# The Centennial History of Oregon, 1811–1912/Volume 1/Chapter 21

CHAPTER XXI
1834—1912
THE MORAL AND EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES BUILDING THE STATE—THE CHURCHES, AND CHURCH SCHOOLS—PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES—POETS, HISTORIANS AND PIONEER EDITORS—AUTOGRAPHIC HISTORY—THE GRANGE—DIVORCES, VICE AND CRIME.
The settlement of Oregon by Americans was started by a wave of religious enthusiasm. Prior to the advent of Jason and Daniel Lee in 1834, Oregon had no place on the map of the world except that of a vast game preserve for the taking of the furry skins of wild animals. Its native Indian population of from fifty to eighty thousand had no standing or consideration whatever in the minds of civilized or Christian men prior to the mission of Jason Lee. To Spaniard, Englishman and American, all alike, the fur trade was the sole excuse for any action in relation to the vast territory known as Oregon.
The historical incidents leading up to the planting of Christian missions in Oregon have already been related. But if the light and experience of the past seventy-eight years were reflected back on the religious missionary efforts to Christianize the heathen and establish churches and religions in Oregon, it might indicate that a vast amount of labor, effort and money had been expended without compensating results in the propagation of Christianity. At the time Jason Lee and Marcus Whitman voluntarily cast themselves out into the wilderness of Oregon two thousand miles from a Christian church and commenced their wonder making missions among the Pacific Coast Indians, the American people were practically nine-tenths professedly members of Christian churches. It is within the memory of the author of this book that the people of the western states in the year of the great gold discovery in California were fully nine-tenths members of the various churches. They are not so now. And in the states west of the Rocky mountains there is not one half of the people affiliated with the churches. It is not the purpose of this work to critically investigate the causes of this change. The accumulation of wealth, and from which came a provision for idle and luxurious habits in all directions, and the exploitation of secret societies—fraternal orders, so-called—has sapped the foundations of the Christian churches and broken down their ancient influences on the moral tone and unwavering fiber of human society and organized government.
When the reader goes back to the decade between 1834 and 1844, and takes a look at the work of Lee and Whitman at short range, we see them confronted with trials, dangers and opposition that would have paralyzed all the college professor preachers of Oregon in 1912. To begin with, they found the Oregon ​Indian anything, almost everything else than the Christ hunting spiritualist that had started the great wave of missionary sacrifice into the Oregon wilderness — personified by the Flathead appeal to General Clark at St. Louis in 1831. The Indian comprehension of the Christian religion was that of a wonder, a miracle, and not that of a moral code and discipline. And upon such a mentality "the line upon line, and precept upon precept" of Christian teaching had but little or no influence. And it was because of this defect in the Indian mind that the Protestant missionaries failed to influence and control the Indian; while the striking visual appeal of the Roman Catholic missionary to forms, ceremonies, vestments, and gowns caught the eye and the imagination of the uneducated native red man—and secured his friendship and obedience.
In consequence of this attitude of the Indian toward the Protestant missionaries, Lee was compelled to abandon his mission in the Willamette valley and make his plans to secure a permanent position and influence among the American immigrants; while Whitman bj' his persistence in a futile efi:ort among an unfriendly constituency lost his life and wrecked the whole American Board missionary effort.
This was the start of the Churches in Oregon. The Protestants gained little if anything of a foothold among the Indian population; while the Catholics established active missions among all the tribes, many of which have continued down to this day.
THE METHODISTS
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The determined Bishop, nothing daunted, went at once to the rude platform, detailed his experience in storm, shipwreck, mud and darkness, with marvelous pathos; quoted the .stanzas of a well known hymn of Henry Kirk White, beginning:
Once on the raging sea I rode,
The storm was loud, the night was dark;
The ocean yawned and rudely blowed
The wind that tossed my foundering bark.
Deep horror then my vitals froze.
Death struck, I ceased the tide to stem; When suddenly a star arose;
It was the star of Bethlehem.
