# History of Oregon (Bancroft)/Volume 1/Chapter 26

CHAPTER XXVI.
OREGON'S ENVOYS—ERECTION OF A TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT.
1848.
Let us now follow the two Oregon messengers to the national capital, and see what they did there. Thornton, in the United States sloop of war Portsmouth, Captain Montgomery, arrived at Boston the 5th and at Washington the 11th of May. Though no one in Oregon but Abernethy and his counsellors knew exactly his errand, Thornton has represented it as most comprehensive, embracing a petition for no less than twenty-one favors from congress, among which was the old formula of the United States jurisdiction. He also asked for grants of land; for confirmation of the colonial land law and the other legislative acts and decisions of the courts, which had been asked for by the memorial of the legislature of 1845; for money to pay the debt of the provisional government; for troops to protect the settlements, and the immigrants on the road; and for steam pilotage ​and light-houses, besides Indian agents, and the extinction of the Indian title.
Thornton says that he had an interview with the president on the 13th of May, having previously conversed with Stephen A. Douglas, to whom he carried a letter from Abernethy, and that soon after the visit to the executive he prepared a memorial to congress, which was presented by Benton to the senate May 25th, and ordered to lie on the table and be printed. In this memorial Thornton prayed for the establishment of territorial government, and for various appropriations, the most important of which was one asking congress to set apart, in addition to the 16th section, the 36th section in every township of the public lands in Oregon for school purposes.
Douglas having introduced a bill to establish a territorial government, Thornton decided, in order to save time, to have incorporated in that bill things in his memorial not asked for in the bill especially in reference to land grants for schools. On July 26th the bill passed the" senate, with a provision giving to the schools the 36th and 16th sections.
On August 14th the bill became a law, just two months and a half after the senate had ordered the printing of Thornton's memorial, containing the first prayer for such a grant for Oregon.
It will be remembered that Meek did not leave Walla Walla until the end of the first week in March. He arrived in Washington the last week in May, having performed the journey across the continent in the stormy spring months in less than half the time occupied by Thornton in sailing around it. The party had found the snow on the Blue Mountains not so deep but that a trail could be broken by the men walking and leading their horses and pack-mules. Beyond Fort Hall in the mountain passes travelling was more difficult, but they were assisted by some friendly natives and by a man famous among trappers, Peg-leg Smith, ​whom they found in the Bear River country. At Fort Bridger they obtained fresh horses, and avoiding the hostile tribes between Independence Rock and Ash Hollow by travelling at night and lying perdu by day, supplying themselves afresh at forts Laramie and Rubideau, they succeeded in reaching the frontier just as the immigrants were crossing the Missouri River on the 4th of May.
Here all his remaining men left him; and after a brief visit to his relatives in Missouri, Meek hastened to Washington, being forced to make diplomacy supply the place of money with steamboat captains and stage proprietors, and arriving at the capital in a costume sufficiently ragged and bizarre to command the attention of men, small or great, anywhere in the world. Nor was the messenger at all indifferent to his exalted position and the mighty power of dress. The rags and dirt which covered him, and which might have been the envy of any Peter the Great, were worth more to him at this juncture than twelve suits of broadcloth. He would see the president at once, before civilization should rob him of any particle of this prestige. It was better than a bear-fight, better than a Blackfoot's scalp, the glory of being forever known ​as the roughest and most rolicksome plenipotentiary the great republican capital had ever seen.
It little concerned Meek that his relative was the president's secretary. Was he not a great American citizen, very free and quite unceremonious, and the representative of other great American citizens who looked out on a sea toward the sunset? Two days had not passed before the apartments of the White House were as familiar to him as the canons of Snake River. Yet he was not wholly void of compunctions.
He began to feel in due time that after all in whatsoever appertained to greatness, there should be applied the eternal fitness, and so he permitted a tailor to trust him for a suit of 'store clothes.' On the 29th of May President Polk laid before both houses a special message on Oregon affairs, in which he quoted some passages from the memorial of the colonial legislature, forwarded by Meek, touching the neglect of congress, and reminded members that in his annual messages of 1846 and 1847 he had urged the immediate organization of a territorial govern- ​ment. The colony on the Pacific seaboard was now as then in need of federal aid, and was justly entitled to it. Again he called attention to the want of a territorial organization, recommending that a regiment of mounted men be raised for the relief of Oregon, that Indian agents be appointed to reside among the different tribes, and an appropriation made to enable them to treat for the restoration and preservation of peace. This he said should be done in time to allow troops to reach the territory that year.
Before entering upon congressional proceedings following Meek's arrival, I shall refer briefly to what had been done since the treaty of 1846, settling the boundary question. It was not because congress had been unmindful of Oregon that the colonists had been compelled to wait so long for the jurisdiction of the United States. The Oregon boundary was hardly determined before the even more momentous question was asked, How much, if any, of this new domain shall be slave territory? In these days no topic so engendered bitter contest on the floor of congress as that of slavery. It was enough to secure its failure in the senate that Douglas' bill for establishing a territorial government in Oregon, of which mention has already been made as having passed the lower ​house, January 16, 1847, incorporated the ordinance of 1787, on which were founded the organic laws of the provisional government of Oregon according to the expressed desire of the colonial legislature of 1845, ​as shown by the resolutions attached to the memorial of that body, to which Benton drew attention December 8, 1845.
When the Oregon messenger arrived he found two bills before congress for the establishment of Oregon Territory. Douglas, who had stepped across from the house of representatives to the senate-chamber, and was chairman of the committee on territories, introduced, January 10, 1848, a bill which in place of the section rejected by the senate at the previous session contained one sanctioning the colonial laws of Oregon, which being twice read was referred back to the committee, and reported February 7th without amendments, to go through the ordeal of southern opposition when it came to debate. It was not until the 20th of April that Douglas was able to obtain the consent of the senate to make bills relating to territories the special order for the 26th; and when that day came round, the California claims and the $3,000,000 appropriation being under discussion, the Oregon bill was postponed, so that nothing had been done in the senate for Oregon when on the 8th of May the citizens' memorial was received, nor yet when on the 29th the legislative petition was presented, together with the special message of the president, and when Washington was full of rumors concerning the affairs of Oregon, emphasized by the presence of two men from that distant territory with requests from individuals and the colonial government for congressional action.
On the 31st, Bright of Indiana, in the absence of Douglas, brought up the Oregon bill, when Benton moved an amendment authorizing the president to ​raise a regiment of volunteers in the territory to serve for twenty months, which was agreed to. This amendment was followed by one by Hale of New Hampshire, who moved that the 12th section of the bill of the last session, touching the ordinance of 1787, should be inserted in the place of its substitute in the present bill; but as the subject was one of importance to the whole country, desired the debate on it postponed until the 12th of June.
Bright opposed the amendment of Hale, on the around that it would raise discussion and retard the passage of the bill, whereas it was of the utmost importance that it should be pressed to an immediate vote. Niles of Connecticut, on the other hand, objected to the unusual urgency displayed by the western senators, and proposed to make Benton's amendment a separate bill and pass it immediately, while the remainder of the territorial bill should take time for examination. Hannegan of Indiana, however, expressed a determination to vote against the amendment of Benton. The whole of Oregon, he said, lay within the boundary from which slavery was excluded by the Missouri compromise; which statement being challenged, he declared that no sane man believed that slavery would ever exist in Oregon, and hoped the bill would be passed without delay. "He appealed to every man not to turn a deaf ear to the cries of our citizens in Oregon, surrounded by hostile Indians and not to be turned from it by this wicked and useless question being agitated."
Benton followed with an eloquent appeal, saying that the Oregon settlers had deserved well of congress for their enterprise, and now the neglect of government had encouraged the murderous outrages which compelled the settlers to send an express encountering the hardships and dangers of a winter journey across the mountains and plains to ask for the interposition of an ungrateful government. He closed by calling on senators of every variety of opinion to ​unite in passing the bill and preventing any further Indian massacres.
Then Westcott of Florida took occasion to resent an insinuation against the judiciary committee, that it had retarded the passage of the bill by thrusting on the senate the question of free territory. "It was not," he said, "thrust on the senate by that committee, but by the house bill (of 1847); and it was not then or now thrust on the senate by any senator from the south. It was not thrust upon them by the committee on territories. The amendment was entirely unnecessary, as it is already in the bill under consideration. The laws of Oregon already inhibit slavery. These laws were submitted to the judiciary committee last session, and will be found among the documents. If the bill should pass as it has been reported, it will contain a perfect inhibition of slavery." In conclusion he gave notice that he would move to amend the bill by substituting the bill of the previous session as amended by the senate. Davis of Mississippi declared that no one could more earnestly desire that Oregon might have a territorial government than himself, but he wanted time for consideration. The laws of Iowa, he declared, were not adapted to Oregon, which required different ordinances. He would recommend the recommitment of the bill to the judiciary committee, with instructions to report immediately.
Berrien of Georgia suggested that the shortest way to a final vote would be to adopt Westcott's amendment of substituting the former senate bill; and Calhoun was not disposed to occasion any delay which his duty did not imperatively require. He wished to give a government to the territory of Oregon imme​diately. At the close of the day's proceedings the Oregon bill had not advanced a step toward its passage.
On the following day the consideration of the bill was resumed, when Hale of New Hampshire offered an amendment which was only another fagot to the name of southern opposition to free territory, embodying as it did the conditions of the ordinance of 1787, as well as confirming the laws already in force in Oregon not incompatible with the remainder of. the act, subject to alteration or modification by the governor and legislative assembly; and extending the laws of the United States over that territory. This was objected to as a firebrand, and Hale offered to withdraw his amendment for the present, to be renewed if he deemed it best on seeing the course taken by the bill.
