped 
 forms and settling upon us who have followed in their 
 footsteps. The magnitude of the gift in a measure 
 lightens the burden and the performance of duty only is 
 required to make our State a land, so far as a mere 
 human habitation may ever become, where 
 
 Rocks and hills and brooks and vales 
 With milk and honey flow. 
 
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