The first Protestant church building on the Pacific Coast was the Methodist church at Oregon City, begun in 1842, by A. F. Waller, and completed in 1844 by Gustavus Hines. Governor Abernethy added the bell in 1851. Abernethy also at that time purchased three smaller bells for the Methodists, one for the church in Salem, one for the church in Portland, and one for the Clackamas Academy at Oregon City. But these were not the first bells in Oregon, the Catholics having one at Champoeg in a temporary arbor like chapel, where they held religious services as early as 1836. Religious services were held in Salem, by the Methodists as early as 1841, in the Chapel of the Oregon Institute which served for church purposes until the erection of the Church building which was dedicated January 23, 1853; and was at that time the best Protestant Church building in Oregon. The Methodist church of Portland was organized in 1848, and its first building built mainly by the hands of its firet pastor—James H. Wilbur—one of the greatest of the Methodist leaders in Oregon.
The Methodists were foremost in propagating their principles by means of schools. At the first annual meeting of the Methodist society in Oregon, in May 1841, a committee was appointed to select a location for a manual labor school. The site chosen was in what is now North Salem of the State Capital. And here a building costing in those days, ten thousand dollars, was erected, and an ​Indian school kept for nine months beginning in the autumn of 1842. Here was a substantial building with regular teachers and an effective organization making it in fact the first school in the State of Oregon.
On the 7th of January, 1842, a meeting was held at the house of Jason Lee, who had then removed from his first location on the Willamette river bottom to the new location at Salem. This meeting was called to prepare plans for an educational institution for white children A committee was appointed consisting of Dr. Ira L. Babcock, Rev. Gustavus Hines and Rev. David Leslie to prepare plans. The next meeting was held on February 1st, 1843, at the old Mission House on French Prairie, and there it was decided to begin immediately to lay the foundation of the proposed Institution. An organization was effected; and the first Board of Trustees were selected, consisting of Jason Lee, David Leslie, Gustavus Hines, J. L. Parrish, L. H. Judson, George Abernethy, Alanson Beers, Hamilton Campbell, and Dr. Ira L. Babcock, and the name of the first institution of learning for Oregon was to be "The Oregon Institute." At this meeting and co-operating with the Methodists was an independent Congregationalist missionary named Harvey Clarke, who took a lively interest in the proceedings, and was placed on the Committee to select a site for the Institute building. After this site was selected, and $4,000 raised by subscription made almost wholly by the Methodist missionaries themselves, the erection of a building was commenced under the superintendence of Wm. H. Gray, Presbyterian; so that in its inception the Oregon Institute was not wholly a Methodist enterprise.
But this institute formed a nucleus around which all the Methodist sentiment and action rallied; and out of it grew the more pretentious enterprise of the Willamette University. And the University Sun had in turn its satellites, the Wilbur Academy in Umpqua county, the Sheridan Academy, the Dallas Academy, and the Santiam Academy at Lebanon in Linn county, and the Portland Academy. A seminary for young ladies was established at Oregon City, in 1851, and controlled and managed jointly by the Methodists and Congregationalists and of which Rev. Harvey Clark was the first teacher.
The next after the Methodists and Congregationalists, to take up the question of church schools came the Catholics. The first Catholic school established in Oregon was St. Mary's Academy, on Fourth street in Portland in 1859. On October 21, of that year the twelve foundresses reached Portland in their long journey from Montreal, Canada. These heroic sisters who were to lay the foundation of a great teaching order in the northwest, were: Sisters, Mary Alphonse, Mary David, Mary of Mercy, Adelaide Renauld, Mary Margaret, Mary O'Neill, Mary of the Visitation, Agiae Lucier, Mary Francis Xavier, Vitaline Provost, Mary of Calvary, Violet McMullen, Mary Frebonia, Melanie, Vandandaigue, Mary Florentine, Alphonsine Collin, Mary Perpetua, Martine LaChappelle, Mary Arsenius, Philomene Menard, Mary Julia, Olive Charboneau, and Sister Mary Agatha, Celin Pepin. From this first colony of teaching sisters has grown nearly fifty schools and colleges with over two hundred teachers, all of which are purely church schools.