Calhoun of South Carolina replied to a proposition of Bright to strike out the obnoxious 12th section, to which Hale objected, that the removal of that section would not be a removal of the difficulty. "There are three questions involved," said Calhoun: "first, the power of congress to interfere with persons emigrating with their (slave) property into the state; second, the power of the territorial government to do so; and third, the power of congress to vest such a power in the territory;" and recommended either Westcott's amendment by substitution, or the passage of the military section as a separate bill.
Miller of New Jersey expressed surprise that the people of Oregon had not the right to prohibit slavery. Whence, then, had they derived the right to sanction slavery? To pour oil on the billows, Dickinson of New York suggested leaving out the 12th section, and permitting the people of Oregon to settle for themselves the question of free territory. To this proposal Bagby of Georgia gave, by implication, his consent, by saying that congress had no more right over the territory than over any other property of ​the United States; and denying that it could "erect a wall around a territory in which citizens of other states could not meet without leaving their property behind them." For him, he wished the 12th section stricken out. At the same time he called Dickinson's doctrine, that Oregon could make its own laws, a monstrous one, and called his suggestion an "attempt to stir up agitation in reference to a territory into which it was generally admitted slavery was never likely to enter;" whereupon Hale retorted that this was a "southern firebrand" which was now thrown in.
Bagby again "deprecated the new doctrine as to these ephemeral things called territorial governments, by which any twenty thousand settlers on the public lands might set up a government, and demand the right to enact their own laws." Foote of Mississippi, though declaring that he did not wish to enter upon the discussion of the question of slavery at that time, as it "might enable an individual to whom the abolitionists were attracted to increase his popularity," announced that he would vote for the bill if the 12th section should be stricken out. Hale replying to the personalities of Foote, the debate ended in remarks of no pertinency to the history of the Oregon bill.
The third day was but a repetition of the two preceding, except that some new voices were heard in the debate. Things were said of the Oregon government that would have roused the resentment of its founders could they have heard them, and at every renewal of the contest it was evident that the prospect for Oregon darkened. At length Houston of Texas, hoping to put an end to the discussion, moved to amend the 12th section by inserting a modifying clause, which was agreed to, but did not prevent the recurrence of the motion to strike out the section. A vote being taken ​on striking out, resulted in a two-thirds majority against it, which was the end of that day's proceedings.
I need not follow the bill through the ensuing six weeks of discussion. On the 13th of July it was recommitted to a select committee on the organization of territorial governments in Oregon, California, and New Mexico, which reported a bill on the 18th to establish these several territories. This bill was intended to be a compromise, and granted to Oregon the right to organize by a popular vote, and by the "temporary adoption of their present laws prohibiting slavery, until the legislature could adopt some law on the subject;" while organizing the other two territories without this privilege, by appointing governors, senators, and judges; their legislatures to have no power to make laws concerning slavery. It did not take away the liberties granted by the 12th section of the original Oregon bill, the modifications being slight, but withheld from California and New Mexico even the right to send a delegate to congress. It was with this powerful sedative the committee proposed to quiet the agitation on the question of slavery in the territories until Oregon could be organized without overturning the free principles upon which the people had erected an independent government, which they might choose to retain rather than yield to the subversion of their rights enjoyed under their own organic laws.
The contest then continued upon the propriety of yoking Oregon, "a native-born territory," with territories hardly a month old and peopled by Mexicans and half-Indian Californians. But after daily dis- ​cussion for another week, and at the close of a thirty hours' session, at eight o'clock in the morning of the 27th of July, the compromise bill was passed by a vote of thirty-three to twenty-two, and sent to the house, which almost at once voted to lay it on the table, upon the ground that it did not settle, but would only protract, the vexed question to which it owed its birth.
But while senators were thus evading the final issue which all felt must soon be met, the lower house had not been free from agitation on the same subject. On the 9th of February Smith of Indiana reported a bill to establish a territorial government in Oregon. This bill as introduced, by comparison with the Douglas bill of 1846, appears to be nearly identical. It was made the special order of the house for the 28th of March. Several debates were had, but little affecting the passage of the bill up to the time of Meek's arrival in Washington, and the president's message to congress on the subject of furnishing a government to that territory at the earliest practicable moment. Fear of the delay which the inevitable discussion of slavery was likely to involve led to the proposition to refer the message to the committee on military affairs, in order that troops might at once be sent to Oregon; but this motion was not allowed, and the bill took its course through the arguments for and against slavery in the territories, as the senate bill had done. The only amendments agreed to were a proviso in the first section confirming to each of the missions in Oregon six hundred and forty acres of land, the introduction of several new sections offered as amendments by the committee on commerce, concerning the establishment of a collection district, ports of entry and delivery, extending the revenue laws of the United States over Oregon, and appropriating ​money for the erection of light-houses at the mouth of the Columbia and at the entrance to Admiralty Inlet; a section forbidding the obstruction of the Oregon rivers by dams which would prevent the free passage of salmon; and a section appropriating $10,000 to be expended under the direction of the president, in payment of the services and expenses oi the persons engaged by the provisional government to convey communications to and from the United States, as also the purchase of such presents for the Indians as might be required to make peace with them.
It is asserted by Thornton that he secured the amendments on commerce, and knowing nothing to the contrary, I shall hope that he did so, because he should have done something to earn the money for his expenses, which charitable members of congress were induced to procure for him out of the public treasury. The bill as it now stood, with the ordinance of 1787 and all, passed the house on the 2d of August by a vote of one hundred and twenty-nine to seventyone, and was sent to the senate, where for nine days it received the same discursive treatment to which the senate bill had been subjected, but was finally passed between nine and ten o'clock Sunday morning, August 13th, after an all-night session.
Seldom was there so determined opposition to a bill as that offered by the southern senators to the establishment of Oregon Territory: not, as they themselves said, from a want of sympathy with the people of that isolated section of the country, who were, as all believed, still engaged in a bloody contest with hostile savages; nor from a conviction that slavery would strike root in this far northern soil; but only from a sense of the danger to their sacred institution from extending the principles of the ordinance of 1787 to ​the territory acquired since the passage of that ordinance. From their point of view the people of the southern states were defrauded of their inheritance in the vast possessions of the federal Union by the exclusion of slavery from any part of the common territory of the United States. They claimed the right to go whither they pleased, and to carry their human chattels with them, fiercely combating the opposition of the northern men that negroes were not property, in the usual acceptation of the term.
It had been agreed that congress should adjourn on Monday the 14th, and the policy of the opposition was to defeat the Oregon bill by preventing the ayes and noes from being taken. Almost the whole of Saturday was consumed in debate, in which Calhoun Butler of South Carolina, Houston, Yulee, Davis, and other eminent southerners, argued the question over the same familiar ground with no other object than the consumption of time. Benton only had replied at any length.
In the evening session, after a speech by Webster, the debate was continued till after midnight, when a motion was made to adjourn, which was defeated Butler then moved to go into executive session, when an altercation arose as to the object of the motion at that time, and the motion being ruled out of order, ​a vote was taken on appeal, and the chair sustained. In this manner the night was, like the day, wellnigh wasted, without coming to a vote on the Oregon bill.
Toward morning, Foote, who had already spoken several times, rose again, when he was called to order. The friends of the bill thinking the best way to bring matters to a conclusion was to humor the Mississippian entreated that he might be allowed to proceed; and he declaring his ability to speak until Monday night, commenced at the history of the creation, as given m the books of Moses, and talked on in a rambling strain until after nine o'clock Sunday, when it may be assumed that his spirits began to flag, and he sat down Benton then hastened to recede from some amendments which he had offered, but which the house had refused to accede to; and the bill, restored to its precise form as it passed the house, was finally passed by the senate, the long and trying ordeal was over, and Oregon was a Territory of the United States, on her own terms. The rule disallowing bills to be presented for signature on the last day of the session was suspended, and this one was signed on the 14th of August, the president returning it to the house with a message, in which he reviewed the question of free and slave territory at some length, deprecating the agitation arising from it, and predicting that it would, if not checked, dismember the union.
Oregon had indeed been granted a territorial organization with all that usually accompanied such creative acts, the appropriations amounting to $26,500, besides the salaries of all the territorial officers, including the ​members of the legislature, which would bring a sum of money into circulation annually sufficient to afford partial relief to the currency of the country. But the subject of land titles had not been touched, except so far as to secure the missions in the possession of six hundred and forty acres each, and except that the territorial act deprived every one else of all the title they formerly had under the provisional government.
The omission to provide the Oregon settlers with their long-promised donations was not through either the injustice or intentional neglect of congress, but simultaneously with the territorial bills both houses had been notified that a land bill would follow. Senator Breese of Illinois on the 3d of January asked leave to bring in a bill to create the office of surveyor-general of public lands in the territory of Oregon, and to grant donation rights to settlers. In the house, notice of two bills on the same subject was given by McClernand of Illinois January 31st, and by Johnson of Arkansas February 10th. McClernand's bill was referred to the committee on public lands, of which Collamer of Vermont was chairman, who reported it back April 25th, with an amendatory bill, and there the subject of land donations remained while the battle was being fought over the ordinance of 1787. When that fight was over it was too late to move in the matter at that session. Its subsequent course will be related elsewhere.
For the relief of Oregon in the matter of troops and ​munitions of war, nothing was done, or could have been done in time to have averted a crushing disaster to the colony, had the Indians not been checked. The Mexican war, which had only been brought to a close in the summer of 1848, had made a heavy draft upon the treasury, and the army was at that time small. The government was averse to enlisting men especially for Oregon, inasmuch as the rifle regiment which had been raised for service there and along the road to the Columbia would now be marched to its original destination, from which it had been diverted by the war with Mexico, so soon as its ranks, thinned by battle, desease, and desertion, could be recruited. Instead of raising a new regiment, or ordering away the men in garrisons, it was concuded by the secretary of war to furnish the material likely to be required from the companies and stores already on the Pacific coast. Accordingly orders were despatched to John Parrott, navy agent at San Francisco, to forward orders to Commodore Jones to send "men, arms, ammunition, and provisions to Oregon," and also to forward by any safe conveyance $10,000, to be paid over to the governor. But this order was not issued until the 12th of October, when peace had been restored.