THE CONGREGATIONALISTS
THE PRESBYTERIANS
The first member of the Presbyterian denomination in Oregon was Rev. H. H. Spalding, but as Whitman's mission was primarily to the Indians, and not to the founding of churches, it is considered in another chapter. The first Pi'esbyterian to come to Oregon to preach to white people was Lewis Thompson of Kentucky, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, who came to the Pacific coast in 1846, and settled on Clatsop plains, where the first Presbyterian church on the Pacific coast was erected. Mr. Thompson on September 19, 1846, preached his first sermon at the residence of Wm. H. Gray, and to a congregation composed of Mr. and Mrs. Gray, and Alva Condit and his wife Ruth Condit, Mr. Condit being a ruling elder in the church from Missouri. Truman P. Powers of Astoria was the first ordained elder of the Presbyterian church on the Pacific coast. On the 19th of November, 1846, Robert Robe, a young minister from Ohio reached Oregon, and they, Thompson and Robe, together with Edward R. Geary of Lafayette in Yamhill county, organized the presbytery of Oregon at the house of Rev. Geary in pursuance of an order of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church made in 1846. By 1853 there were five Presbyterian ministers in Oregon—J. L. Yantis and J. A. Hanna, in addition to the three already named.
These efforts now noted were all the work of the old school division of the Presbyterians. But soon thereafter other branches of the same faith made their presence known. There were among the pioneers, Cumberland Presbyterians, Associate Presbyterians, and Associate Reformed. In 1851 James P. Millar of Albany, New York arrived in Oregon as a missionary of one of these latter societies. And finding here not more than 200 members and half dozen ministers of the two societies he proposed a plan of uniting them all in one organization under the name of the "United Presbyterian Church of Oregon," constituting one presbytery and being independent of any allegiance to any religious organization outside of Oregon.
The men who entered into this agreement on October 20, 1852, to form an independent Presbyterian church were James P. Millar, Thomas S. Kendall, Samuel G. Irvine, Wilson Blain, James Worth, J. M. Dick and Stephen D. Gager. They completed their organization on October 11, 1853, with a membership of 14 persons, Mr. Millar becoming the first pastor of the church. In 1858, they founded the Albany Academy, with Thomas Kendall, Delazon Smith (afterwards U. S. Senator), Dennis Beach, Edward R. Geaiy, Walter Monteith, J. P. Tate. John Smith, James H. Foster and R. H. Crawford, as the first board of trustees. This school was superseded by the Albany Institute in 1866, with ​Rev. W. J. Monteith as principal; which developed into the Albany College a year later when Walter and Thomas Monteith donated seven acres of land for a site, and the citizens generally subscribed $8,000 to erect a permanent building, and at which time by decision of public meeting and general assent the land and property was conveyed to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church for educational purposes.
THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTEEIANS
The pioneer of the Cumberland Presbyterians was Rev. J. A. Cornwall from Arkansas, who reached Oregon in 18-16. Cornwall was the only ordained minis-, ter of this church in Oregon until 1851, when Neill Johnson of Illinois and Joseph Robertson, of Tennessee, arrived. By direction of Synod of Missouri these ministers met at the house of Samuel Allen in Marion county in 1852, and organized the Oi-egon presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, Rev. W. A. Sweeney, another minister of that denomination, being present. At this meeting there were, in addition to the ministers, five ruling elders present who had partially organized congregations, as follows: John Purvine from Abiqua, Joseph Carmack from La Creole, Jesse C. Henderson from Yamhill, David Allen from Tualatin and D. M. Keene from Santiam. There were at that time four licentiates in the territory licensed to preach, viz: B. F. Music, John Dillard, Wm. Jolly and Luther White; and the whole numbers in communion was 103.
THE BAPTISTS
The Baptists were a numerous people in the western states when the emigration tide set in towards Oregon. And as a consequence we find this branch of Protestantism strongly represented among the pioneers. A stern, honest, sincere, headstrong people they held to their religion as well as their politics with the same vigor and determination as sent the Puritans to the block and inhospitable coasts of New England. As early as 1848, a society was organized and a church building erected at Oregon City; although the first Baptist congregation was organized on Tualatin plains on May 25, 1844, by Deacon David T. Lenox, in his own dwelling—a log cabin—and known as the West Union church. The charter members of this church were as follows: David T. Lenox, Mrs. Louisa Lenox, William Beagle, Luciuda Beagle, Alexander Blevins, Lavina Blevine and Henry Sewell—all coming to Oregon with the immigration of 1843. The second Baptist church was organized in Polk county, near Crowley, by Rev. Vincent Snelling on July 18, 1846. This was known as the Rickreall Church.
The first Baptist minister in Oregon, Rev. Vincent Snelling, came with the immigration of 1844, and he preached for the first time at the West Union church in February, 1845, and became pastor of that church for awhile. In the fall of 1845 Revs. Ezra Fisher and Hezekiah Johnson, duly commissioned by the American Baptist Home Missionary Society, arrived with their families, coming across the plains and soon after began their missionary work.
In June, 1860, Samuel Cornelius was sent out by the American Baptist Home Mission from Indianapolis as a missionary to labor in the Portland field. He preached, first in the Methodist church, then in a public hall, and organized the first Baptist church in Portland on August 12, 1860, with twelve members, of which were Josiah Failing and wife, Joshua Shaw and wife, R. Weston and wife, and George Shriver and wife. These few members elected Mr. Cornelius their pastor. Stephen Coffin donated the little church a half of a city block on which to erect a church building, and it is a singular commentary on the inconsistencies of this world's affairs, that while the donor of this land died without property this half block was sold by this church for money enough to purchase nearly as much land at another point and erect thereon the boasted "White Temple" costing two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The Lord does serve his liberal givers with strange recompenses—some times.
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Among thousands of former students and over a thousand graduates from her different departments are numbered preachers, missionaries, teachers, professors, congressmen, judges of county courts, of superior courts, of circuit courts, of supreme courts, of United States district courts, editors, authors, explorers, municipal officers, physicians. United States senators. Governors, United States attorneys. Consuls, Secretaries of State, United States Surveyors General, President of State Senate, Speaker of House of Representatives, and scores of prominent and successful citizens.
Pacific University. Next in point of age among the Collegiate institutions of Oregon is "Pacific University." This institution dates back to 1849 for its incorporated authority under the name of "Tualatin Academy;" which was by the Legislature of 1853 enlarged to "Pacific University." This was in the early days called a Presbyterian institution because of the connection of Rev. Harvey Clark with it, who was in those days regarded by the people as an independent Presbyterian missionary. Clark's theology was substantially Presbyterian, but his independence led him into the fold of Congregationalism; and where his most effective labors were displayed. He was unquestionably a very devout and thoroughly Christian man, unselfishly seeking to help, enlighten, lift up and benefit the human race without regard to color or social distinctions.