During the progress of affairs from May to August, the two informal Oregon delegates had been characteristically employed. Thornton, with a serious air and a real love of scholarly association, sought the society of distinguished men, profiting, as he believed, by the contact, and doubtless being often consulted upon Oregon affairs. He asserts that he was approached while in Washington by an agent of the Hudson's Bay Company who wished to sell the possessory rights of that corporation in Oregon to the United States for the sum of $3,000,000, and that he became involved ​in some trouble with the president for his course in refusing to sanction the purchase. That he became the object of Polk's dislike may be true; but that the president cared for his opinion is hardly probable.
With regard to the proposition of the Hudson's Bay Company, I learn from various sources that the senate had under consideration a proposal to purchase its possessory rights in Oregon, upon the representation that the anomalous condition of the company after the treaty would lead to trouble. Sir George Simpson and Mr Finlayson paid a visit to Washington about this time, and the matter was in the hands ​of the British charge d'affaires, Crampton. The Hudson's Bay Company placed a high value upon their property and lands in Oregon as guaranteed to them by the terms of the treaty of 1846; and as the latter were liable to be occupied at any time by American settlers who held in no respect their possessory rights, they were anxious to sell. The United States did not deny their right to do so. The only question was as to the price that was set upon them. Some of the senators, on political grounds, had favored the proposition from the first; but others, better acquainted with Oregon local affairs, as Benton and Douglas, called for information, and the secretary of state laid the whole matter before them, declaring that as adviser of the president he could not counsel its acceptance without first ascertaining the value of the property, but that if he were in the senate he should vote for the purchase, as it would prevent the trouble and annoyance likely to arise from the joint navigation of the Columbia River.
In the following year negotiations on this subject were interrupted, Buchanan declining to entertain the company's proposition to sell, for the reason that the British government interposed an injunction upon its officers, restraining them from transferring to the United States any of the rights secured to it by the treaty, the principal of which, in the estimation of ​this government, was the free navigation of the Columbia River. Later, negotiations were resumed, but not until the establishment of a collection district in Oregon had shown the British government and the company that the free navigation of American waters was of little consequence, associated as it was with the obligation to pay duties on English goods, on the same footing with citizens of the United States. When that discovery was made, the value of their possessory rights was much lessened, and senators were not so ready to buy. The reader who will remember Benton's remarks on the 2d article of the treaty of 1846, in secret session, knows that even at that time he comprehended the importance of the blunder made by the British embassador in regard to this article; and it does not appear likely that Thornton was better informed on the subject than senators who had for years been engaged in the discussion of the Oregon Question from all points of view, or that the Hudson's Bay Company regarded his opinion as worth $25,000. The publication of a letter containing a charge against the president of bribery, or of consenting to bribery, whether written by himself, or by another, as he has since declared, but emanating from him, would be very good reason for regarding him with disfavor.
Soon after the adjournment of congress Thornton received a little more than the sum allowed by the territorial bill for mileage of a delegate, and repairing to New York, took passage on the Sylvie De Grasse for Oregon, where he arrived in May 1849.
​President Polk, who was elected on the issues connected with the Oregon Question, was desirous of having the new territory established during his administration. It was already the middle of August when the bill passed, and it was a long journey to Oregon by whatever route the territorial officers might choose. No time was lost in making the appointments; the appointees being urged to set out at once for the Pacific coast. The president's first choice for governor was General James Shields of Illinois; but the appointment being declined, the position was offered to another general of the Mexican war, Joseph Lane of Indiana, who was requested to organize the government before the 4th of March following. Lane accepted. The other appointees ​were Knitzing Pritchett of Pennsylvania, secretary; William P. Bryant of Indiana, chief justice; James Turney of Illinois and Peter H. Burnett of Oregon, associate justices; Isaac W. R. Bromley of New York, United States attorney; Joseph L. Meek, marshal; and John Adair of Kentucky, collector for the district of Oregon. Of these, Turney declined, and O. C. Pratt was given the position. Burnett declining, William Strong of Ohio was named in his place. Bromley also declined, and Amory Holbrook was appointed in his stead.
Meek, now United States marshal, received his commission and that of Governor Lane on the 20th ​of August, and followed the president to Bedford Springs, whither the family of the executive had gone to escape the heat of the capital. In such haste was Polk to put his officials on the way to Oregon that he had already taken a seat for Meek in the coach which would leave Bedford the day of his arrival, and on that same afternoon he bade farewell to all his summer's glory, and set out for the home of Lane, near Newburgh Landing in southern Indiana. On the 27th of August he presented Lane his commission, and on the 29th this portion of the Oregon government was on the way to Fort Leavenworth, where was an escort of twenty-five men for the journey across the plains.
Owing to the lateness of the season it was determined to take the southern route by Santa Fe, El Paso, Tucson, and the Pima villages on the Gila River, following that stream to its junction with the Colorado, and thence north-westwardly to the bay of San Pedro in California, where they hoped to find a vessel to take them to San Francisco, and thence to the Columbia River. The company which left Fort Leavenworth on the 20th of September numbered about fifty persons, including Lane, his eldest son Nathaniel, Meek, and Dr Hayclen, surgeon of the detachment under Lieutenant Hawkins, twenty-five riflemen, with wagon-masters, teamsters, and servants.
On the Santa Fe trail they were met by the army under Price returning from Mexico. The passage of this host had swept the country of herbage. On arriving at Santa Fe it was found impracticable to proceed farther with wagons, and the baggage was placed on mules for the march to the seaboard. At every stage feed was poorer, and the sandy plains of the Grande and Gila rivers reduced the mules to a pitiful condition. At Tucson the escort began to desert, and in an attempt to capture two of them two others were killed, making the loss double. After ​crossing the Colorado and entering California rumors of gold discoveries caused such desertion that when the expedition reached Williams' rancho on the Santa Ana River less than six men remained, and these were obliged to walk while the few animals left alive carried the baggage. At this place, however, the wayworn and wellnigh starved travellers found hospitable entertainment and were furnished with horses to take them to the coast. At Los Angeles they found stationed Major Graham with a company of United States troops; and thence they proceeded to San Pedro Bay, where a vessel, the Southampton, was ready to sail for San Francisco.
On entering the Golden Gate the Oregon officials encountered one of those wild phenomena which drop in on mankind once in a century or so. Hundreds of men from the Willamette, many of whom Meek last saw in the Cayuse country without money enough to purchase a suit of clothing had it been for sale in Oregon City, were waiting here for a passage to the Columbia, with thousands of dollars' worth of gold-dust buckled to their waists. A fever of excitement pervaded the shifting population of San Francisco which it was impossible to resist; and although neither Lane nor Meek would forsake their trust, they were tempted to fit out for the mines the few men who had remained with them from Fort Leavenworth, on a partnership agreement, and saw them depart for the gold-fields with Nathaniel Lane, before continuing their journey.
Lane and Meek went on board the Janet, Captain Dring. The vessel was crowded with returning Oregonians, and after a tedious voyage of eighteen days anchored in the Columbia. The party to which Lieu​tenant Hawkins was still attached immediately took passage in a canoe for Oregon City, where they arrived the 2d of March, two days before the expiration of Polk's term of office.
On the day following his arrival Governor Lane published a proclamation as follows:
"In pursuance of an act of congress, approved the 14th of August, in the year of our Lord 1848, establishing a territorial government in the territory of Oregon: I, Joseph Lane, was on the 18th day of August in the year 1848 appointed governor in and for the territory of Oregon. I have therefore thought it proper to issue this my proclamation, making known that I have this day entered upon the discharge of the duties of my office, and by virtue thereof do declare the laws of the United States extended over and declared to be in force in said territory, so far as the same or any portion thereof may be applicable. Given under my hand at Oregon City, in the territory of Oregon, this 3d day of March Anno Domini 1849.
"Joseph Lane."
Thus Oregon enjoyed one day's existence under the president whose acts were signally linked with her history, in the settlement of the boundary, and the establishment of the laws of the United States. The only other presidential appointee besides the governor and marshal present in the territory at its setting out on its new career was Associate Justice O. C. Pratt, who had arrived about a month previouslv. He administered the oath of office to the ​other officials, and helped to set in motion the wheels of the new political machine.
And so, without any noise or revolution, the old government went out and the new came in. The provisional government was voluntarily laid down, as it had voluntarily been taken up. It was an experiment of a part of the American people, who represented in their small and isolated community the principles of self-government in a manner worthy of the republican sentiments supposed to underlie the federal union, by which a local population could constitute an independent state, and yet be loyal to the general government. Under judicious management, good order and happiness, as well as a general condition of prosperity, had been maintained. The people were industrious, because all must work to live; they were honest, because there was no temptation to steal; they were not miserly, because they had no money to hoard; they were hospitable, because every man expected to need the kindness of his neighbor; and they were moral both on account of a public sentiment created by the mission and Hudson's Bay Company's influence, and from the absence of temptation. In such a community there is strength; and had there been neither Indian war nor gold-discovery, the same organization might have continued to stand for a generation without further assistance from the general government. ​With the going-out of the provisional government there was unloosed almost the last grasp of the Mission political influence. The head and front of this power for several years had been Abernethy. He had stood high with the Methodists, the largest religious denomination in Oregon, and by a certain smoothness of face, of manner, and of soft brown hair over a sloping forehead, had created the impression of mild, almost weak amiability, rather than of any intellectual force. I have shown, however, with what pertinacity he could plot and plan against his British commercial or other rivals. His dislike of the western men was scarcely less, because he could not rule them, and because they snapped their fingers at Mission influence. Like many another of the school in which he had been trained, he believed the Lord was on the side of professors of religion, and that if they obtained the advantage of other men, not of their belief, the Lord was rejoiced thereat, because the righteous shall inherit the earth. This belief made it right for the missionary party, of which he was the real head, to practise that underhanded policy, in certain cases, which when indulged in by men of the world is called dishonesty. In these disingenuous measures Abernethy was the prime mover; but the fear of injuring his business or his position as governor kept him silent. He was by nature, too, a quiet man, whose opinions were made known by what he did rather than by what he said. For a few years following the change in Oregon affairs, he accumulated money; but he failed to keep the fortune circumstances threw into his lap. He bought everything that offered, whether he could pay for it or not, and when reaction came, lost all that he had made, besides being heavily in ​debt. It cannot, therefore, be said of him that he was greater in a business capacity than as a statesman or philanthropist.