"In 1843 one of her sons, Orus Brown, made the trip overland to Oregon, and returning to Missouri in 1845 induced his mother to start for Oregon in 1846. And with her son and daughter, and their families, they set out for this country, taking with them John Brown, an aged bi-other of her dead husband. Mrs. Brown was now sixty-six years of age. After reaching the head waters of Snake river her son, Orus, fearing they might run out of provisions, pushed on ahead of the party with a view of getting help and returning to meet the immigrants. And after his departure, she was prevailed upon, with others of the party, to follow the lead of an unknown guide who misled them into what is known as the southern Oregon route. And here they fell victims to the direst terrors of travel that ever beset any immigration to this country." In the year 1854, Mrs. Brown wrote out an account of that awful trip, Prom which the following has been taken:
​"The sun was now setting, the wind was blowing, and the rain was drifting upon the sides of the distant mountains. Poor me! I crossed the plains to where three mountain spurs met. Here the shades of night were gathering fast, and I could see the wagon tracks no further. Alighting from my horse, I flung off saddle and saddle-pack and tied the horse fast to a tree with a lasso rope. The captain asked me what I was going to do. My answer was, 'I am going to camp for the night.' He gave a groan and fell to the ground. I gathered my wagon sheet, which I had put under my saddle, flung it over a projecting limb of a tree, and made me a fine tent. I then stripped the captain 's horse, and tied him, placed saddle, blankets, and bridles under the tent, then helped up the bewildered old gentleman and introduced him to his new lodgings upon the bare ground. His senses were gone. Covering him as well as I could with blankets, I seated myself upon my feet behind him, expecting he would be a corpse before morning.
THE SITUATION
"Pause for a moment and consider the situation. "Worse than alone, in a savage wilderness, without food, without fire, cold and shivering, wolves fighting and howling around me. Dark clouds hid the stars. All as solitary as death. But that same kind Providence that I had always known was watching over me still. I committed all to Him and felt no fear. As soon as light dawned I pulled down my tent, saddled my horse, found the captain able to stand on his feet. Just at this moment one of the emigrants whom I was trying to overtake came up. He was in search of venison. Half a mile ahead were the wagons I hoped to overtake, and we were soon there and ate plentifully of fresh meat. Within eight feet of where my tent had been set fresh tracks of two Indians were to be seen, but I did not know that they were there. They killed and robbed Mr. Newton, only a short distance off, but would not kill his wife, because she was a woman. They killed another man on our cut-off, but the rest of the emigrants escaped with their lives. We traveled on for a few days and came to the foot of the Calipooia mountains. Here my children and my grand-children came up with us—a joyful meeting. They had been near starving. Mr. Pringle tried to shoot a wolf, but he was too weak and trembling to hold the rifle steady. They all cried because they had nothing to eat; but just at this time their own son came to them with a supply, and all cried again. Winter had now set in. We were many days crossing the Calipooia mountains, able to go ahead a mile or two each day. The road had to be cut and opened for us, and the mountain was covered with snow. Provisions gave out and Mr. Pringle set off on horseback to the settlement for relief, not knowing how long he would be away, or whether he would ever get through. In a week or so our scanty provisions were all gone and we were again in a state of starvation. Many tears were shed through the day, by all save one. She had passed through many trials sufficient to convince her that tears would avail nothing in our extremities. Through all my sufferings in crossing the plains, I not once sought relief by the shedding of tears, nor thought we should not live to reach the settlement. The same faith that I ever had in the blessings of kind Providence strengthened in proportion to the trials I had to endure. As the only alternative, or last resort, for the present time, Mr. Pringle's oldest son, ​Clark, shot down one of his father's best working oxen and dressed it. It had not a particle of fat on it, but we had something to eat—poor bones to pick, without bread or salt.
BLESSED RELIEF
"Orus Brown's party was six days ahead of ours in starting; he had gone down the old emigrant route and i-eached the settlement in September. Soon after he heard of the suffering emigrants at the south and set off in haste with four pack horses and provisions for our relief. He met Mr. Pringle and turned about. In a few days they were at our camp. We had all retired to rest in our tents hoping to forget our misery until daylight should remind us again of our sad fate. In the stillness of the night the footsteps of horses were heard rushing toward our tents. Directly a halloo. It was the well-known voices of Orus Brown and Virgil Pringle. You can realize the joy. Orus, by his persuasive insistence, encouraged us to more effort to reach the settlements. Five miles from where we had encamped we fell into the company of half-bred French and Indians with pack-horses. We hired six of them and pushed ahead again. Our provisions were becoming short and we were once more on an allowance until reaching the first settlers. There our hardest struggles were ended. On Christmas day, at 2 P. M., I entered the house of a Methodist minister, the first house I had set my foot in for nine months. For two or three weeks of my journey down the Willamette I had felt something in the end of my glove finger which I supposed to be a button; on examination at my new home in Salem, I found it to be a 6-1/4 cent piece. This was the whole of my cash capital to commence business with in Oregon. With it I purchased three needles. I traded off some of my old clothes to the squaws for buckskin, worked them into gloves for the Oregon ladies and gentlemen, which cleared me upwards of $30.00.