A history that is written from the very mouths of the living actors, and that despises no authority however humble, if it has any claim to be thought just, should have brought to light, had there been anything to record, some acts of generosity, of self-sacrifice, of devotion to the good of the country, performed by this leading man among the missionaries; but in all the instances requiring the exhibition of these qualities, during the early period of Oregon history which closes with the establishment of the territorial government, the men who came to the front were the men whom Governor Abernethy despised. There remains to be recorded yet one more act in the life of the colonial governor deserving of preservation in history, which I reserve for a future chapter.
I have spoken freely of the Oregon colonists, their personal peculiarities, and all their little and great jealousies, and occasional misdoings. I have not made of them religious martyrs, but something better; I have not made of them pilgrim fathers, but something nobler, their fanaticism being less fierce and cruel, while for self-denying application and high and holy purpose they were the peers of any who landed on Plymouth Rock. If I have not presented the leaders of the several migrations as heroes, to me they were none the less heroic; while the people were filled with a patriotism as lofty and purposes as pure as any appearing upon the highways of history. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
* ↑ Thornton's Or. and Cal., ii. 248. In another place Thornton says he arrived in Boston on the 2d. Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1874, 85.
* ↑ Cong. Globe, 1847-8, 798.
* ↑ Ebbert's Trapper's Life, MS., 24-31; Barnes' Or. and Cal., MS., 2.
* ↑ The moneyless condition of both the Oregon messengers was about equal. Thornton states that at one time he had only a half-dime; but remembering to pray, that day his wants were supplied.
* ↑ In Mrs Victor's River of the West, 439-62, is an amusing account of Meek's début in Washington. The book was in fact written by Mrs Victor at the suggestion of Meek, who furnished the incidents of his life, on which thread is strung a sketch of the American fur companies and of the colonial history of Oregon. All that part of the book relating to the movements of the fur companies and Meek's personal affairs was written from notes furnished by Meek; the remainder was gathered from various other sources. Of Meek's characteristics, to which I have referred in his biography, Mrs Victor seems to have had a ready appreciation, and to have presented him very nearly as he was—a fine man spoiled by being thrust out into an almost savage life in his boyhood. Frances F. Victor, née Fuller, was a native of Rome, New York; her father was born in Connecticut, and her mother, Lucy A. Williams, of the Rhode Island family of that name. Her father removed to Wooster, Ohio, in her girlhood, where her education was completed. Most Ohio people of the period of 1851 will remember a volume of poems brought out by Frances and her sister Metta Victoria, about this time, and while the authors were still in their teens. The sisters married brothers by the name of Victor. Frances, who continued to write as inclination prompted, removed to the Pacific coast in 1863, with her husband, who belonged to the engineer corps of the United States navy, and who after resigning perished in the foundering of the steamer Pacific in November 1875. Mrs Victor displayed great industry during her residence in California and Oregon, in studying the natural and historical features of the coast. She wrote many magazine articles and letters of travel, and besides the River of the West, Hartford, 1870, published in San Francisco All Over Oregon and Washington, and a volume of western stories and poems called The New Penelope.
* ↑ Mrs Victor gives Meek's own account of his feelings, which do him no discredit. 'He felt that the importance of his mission demanded some dignity of appearance—some conformity to established rules and precedents. But of the latter he knew absolutely nothing; and concerning the former he realized the absurdity of a dignitary clothed in blankets and wolf-skin cap. "Joe Meek I must remain, "he said to himself as he stepped out of the tram, and glanced along the platform at the crowd of porters with the names of their hotels on their hatbands. Learning that Coleman's was the most fashionable place, he decided that to Coleman's he would go, judging correctly that it was best to show no littleness of heart even in the matter of hotels. After an amusing scene at Coleman's, which at once introduced him to the cognizance of several senators, he repaired to the presidential mansion, where his cousin Knox Walker was private secretary, to whom also he made himself known in his peculiar style of badinage. Walker insisted on his being Been by Mrs Polk as well as the president. Says Meek: "When I heard the silks rustling in the passage, I felt more frightened than if a hundred Blackfeet had whooped in my ear. A mist came over my eyes, and when Mrs Polk spoke to me I couldn't think of anything to say in return."'
* ↑ Cong. Globe, 1847–8, 788–9; S. F. Californian, May 3, 17, 1848; Home Missionary, 22, 63; Amer. Quart. Reg., i. 541–2.
* ↑ Cong Globe, 1845-6, 24. Thornton has audaciously claimed to have been the author of this bill which was before congress with hardly any alteration from Dec. 1846 until its passage, with a few additions in Aug. 1848. He particularly alleges that he 'incorporated a provision prohibiting slavery in Oregon. This I took,' he says, 'from the ordinance of 1787; and I was induced to make it a part of the bill, not only because of my own convictions on the subject of human rights, but also for the reason that the people of Oregon had, under the provisional government, sternly pronounced a rigid interdiction of slavery.' Or. Pioneer. Assoc., Trans., 1874, 87. Benton said in the senate Dec. 8, 1845, that the colonists had presented their form of government, 'subject to the ratification of the United States government,' and it was well understood by the friends of Oregon, and its enemies also for that matter, that the ordinance of 1787 was the base on which the structure of a government for that territory was to be erected, Therefore for Thornton to claim that he framed this part of Douglas' bill, or had anything to do with the framing of it, is brazen assumption. But this is not all. He declares that he 'felt a vehement desire to so multiply, in Oregon, the springs of knowledge,' that he 'framed the 20th section of the act of congress of August 14, 1848.' This section is numbered in Douglas' bill section 18, and reads: 'That when the lands in said territory shall be surveyed under the direction of the government of the United States, preparatory to bringing the same into market, sections numbered 16 and 36 in each township in said territory shall be, and the same is hereby, reserved for the purposes of being applied to schools in said territory, and in the states and territories to be erected out of the same.' Or. Gen. Laws, 1843–72, 63–5. Thornton goes on to say that the consideration which decided him 'to make the 20th section a part of the territorial bill, rather than of the land bill, to which it more appropriately belonged,' was the same which governed him in framing sec. 17, relating to the transfer of civil and criminal suits from the courts of the provisional government to those established under the territorial government, namely, the best interests of the people. One is yet more astonished at Judge Thornton's audacity in view of the facts being open to any one taking the trouble to look into the proceedings of congress from 1845 to 1848, or to a file of the Oregon Spectator for 1847, where in the issue dated Sept. 16th is Douglas' bill of Dec. 1846, as it passed the house, and was at first amended by the senate, containing not only the ordinance of 1787, and the section granting the 16th and 36th sections for school purposes, but the section relating to the transfer of the cases already in the Oregon courts to the district courts of the United States; as well as a provision for having all penalties forfeitures, actions, and causes of action recovered under the new organization in the sane manner they would have been under the old; the only difference between this section of the act as it finally passed and the first draught of the bill, being that in the former it is numbered 15, instead of 17; and that two provisos were added to this section before the bill became a law, to guard the constitutionality of the penalties and forfeitures, and to prevent abuses of the interpretation of the old laws. The change in the numbers was effected by the introduction, during a course of amendments, of several new sections, to the disarrangement of the former numbering. There is nothing in the bill of which Thornton particularly claims authorship that was not in the original bill of 1846. Yet he talks about his efforts to neutralize the hostility to this measure, when no opposition in congress ever appeared to granting this land. In his Autobiography, MS., 45, he says, in reference to the school-land section, 'I will frankly admit that when to this section (the 16th) of the public lands, the 36th was added by the passage of the bill, the thought that providence had made me the instrument by which so great a boon was bestowed upon posterity, filled my heart with emotions as pure and deep as can be experienced by man;' after which he talks about being recognized as a benefactor of his race when his toils and responsibilities shall be over. See Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1874, 95. I have endeavored to get the true and full history of the first grant by congress of the 36th section of the public lands for school purposes. After going over the congressional records and finding that so far as I could discover, Oregon was the first recipient of this bounty, I wrote to the commissioner of the United States land-office at Washington to learn if possible more about the matter; but found from his reply that he could learn from me, inasmuch as he wrote that the 'act to establish the territorial government of Minnesota' was the first instance of the grant of the 36th in addition to the 16th section for school purposes, of date March 3, 1849, 6 months after the passage of the Oregon bill, containing the grant of these two sections. I therefore came to the conclusion that the reiterated petitions of the early colonists, notably of the Methodist missionaries and Dr White, to congress, the president, and the friends of Oregon, to remember their efforts in behalf of the American title, by liberal grants of land for educational purposes, had first led to this generous provision as made by the Oregon bill of 1846. The precedent once established, however, the other territories of an even or subsequent date came into the same rich inheritance, due probably to the influence of far-off Oregon on national legislation, but never in any sense due to the influence or the care for posterity due to J. Q. Thornton as alleged. Acts 2d Sess. 36th Cong., 120. I shall have occasion in another place to refer to similar unfounded pretensions.
* ↑ See chapter XVIII. on the amendment of the organic laws.
* ↑ This is a reference to the amendments made by the judiciary committee of the senate to the Oregon bill at the previous session, which were rejected by the house. They may be found in the Or. Spectator, Sept. 16, 1847.
* ↑ Cong. Globe, 1847–8, 805. See Thornton's pretensions in note 8.
* ↑ I find several references to the fact that the Oregon bill was drawn up on the plan of the territorial acts of Iowa and Wisconsin. Id. Bright says, page 809, that 'the bill is substantially the same as the bills for the admission of Wisconsin and Iowa, with the exception of the 12th section.'
* ↑ The following is the paragraph so obnoxious to southerners, with the amendment in italics: 'Sec. 12. And be it further enacted that the inhabitants of the said territory shall be entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities heretofore granted and secured to the territory of Iowa and to its inhabitants; and the existing laws now in force in the territory of Oregon, under the authority of the provisional government established by the people thereof, shall continue to be valid and operative therein so far as the same shall not be incompatible with the provisions of this act, or in violation of any rights by the law or constitution of the United States vested or secured to the citizens of the United States or any of them; subject nevertheless to be altered, modified, or repealed by the governor and legislative assembly of the said territory of Oregon; and the laws of the United States are hereby extended over and declared to be in force in said territory, so far as the same or any provision thereof may be applicable.' Cong. Globe, 1847–8, 812.
* ↑ Id., 950; Deady's Hist. Or., MS., 3; Clarke, in Overland Monthly x 411–13; Benton's Thirty Years' View, ii. 729–44.
* ↑ See text of bill in Cong. Globe, 1847–8, 1002–5.
* ↑ This proviso, introduced in the territorial act, when a land bill had already been reported, but without the prospect of passing at that session, explains a part of Thornton's errand.
* ↑ By the language of this appropriation the $10,000 was intended for Meek and his associates. Meek received a large share of it, and the Indians not any. See Victor's River of the West, 458–02. Thornton also received money for his expenses, probably from the contingent fund.
* ↑ Or. Pioneer Assoc. Trans., 1874, 94.
* ↑ Mason of Virginia said: 'The ordinance of 1787 was a compact formed between the United states government and the people of the north-west territory before the constitution was formed. The history of that ordinance is shrouded in secrecy, as the journals were not made public. But it is well known that there was much conflict. The item concerning slavery was the result of compromise Some states came into the measure with difficulty and some with a protest. Virginia would never have been a party to that compact, never would have made the cession she did, had she supposed her right to extend her population whither she would, would have been denied. . .There are now 3,000,000 of slaves penned up in the slave states, and they are an increasing population, increasing faster than the whites. And are the slaves to be always confined within what may be deemed their prison states?' Cong. Globe, 1847–8, 903.
* ↑ Thornton, in his History of the Provisional Government, in Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1874, 91, gives some particulars. He says Butler made the motion to go into executive session for the purpose of inquiring into the conduct of Benton, who he had alleged communicated to the reporter of the New York Herald some proceedings done in secret session; that Butler called Benton's act dishonorable; and that Benton sprang toward him in a rage, with clinched hand and violent gestures calling Butler a liar. The two white-haired senators were separated by their friends, Butler saying, 'I will see you, sir, at another time and place;' and Benton rejoining in great heat, /that he could be seen at any time or place, but that when he fought, be fought for a funeral!' See also Clarke, in Overland Monthly, x. 412.
* ↑ Niles' Reg., lxxiii. 274; Benton's Thirty Years, ii. 711.
* ↑ For the territorial act of Oregon, see General Laws of Oregon, 1843–72, 52–63; Cong. Globe, 1847–8, 1079–80.
* ↑ For public buildings, $5,000; for territorial library, $5,000; for lighthouses, $15,000; for contingent expenses, $1,500 annually.
* ↑ Salary of the governor, who was also Indian agent, $3,000; 3 U. S. judges, $2,000; secretary, $1,500; legislators, $3 per day and mileage; chief clerk, $5 per day; other officers, $3; marshal the same as the marshal of Wisconsin.
* ↑ 'All laws heretofore passed in said territory making grants of land or otherwise affecting or encumbering the title to lands shall be, and are hereby declared to be, null and void.' Sec. 14 of territorial act, in Gen. Laws Or., 1843–72, 60.
* ↑ Cong. Globe, 1847–8, 95.
* ↑ It is interesting to know that the widow of Captain Robert Gray, who first entered the Columbia, had a bill for relief, on the ground of discovery, before the house committee on public lands at this and a previous session. See memorial of Martha Gray, in Or. Spectator, Sept. 3, 1846; Cong. Globe, 1847–8, 679.
* ↑ The total strength of the army after the discharge of the volunteers enlisted for the war was 8,866. Cong. Globe, 1847–8, 1006.
* ↑ The rifle regiment was reduced to 427 men. Id.
* ↑ 30th Cong., 2d Sess., H. Ex. Doc. 1, 18–20.
* ↑ The cause of the trouble was really not so much the fact that he disapproved of the purchase, which any one was at liberty to do, as the manner taken to show his disapproval. As the matter is stated by himself, he received a call at his lodgings, from Knox Walker, the private secretary of the president, who brought with him and introduced a Mr George N. Saunders, whom he left with Thornton when he took his leave. The latter, according to Thornton, proceeded to make an attempt to bribe him to advocate the justice of the Hudson's Bay Company's pretensions, and offered him $25,000 to write such letters as he should dictate, to two members of the cabinet. The pious plenipotentiary's reply, if we may believe him, was to threaten to kick Saunders down the stairs, when that person saved him the exertion by going of his own accord. Not satisfied with this, Thornton wrote a letter to the president, which brought him another visit from Walker, who urged him to withdraw the letter, intimating that it would be better for his private interests to do so, but that he still refused. The story soon after transpiring through a communication to the New York Herald, written by Thornton, and signed 'Achilles de Harley,' the president took umbrage, and not only refused to appoint him to the place of one of the judges for Oregon, but also to pay his expenses as a messenger from Oregon out of the $10,000 appropriation. According to S. A. Clarke in the Overland Monthly, May 1873, who wrote from Thornton's dictation, Robert Smith, from the congressional district of Alton, Illinois, went to the president for money for Thornton's expenses, and was refused. Benton was then solicited to interest himself for Thornton, but put the business off on Douglas, who being refused, threatened to furnish Thornton with money to stay over to the next session, when he would move for a committee of inquiry to investigate the matter, in which the president was concerned. This threat brought Mr Polk to terms, and the sum of $2,750 was paid to Thornton, though he was obliged to return to Oregon without an office either for himself or the coterie he represented. Such is the explanation furnished by Thornton of the failure of his mission to Washington, and which he has repeatedly made, in his History of Oregon, MS., 1–6; in his Autobiography, MS., 48–55; in the statement made to Mr Clarke, and on other occasions. The real reason of Thornton's returning empty-handed was not any quarrel of the kind here narrated, but the citizens' memorial and the Nesmith resolution of the Oregon legislature, before spoken of, which Meek carried to Washington along with other documents. While there was no malice in Meek, he would have been sure to have his own sport with the governor's private delegate, the more so that Thornton professed to be shocked at the giddy ways of the authorized messenger.
* ↑ Extract from Montreal Herald, in Niles' Reg., lxxiv. 296–7.
* ↑ A correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce, under date of August 7 1848, says: 'The senate have before them in secret session the proposition of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Puget Sound Company for the conveyances to the United States of all their lands, buildings, improvements, fields of cattle, forts, etc., and all their possessory rights south of 49°, as well as the territory, etc., north of that parallel. The governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, Sir John Henry Pelly represented to Lord Palmerston the expediency of the transfer of the territorial rights, properties, and interests of the two companies to the U. S. government, and Lord Palmerston, readily embracing the project, instructed Mr Crampton, the British charge d'affaires, to bring it before this government. His letter to Mr Buchanan's is strong; and Mr Buchanan's communication to the senate, urging the acceptance of the proposition, presents incontrovertible arguments in favor of it. Mr Calhoun and Mr Webster are in favor of it; and to-day I learn that Mr Benton and Mr Hannegan have taken the matter in hand. Polynesian, v. 150; Niles' Reg., lxxiv. 97.
* ↑ Extract New York Herald, in Niles' Reg., lxxiv. 224.
* ↑ Washington letter, in Niles' Reg., lxxiv. 312.
* ↑ The person whom Thornton accuses of approaching him with the offer of a bribe, George N. Saunders, has had a notorious record as a politician, and was not above attempting to make the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company pay for his assumed influence in their affairs. He was described as of an amiable and joyous temperament, but lacking in principle. He was for some years editor of the Democratic Review, which his management converted from a respectable magazine into a reckless and disreputable publication. Yet he was wont with it to make senators and members tremble, see Cong. Globe, 1851–2, pt. i. 712, and was often called the president-maker. In 1853 he was commissioned consul to London. New York cor. Or. Statesman, Oct. 4, 1853. He is described by a writer in the Boston Transcript, in Id., Sept. 16, 1862, as the head and director of all knavish expedients to secure the election of Buchanan in 1856. 'Nobody knew how he obtained his money or acquired his right to command; but money he had in abundance, and his right to command was not disputed. There, with his shining shock of brown hair, curling over the lowest of human foreheads and the most impudent of human faces, he freely dispensed the "influence" which carried Pennsylvania for Buchanan in spite of the Quaker vote. His reward was the office of navy agent in the city of New York.' He became a defaulter to the government to the extent of $21,000 in 1861. He settled in Louisville and preached secession, and afterward went to Canada, where he led the rebel fugitive element, and where he told George Augustus Sala that they were plotting atrocities in connection with the war which would 'make the world shudder.' Boisé City Statesman, July 13, 1865; Portland Oregonian, Nov. 9, 1865; Id., June 17, 1867.