THE BEGINNING OF PACIFIC UNIVERSITY
"Later, I accepted the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Clark, of Tualatin plains, to spend the winter with them. I said to Mr. Clark one day, 'Why has Providence frowned on me and left me poor in this world? Had he blessed me with riches, as he has many others, I know right what I would do.' 'What would you do?' 'I would establish myself in a comfortable house and receive all the poor children, and be a mother to them.' He fixed his keen eyes on me to see if I was in earnest. 'Yes, I am,' said I. 'If so, I will try,' said he, 'to help you.' He purposed to take an agency and get assistance to establish a school in the plains. I should go into the log meeting-house and receive all the children, rich and poor, whose parents who were able to pay $1 a week, for board, tuition, washing and all. I agreed to labor for one year for nothing, while Mr. Clark and others were to assist as far as they were able in furnishing provisions. The time fixed upon to begin was March, 1848, when I found everything prepared for me to go into the old meeting-house and cluck up my chickens. The neighbors had collected what broken knives and forks, tin pans, and dishes they could part with, for the Oregon pioneer to commence housekeeping with. I had a well-educated lady from the east, a missionary's wife, for a teacher, and my family ​increased rapidly. In the summer they put me up a boarding-house. I now had thirty boarders of both sexes, and of all ages, from four years old to twenty-one. I managed them and did all my work except washing. That was done by the scholars. In the spring of '49 we called for trustees. Had eight appointed. They voted me the whole charge of the boarding-house free of rent and I was to provide for myself. The price of board was established at $2 per week. Whatever I made over my expenses was my own. In '51 I had forty in my family at $2.50 per week; mixed with my own hands, 3,423 pounds of flour in less than five months. Mr. Clark made over to the trustees a quarter section of land for a town plot. A large and handsome building is on the site we selected at the first starting. It has been under town incorporation for two years, and at the last session of the legislature a charter was granted for a University to be called Pacific University, with a limitation of $50,000.00. The president and professor are already here from Vermont. The teacher and his lady for the academy are from New York. I have endeavored to give general outlines of what I have done. You must be judges whether I have been doing good or evil. I have labored for myself and the rising generation, but I have not quit hard work, and live at my ease, independent as to worldly concerns. I own a nicely furnished white frame house on a lot in town, within a short distance of the public buildings. That I rent for $100 per year. -I have eight other town lots, without buildings, worth $150 each. I have eight cows and a number of young cattle. The cows I rent out for their milk and one-half of their increase. I have rising $1,000 cash due me; $400 of it I have donated to the University; besides $100 I gave to the academy three years ago. This much I have been able to accumulate by my own industry, independent of my children, since I drew 6-¼ cents from the finger of my glove."
On this statement the partisans of Mrs. Brown found her claim to the honor of starting a college. Give Mr. Clark all the credit he is entitled to; and still the story goes back to the proposition of the devoted Christian woman to take the orphan children and be a mother to them, feed, educate and care for them if anybody would help her. She was fortunate in making the proposition to the right man; a man who never counted dollars, self-interest or personal convenience against any proposition to do good to his fellow man.
Other facts throw light on this question. The idea of starting this school was proposed by Mrs. Brown in 1847. Prior to that time Mr. Clark had in 1842, co-operated with the Methodists in selecting the site for the Oregon Institute at Salem; taught children of settlers on Tualatin Plains in 1842; had acted as chaplain to the provisional legislature in 1843; taught in the Clackamas Seminary at Oregon City (Methodist) in 1851, leaving Mrs. Brown to hold the Forest Grove post, Mrs. Clark assisting as teacher. A life like picture of Mrs. Brown is given on another page. Just as Jason Lee's Indian school was the germ of Willamette University, in like degree was Mrs. Brown's orphan school the germ of Pacific University.