* ↑ Shields was born in Altmore, County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1810, and emigrated to America at the age of 16. In 1832 he settled at Kaskaskia, Illinois, in the practice of the law. He was elected to the legislature in 1836, and was auditor of the state in 1839; was appointed judge of the supreme court in 1843, and commissioner of the general land-office in 1845. At the breaking-out of the Mexican war he received the appointment of brigadier-general in the United States army, and was brevetted major-general for distinguished services. He served six years in the U. S. senate, being elected in 1849 from Illinois, and afterward two years from Minnesota Territory. He was for a short time in California and Mexico, and afterwards served as a general in the union army. In 1878 he was again elected to the U. S. senate from Missouri, but died a few weeks after taking his seat, in June 1879. Grover's Pub. Life, MS., 56; Niles' Reg., lxxiv. 113, 337; S. F. Call, June 3, 1879; Salt Lake S. W. Herald, June 4,' 1879.
* ↑ Joseph Lane was born in Buncombe Co., N. C., in 1801. From healthy parentage and pure mountain air he derived a strong constitution, and though not a large man, he was well knit, tough, and wiry, with a lively and ambitious disposition. His father removed to Kentucky when he was a child. At 15 he left the paternal roof to seek his fortune, as sons of southern and western men were wont to do. He married at the age of 19. In 1820 he settled in Indiana. Struggling with poverty and inexperience, the gift of tongue, which never deserted him, made him early a man of mark, and he was elected captain of the local militia, which at that time, when the late war with England and the frequent Indian wars kept alive the military spirit, was considered as a position of honor and trust. At this evidence of the esteem of his fellows, young Lane became ambitious to acquit himself in all respects creditably, and began to acquire that book knowledge which from the circumstances of his boyhood had been denied him, studying while his neighbors were sleeping. He also labored to acquire property, and made his first venture in business by buying a flat-boat and transporting freight on the Ohio River. Money came in, and when he was still young he was elected to the legislature of Indiana, first in the house and then in the senate. When the Mexican war broke out the military spirit of Captain Lane was tired. He enlisted as a private in the 2d Indiana regiment of volunteers, to take his chances of promotion to the captaincy of a company. When the regiment assembled, captains being plenty, Lane was chosen colonel; and the other two regiments from his state being equally anxious to be commanded by him, the president made him their general. For two years previous to his appointment to the governorship of Oregon he was winning laurels on the battle-fields of Mexico; and to the history of that republic this portion of his biography belongs. Notes from a magazine of May 1858, in Lane's Autobiography, MS., 67–85.
* ↑ New Orleans Picayune, Aug. 28, 1848; Honolulu Polynesian, Feb. 3, 1849; Oregon Facts, 8; Evans, in Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1877, 27; S. F. Alta, Jan. 4, 1849; S. F. California Star and Californian, Dec. 16, 1848; Or. Spectator, Feb. 8, 1849; S. I. Friend, Nov. 1, 1849; Am. Almanac, 1849, 313; Niles Reg., lxxiv. 97, 338; Victor's River of the West, 483.
* ↑ In the New York Tribune of Sept. 1849, a correspondent says of Meek that he was so illiterate as to be able 'to do little more than write his name, although President Polk, with a full knowledge of the fact, appointed him,' etc.; and states that he was an 'old trapper who had been 72 years in the mountains! 'The Or. Spectator of Jan. 26, 1850, remarked upon this, that at that rate, as Meek had been 10 years in the Willamette Valley, and was probably 20 years old when he went to the mountains, he must be of the venerable age of 102 years—he was 40—and took occasion to say that notwithstanding his want of book learning, he had been peculiarly prompt and faithful in every office with which he had been intrusted. This was a decided change from the tone of Abernethey's private letters, written after Meek's appointment as messenger, in which he took frequent occasion to ridicule the choice of the legislature. Or. Archives, MS., 108.
* ↑ Near Cook's Wells the company found 100 wagons which had been abandoned by Major Graham, who was unable to cross the Colorado desert with them.
* ↑ Meek was to receive half the first year's profit. The result of his venture was three pickle-jars of gold-dust, which young Lane brought to him the following year, and which no more than eimbursed him for his outlay. Victor's River of the West, 480.
* ↑ Crawford's Nar., MS., 185; Lane's Autobiography, MS., 3; Or. Argus, May 19, 1853.
* ↑ The proclamation was printed on the little press used by G. L. Curry to print his independent paper, the Free Press. Lane's Autobiography, MS., 5.
* ↑ Pratt arrived on the bark Undine, loaded with returning gold-miners, which missed the river and ran into Shoalwater Bay. She entered afterward and went up the river for a cargo of lumber. Pratt landed at Shoalwater Bay, and went down the beach to Cape Disappointment and Baker Bay, and crossed to Astoria, where a large number of natives were congregated, to observe some of their barbarous festivals. 'At this war-dance,' says Crawford, 'I saw O. C. Pratt for the first time.' Nar., MS., 181.
* ↑ 'In the din of battle it also stood the test. It declared and successfully waged war to redress the unprovoked wrongs the citizens had suffered; from its own resources, without extraneous aid, it levied the necessary troops; in the hour of danger its citizens responded to the call of their constituted authority. The Cayuse war was probably the most important historic feature of the period. By it was fully demonstrated, not only the inherent strength of the provisional government, the unity of feeling it had engendered, its entire capability to meet the requirements of the people, but the inciting cause of the war had been the constant surrounding of the pioneers.' Evans, in Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1877, 34. 'The men of the "forty's" were no common men; they would have been men in any country; they had been winnowed out of a great nation, a chosen band. They came as a community with all the necessary characteristics to establish a well-organized government; this they put into operation as soon as they arrived—rocked the cradle of the infant provisional government—nurtured and trained the rapidly developing youth of the "territorial government."' Brown's Autobiography, MS., 33. 'Thirty years ago was established by a mere handful of people, on this then remote and inaccessible land, that famous provisional government which carried the country through the vicissitudes of peace and war, until March 3, 1849, when the territorial government provided by congress was proclaimed at Oregon City amid the rejoicings of the people, by its first governor, General Joseph Lane.' Deady, in Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1875, 40.
* ↑ Beacon's Mer. Life in Or. City, MS., 10; Moss' Pioneer Times, MS., 35–9; Mrs Wilson, in Or. Sketches, MS., 18; Buck's Enterprises, MS., 10.
* ↑ Governor Abernethy, aside from his unfortunate speculations, sustained the wreck of the remnant of his fortune in the flood of 1861–2, which swept away the most valuable improvements at Oregon City. He then removed to Portland, and engaged in a small business, which he followed till his death in 1877. He remained always a firm friend of the church and of temperance, and is well spoken of for these traits. See Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1876, 68; Salem Statesman, in San José Pioneer, May 12, 1877.
* ↑ Herewith I give some modern biographies, more of which will be found in vol. ii., History of Oregon. W. H. Effinger, born in Va, Nov. 14, 1839, graduated from Dickinson college, Pa, in 1856, studied law, and took a tour through the south, intending to locate himself in either Miss. or La; but the breaking-out of the civil war caused him to return to Va and take service in the confederate army. During the war he was twice wounded. After its close he continued the practice of his profession in Va until 1872, when he removed to Oregon. At the time of the late Indian war he was maj.-gen. of the state militia, and accompanied Gov. Chadwick to Umatilla, where a rendezvous had been appointed with Gov. Ferry of Washington. Effinger desired to call out 800 militia, but Chadwick declined. It is Effinger's opinion that had this been done the Indians would not have broken through Howard's lines. I have explained Chadwick's actions in my account of this war in Hist. Idaho, this series. In 1880 Mr. Effinger was chairman of a delegation from Oregon to the national democratic convention at Cincinnati, which advocated the nomination of Stephen J. Field for the presidency. As a lawyer, Effinger achieved a high position in Oregon. James Steele, of Scotch lineage, his grandfather having come to the U. S. from Scotland, while his grandmother on the paternal side was a Gladstone, a cousin of the English premier, was born and educated in Moore co., Ohio, in 1834, moving to Iowa in 1856, just as the first railroad was being constructed in that state from Davenport to Iowa City. Several years were spent in Iowa and Kansas, when he came to Oregon in 1862. His first employment here was in R. Pittock's grocery store, where he remained for one year. After that he was book-keeper for Harker Bros two years. When the 1st National Bank was organized in 1866—the first on the Pacific coast—he was made cashier, remaining there 16 years, resigning in 1882 to engage in banking on his own account, he being one of the organizers of the Willamette Savings Bank, and its first president; also sec. and treas. of the Northwest Timber Co., organized in 1883, the lands of the company being near Astoria. The Oregon Construction Co. was another enterprise in which Steele became interested, its purpose being to construct railroads. This co. built the Palouse branch of the N. P. R. from Colfax to Moscow. Then there was the Oregon Contract and Pavement Co., with the object of making all kinds of street improvement, another important industry in which Steele was early interested; also the Oregon Pottery Co., which is a consolidation of the Buena Vista Pottery Co. with the Portland Pottery Co., incorporated by Steele in 1884; besides having mining interests in Idaho, and being a promoter of an enterprise which contemplated reduction-works at Portland. This is Scotch thrift and American enterprise united. J. C. Carson, born in Pa in 1825, removed with his parents to Ohio in 1834, where he studied medicine until 1850, when he came to Cal. by sea as asst to a surgeon, Kinnaman, who designed erecting a hospital at Sacramento. Not finding things as they expected, the hospital was given up, and Carson went to the mines; but after drifting about for two years, he came to Portland, at that time a rude hamlet in a forest. Finding nothing to do here, he taught a country school for a year. In 1852 Portland began to grow rapidly, and taking advantage of the movement, J. C. with D. R. Carson established a sash and door factory, in time employing 50 men. Carson has been several times member of the city council, and was its president in 1854 and 1855. In 1866 he was one of the three commissioners selected to report on the value of the H. B. Co. property in Oregon and Washington. In 1870 he was a member of the lower house of the legislature from Multnomah co., and reëlected in 1880. In 1884 he was elected to the senate. Jonathan Bourne, Jr, born in New Bedford, Mass., Feb. 23, 1855, was educated at Harvard university, graduating in 1877. He travelled abroad for a year, and came to Portland in 1878, where he read law with W. H. Effinger, being admitted to the bar in 1880, and entering into a partnership with him. Bourne became president of the Oregon Milling Co., owning mills at Turner and Silverton, in Marion co.; president of the Divided Car Axle Co.; president of E. G. Pierce Transfer and Forwarding Co., with a branch in San Francisco; and sole owner of the town of Grant's Pass, recently made the county seat of Josephine co., besides having interests in various other manufacturing and railroad enterprises. He was elected to the legislature from Mulnomah co. in 1884. In politics he is an ardent republican, as was his father Jonathan Bourne, Sr, who was four times member of the executive council of Mass., and was the first delegate to vote for the nomination of Lincoln in the convention of 1860, since which time he has been a member of every republican national convention to the present time. The son inherited also the father's business talents, who was for many years the largest whale-ship owner in the world, and later interested in railroads and various manufactures. John Somerville, a native of Ill., was born in 1846, and migrated to Oregon in 1873 in company with his father, Alexander Somerville, born in Ky in 1816. His mother's maiden name was Elizabeth Stephenson. They had two other children, Edgar J. and Mary J. The family settled on a farm in Linn co., where the father died in 1880. John engaged in merchandising, and subsequently in stock-raising in eastern Oregon, in company with A. H. Breyman. In 1883 Somerville, Breyman Bros of Salem, and B. J. Bowman established the National Bank of East Portland. Somerville married, in 1867, Ellen E. Shelley, a native of Lane co. James Lotan, born in Paterson, N. J., served a term of enlistment in a N. Y. regiment in the civil war, and came to Oregon in 1864, having first been employed in the navy-yard at Washington for a year. He was foreman and manager of the Oregon Iron-works for several years, and in 1873 became a large stockholder and supt of the Willamette Iron-works. The company was incorporated in 1865 with a capital of $50,000, the money used in the business afterward increased to about $200,000; M. W. Henderson pres., B. Z. Holmes vice-pres., W. S. Stevens sec, and John Mair supt. The company in 1883 had a business worth $400,000, which fell off subsequently as the railroads were completed. B. F. Kendall, born in Springfield, Ill., Feb. 6, 1827, came to Oregon in 1851, and engaged in farming and stock-raising, having 80 acres of improved land in Baker co., and several hundred head of cattle and horses. He was elected county commissioner in 1883 on the republican ticket. S. A. Caldwell was one of a joint-stock company of 150 persons from Boston who in 1849 came to Cal. by sea in a vessel of their own. After arrival, and finding that as a company they could do nothing, they sold their vessel and disbanded, Caldwell coming to Oregon in 1850. In 1852 he formed one of a company which purchased stock of the immigrants. The winter of 1862 being a severe one, they lost 5-6 of their herd, having neither shelter nor food, and the cattle being worn down with their journey across the plains. In 1854 Caldwell settled in Eugene, where he resided for 8 years, when he removed to Auburn, and in 1876 settled near Malheur City on 160 acres, 120 of which was arable land. W. McClanahan, born in Ind., came to Oregon overland in 1852 in the company of William Huntington. In the spring of 1853 he went to Shasta, Cal., and engaged in mining, remaining there 5 years, when the Fraser River excitement carried him to B. C., from which place he returned in the autumn of the same year. In 1859 he married Annie Butt of Forest Grove and moved to Clarksville, where he mined and kept hotel until 1872, when he settled on a farm near Bridgeport. He secured 480 acres, 260 of which was rich bottomland, and the remainder upland, all good for farming purposes. McClanahan gives the name of James Fleetwood and William Mitchell as early settlers in his section, and mentions Frank Koontz as having erected the pioneer saw-mill here. The mill was subsequently sold to Clements. A school was established in the district, and religious services held once a month. H. W. Sloan, supt of the Humboldt Mining Association of Cañon City, furnishes the following: The stock of the co. is divided into 8 shares, held by 6 working members; namely, H. W. Sloan, two shares, value, $3,000; J. Sprowl, two shares, $3,000; W. C. Sprowl, H. Heppner, F. Yergenson, and H. Hunter, one share each, $6,000. They have a patent to 140 acres of mining ground, and work the mine by hydraulic apparatus; have a 7-mile ditch, including one mile of flume, which carries 1,000 inches of water. The quality of the gold is $18.40 to the ounce, or .909 fine. A clean-up of $2,500 to $3,000 is made every 5 or 6 weeks. The 6 stockholders and 6 Chinese are employed in working. Sloan also secured a hay rancho of 100 acres, which he stocked with line brood mares. John Laurence, born in N. C., came to the Pacific coast in 1857, and located himself at Yreka, Cal., engaging in mining and farming. In 1865 he removed to Grant co., Oregon, settling in John Day Valley. In 1877 he began merchandising at Prairie City, and also purchased the Strawberry flouring mill, built in 1872 by Morehead & Cleaver, which made from 25 to 30 barrels of flour per day of 12 hours, and a chop mill, both run by water-power from Waldon Warm Springs. He became owner with his brother, Isham Laurence, of 320 acres of grain land, and raised wheat, oats, and barley. He also owned an interest in the Keystone gold mine with Starr, Carpenter, and Shearer. It was situated 7 miles from Prairie City, and had a 5-stamp mill upon it. Considerable tunnelling was done on two levels. The ore ran 3½ ounces of gold and 5½ ounces of silver to the ton. The mine cost $25,000, and yielded up to 1886 $31,000. M. V. Thompson, of the firm of Groth & Thompson of Cañon City, secured with his partner the Eureka Hot Springs, a fine place of resort; also a large stock rancho for raising horses. George D. McHaley, a farmer and stock-raiser near Prairie City, came to Oregon in 1843 with his parents, who settled at Oregon City. In 1850 he went to the Cal. gold mines near Redding, where he remained over two years. He subsequently located himself in the John Day country as a farmer, removing from the North Fork to Prairie City in 1881, where he secured 160 acres of hay land, his cattle feeding on the public lands in summer. He was elected in 1884 a member of the lower house of the legislature. Quincy A. Brooks was born in Pa in 1828, and educated at Duquesne college, Pittsburg, graduating in 1846. He studied law, and came to Oregon in 1851, locating himself soon after at Olympia on Puget Sound, then a portion of Oregon. He was appointed inspector of customs, and afterward deputy collector of that port. Gov. Gaines appointed him prosecuting attorney in 1852 for the northern district of Oregon, which office he held until the organization of Washington territory. He took part in its early politics, and was appointed by Gov. Stevens clerk of the supt of Indian affairs, holding that position under Stevens, Nesmith, and Geary. In 1857 he removed to Salem, where he married Lizzie Cranston in 1858; and thence went to Portland, where he remained until 1861, when he went into mercantile business in Walla Walla, and afterwards at Auburn. In 1865 he received the appointment of postal agent for the Pacific coast, holding that office through Johnson's administration. On the breaking-out of the Modoc war in 1872, he was commissioned quartermaster-general of the state troops, with the rank of major, and served during the war. After the removal of the Indians he located himself near Linkville, where he secured 1,000 acres of land, and some valuable solfatara hot springs. His son, Edward C. Brooks, was appointed to the military academy at West Point, graduating in 1886. David Feree, a native of Ind., born in 1836, of Ky parentage, enlisted as a private on the breaking-out of the civil war, remaining in the service to the close, and fighting in 37 battles, under Sherman, Sheridan, Rosecrans, and Grant. He rose to be captain during his service. In 1869 he migrated to eastern Oregon, settling in 1870 in what is now Klamath co., at the south end of upper Klamath Lake, where he made a farm, and engaged in raising stock cattle and horses. For 2½ years he was supt of farming on the Klamath Indian reservation. He married May E. Johnson of Brightborough, Iowa, in 1858. John S. Shook, born in Ind. in 1843, came to Oregon about 1862. He was the son of Amon Shook, who also was born in Ind., but removed to Iowa in 1847. The family being large with little wealth, John migrated to Oregon and located himself in Jackson co. In 1864 the remainder of the family, consisting of the parents, 3 sons, and 5 daughters, followed, and in 1870 John again became the pioneer, taking some land in the Klamath country, where Alkali is now situated, and being followed by the others and their joint property, 15 cows, with which they went into stock-raising, working for wages and investing all their earnings in cattle. John took a leading part in budding up the town of Bonanza, where he was postmaster for several years, and taught the first school. The Shooks in a few years were independent, and became the largest land and stock owners in the country. Richard Hutchinson, born in Pa in 1826, came to Cal. in 1867, residing in Sierra and Mono cos until 1864, when he removed to Jackson co., Oregon, and subsequently to Tule Lake, Klamath co. He married Annie Armstrong, of Tyrone co., Ireland, in 1848. Newton Franklin Hildebrand, born in Moniteau co., Mo., in 1843, came to Cal. in 1874, settling in Yolo co. In 1879 he made a tour through Idaho and eastern Oregon, and in 1884 settled in Klamath co. He married Rhoda E. George in 1872. Joseph Henry Sherar, born in Vt, came to Cal. by sea in 1855, being then 23 years old. He proceeded to the Salmon River mines, where he remained 3 years mining. In 1859 he removed to Hoopa Valley, purchased a farm of 450 acres of good farming land, and a train of 40 mules, with which he carried on freighting to Arcata on the coast, to the mines on Salmon River, and 150 miles up the Klamath River. While in this business he had for a partner Jonathan Lyon, a nephew of Gen. Lyon of the army of the civil war. In the spring of 1862 Sherar, with a passenger and freight train, started for the Powder River mines. The route was along Trinity River to Trinity Centre, across the mountains to Scott Valley, from there to Jacksonville, and thence to Oregon City, crossing the Cascade Mountains by the old Barlow road, the snow in places being 20 feet deep in June, to Tyghe Valley, Des Chutes Bridge, John Day River, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Grand Rond, and over the Blue Mountains to Powder River. Returning to the Dalles he loaded his train for the John Day mines. A German in his party built an oven of clay to bake bread in, en route, giving the name to a settlement which was afterward formed there. This company also named Antelope Valley from the great number of those animals found there, and Cold Camp from the cold experienced there. Near this camp, while they lay there, Berryway killed Gallagher for his money and pack-train; he was arrested, tried, and hanged at Cañon City. Proceeding, Sherar's company named Muddy Creek, Cherry Creek, and Burnt Rancho, where Clark and his partner were burned out by the Indians. Bridge Creek was so called on account of a small bridge of juniper logs, built over it by Shoeman and Wadley, who came from Cal. and went to the John Day mines with a train. Beyond here was Alkali Flat, where the first hotel on the road was erected in 1863. Crossing the Blue Mountains to the head of Rock Creek, the trail led to the John Day Valley, and thence to Cañon City. This was the road afterward so much molested by Indians, 180 miles in length, and guarded by the 1st Oregon cavalry. Sherar continued to carry freight over it for two years. In 1863 he married Jane A. Herbert, and settled in Wasco co., raising horses until 1871. Sherar's bridge over the Des Chutes has the following history: In earliest immigration times, as my readers will remember, it was frequently forded, at some peril to the traveller; sometimes the Indians carried passengers over in canoes. In 1860 a bridge was built at the crossing by Todd and Jackson, carried away by high water in 1861, and rebuilt in 1862. Jackson sold to Todd in the autumn, who took in Hemingway and Mays as partners. Hemingway soon purchased the interest of the other partners, after which he sold to O'Brien, who sold to Sherar in 1871, for $7,040, who expended $75,000 in improving the roads on every side of it, 66 miles of which he kept in repair. In 1876 he purchased the White River flouring mills, which manufactured 40 barrels of flour per day. He had also a saw-mill cutting 2,800 feet daily. He purchased the Fenegan rancho 14 miles east of his bridge, containing 1,580 acres, worth $25,000; had 6,500 sheep and horses and mules for farm work. He kept the stage-station and post-office at the bridge, where a little settlement grew up, and was considered worth $00,000. Here was a pioneer; a man who by hard work became owner of $100,000 worth of property, with a good yearly income. Many such there are in this favored land. Rodney Glisan was born at Linganore, Md, in 1827, of Maryland's earliest English ancestry, and educated at the university of that state as a physician. In 1849 he passed a competitive examination by a board of army surgeons, was accepted, and commissioned asst surgeon U. S. A. in 1850. After being on temporary duty at several posts in the west and south-west, he was ordered to the Pacific coast, arriving in S. F. in 1855 on the steamer John L. Stephens, from Panamá. Soon after he was ordered to southern Oregon with the troops sent to suppress the Rogue River Indians, at that time in a hostile attitude to the white settlers, and in this service endured hardships from which one might well shrink. In 1861 he settled in Portland, where he married, in 1863, Elizabeth R. Couch, daughter of the pioneer John H. Couch. He has been president of the Multnomah County Medical Society, and the Medical Society of the State of Oregon; member of the American Medical Association, and an emeritus professor of obstetrics in the medical dept of the Willamette university. He published a book entitled A Journal of Army Life, and is the author of several brochures upon different branches of medicine and surgery. In 1881 he was appointed by the medical societies of Oregon delegate to the International Medical Congress held in London, and spent two years subsequently in the hospitals and medical colleges of Europe, whence he returned to Portland in 1883. William Ried was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1842, of Scotch parentage. He was brought up in an atmosphere of railroads, his father being manager of the Glasgow and South-western Railway, and a railroad builder for 20 years. William was sent to St Andrew's parish school, and educated in the Presbyterian faith, under Samuel Neil, author of Logic and Literature. At an early age he left his father's house to do battle in the world for himself, succeeding in securing an education in Glasgow university, with a knowledge of the law which enabled him to practice as a partner of Alex. Douglas of Dundee, soon after which he married Agnes Dunbar. While at Dundee he met Mrs Lincoln, widow of President Lincoln, and performing for her some literary service, was rewarded by the appointment of U. S. vice-consul at Dundee, which office he held from 1869 to 1874, when he resigned to come to Oregon. His frequent intercourse with Americans led him to give much attention to the country, and in 1873 he published a pamphlet on Oregon and Washington as Fields for Capital and Labor, which was widely circulated, and resulted in the formation by its author of the Oregon and Washington Trust Investment Company, for doing business in Portland. The president of the company was the earl of Airlie, and Mr Reid the secretary. This company invested over $1,000,000 in Oregon and secured mortgages on much valuable property, being subsequently converted into the Dundee Mortgage and Trust Investment Company, with Reid as manager. Mr Reid has been very active in commercial and financial affairs. Soon after arriving in Portland he organized the Board of Trade, with A. P. Ankeny and 85 other members, who elected him secretary. In Sept. of the same year he procured the establishment by the legislature of a State Board of Immigration, the governor appointed him one of the commissioners, and the board making him secretary. He prepared pamphlets, which were printed in several languages, and circulated at the Paris exposition and the Philadelphia exposition, attracting much attention to the north-west. He was the organizer of the Oregon and Washington Mortgage Savings Bank of Portland, the first deposit savings bank in the state. In 1878 he conceived a system of narrow-gauge railways in the Willamette Valley, to be built by Scotch capital, under the name of the Oregonian Railway Company, Limited; and secured the passage by the legislature of a law entitling foreign corporations to build railroads in the state, with the same powers belonging to domestic corporations. In the autumn of 1880 he had in operation in the Willamette Valley 118 miles of road, when he applied to the legislature for a right to enter the city, and locate his road upon the public grounds therein, but was opposed by Villard's railroad companies and the city government. The legislature, however, passed the bill over the governor's veto, and the Scotch company was triumphant, Reid being local president. The construction of the road into Portland was proceeded with, and the grading had reached to a point within 11 miles of the city, when the stockholders in Scotland, despite the protests of the local president, gave a 96 years' lease of their railways to Villard for a guarantee of 7 per cent on the stock. Reid then abandoned the management, and turned to other enterprises. His next undertaking was the introduction into the state of the roller system of manufacturing flour, and the City of Salem Company, with a capital of $200,000, was the result. In 1883 it erected the Capitol A and B mills at Salem and C mill at Turner, at a cost of $230,000, with a combined capacity of 900 barrels per day. The success of these mills led to the erection of others on the same plan, in Portland and elsewhere. The First National Bank of Salem was organized in 1882 by Mr. Reid erecting the bank building and becoming the first president. Having relinquished all connection with the Scotch companies above mentioned, in the spring of 1883 he organized the Oregon Mortgage Company of Scotland, with a capital of $1,000,000, which he managed for two years. In 1884 he organized the Portland National Bank, and was made its first president, and also president of the Oregon and Washington Mortgage Savings Bank. In the mean time the successors to Villard in Oregon repudiated the 96 years' lease of the narrow-gauge system, because the road was uncompleted and unproductive. The courts appointed a receiver; the legislative act under which the Oregonian Company was chartered became inoperative through the expiration of the time allowed for the completion of the road, the people of the valley desired to have a road to tide-water put in operation, and Reid was the man to bring it about. Another bill was introduced in the legislature, contested as the first had been by the city of Portland and the Oregonian Railway Company; but the bill became a law, and the Portland and Willamette Valley Railway Company, organized by Reid, undertook to connect the Willamette Valley system with Portland by the 1st of Nov., 1886. The state gave the new company a contract, to last for 15 years, to carry the freight and passengers of the uncompleted road to Portland. Mr. Reid is eminently a financier. There has been loaned on real-estate mortgages from May 1874 to June 1885, $7,597,741 of Scotch money. As one dollar borrowed represents three of value at minimum estimates, and as much of the property mortgaged is never released, there are many millions' worth of Oregon and Washington lands held in Scotland. Thomas H. Crawford was born in Indiana, June 24, 1840, and came to Oregon in 1852, with his parents, who settled in Linn co. on a farm. For 6 years his opportunities for study were limited. Then he was sent to the Santiam academy at Lebanon for about a year, after which he entered the Willamette university, from which he graduated in 1863, after which he began teaching. His first school was in Sublimity, where he remained three years, when he took charge of the public schools in Salem for 1½ years. From there he came to Portland in 1868, and taught in the Portland Academy and Female Seminary as assistant for two years. In 1870–2 he was principal of the North Portland school, after which he was elected to the chair of natural sciences of Willamette university, remaining in that position three years, returning to Portland in 1875, and being elected principal of the Central grammar school. On the resignation of the former superintendent of public schools in Portland, in 1877, he was elected to fill that position. Mr Crawford has labored conscientiously to improve the school system and management, in which he has been eminently successful; much attention has been given to plans of building, and all matters connected with the public schools, until those of Portland are not excelled by any city of its population anywhere in the United States. It is noteworthy that the leading teachers in Portland for many years have been educated in Oregon.