No. 1 -- Frances Fuller Victor.
No. 2 -- Wm. H. Gray.
No. 4 -- J. Henry Brown.
No. 3 -- George H. Himes.
No. 5 -- Horace Lyman.
No. 6 -- Harvey K. Hines.
HISTORIANS OF OREGON
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No. 1—Samuel A. Clarke, Poet and Historian
No. 2—Orvil Dodge, History of Coos and Curry
No. 3—Valentine Brown, native son, printer, poet and lawyer
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is one of the many thousands of good women given the United States by fair Canada, being a native of Trenholm in the Province of Quebec.
Another Miller in addition to Joaquin, and his talented girl bride, entitled to notice here as a poet and writer of unusual ability, is Mrs. Lischen Miller, wife of Joaquin Miller's brother. Mrs. Miller was Miss Lischen Cogswell, the daughter of a Lane county farmer, and one of the founders of Oregon's first and only great magazine, the Pacific Monthly.
Another representative of Oregon's native poetical talent is June McMillen Ordway, daughter of Captain J. H. McMillen, a veteran in the Indian wars of Oregon. Mrs. Ordway 's writings have been mainly devoted to the Oregon pioneers and their services to the state; and in this she has written much that will remain the permanent literary wealth of the state. Captain McMillen was president of the North Pacific History Company which published in 1889 a valuable history entitled "History of the Pacific Northwest," edited by Hon. Elwood Evans of Olympia, "Washington.
And last, but not least, to be recorded here as an Oregon poet, is the veteran pioneer, farmer, stock-breeder, herdsman, legislator, mountain explorer, road builder, magazine writer and model citizen—Hon. John Minto. From an intimate acquaintance for half a century it is a pleasure to record here that no other citizen of Oregon has done as much for the general welfare of all classes of its people as this worthy man, now passed on beyond his four-score and ten years filled to the overflowing with useful labor, and still in the harness to help along every good work. His "Farmer's Songs" and "Rhymes of Life" have the genuine Ben Franklin flavor of 1776.
The Historians. Francis Fuller Victor fills a large page in Oregon history, not only as an historian but also as a poet of great merit. The late Harvey W. Scott being once asked who was the most reliable historian in Oregon, replied: "Oregon has but one historian—Mrs. F. F. Victor." This was high praise from a competent judge. Mrs. Victor's work as a writer of Oregon history is greater than that of all others combined; and as a collector of Oregon history her work is second only to that of George H. Himes. Mrs. Victor died at Portland, Oregon, November 14, 1902, and after her death Mr. Wm. A. Morris prepared with great care a sketch of her literary work as follows:
A book of poems in 1851.
Florence Fane Sketches, 1863-5.
The River of the West, 1870.
All Over Oregon and Washington, 1872.
Woman's War Against Whiskey, 1874.
The New Penelope, 1877.
Bancroft's History of Oregon, 2 Vols., 1886.
Bancroft's History of Idaho, Washington and Montana.
Bancroft's History of Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming.
Bancroft's History of California.
History of Oregon Indian Wars, 1893.
Atlantis Arisen, 1896.
A second volume of Poems. 1900.
Mrs. Victor had collected all the material for the Oregon history when the Bancroft Publishing House offered her ten years' work on their histories on ​condition that she would turn over her collections to Mr. Bancroft—who wrote history by proxy. Mrs. Victor accepted this proposition because she had not the money to bring out her own book. Prances Fuller was born in Rome, New York, in 1826, and thirteen years later was carried to Wooster, Ohio, with her family, and commenced writing verses at the age of fourteen. In 1885 she was married to Henry C. Victor, a naval engineer, who was ordered to the Pacific coast in 1863. Mrs. Victor followed her husband in 1865, and they settled on land in Columbia county and tried to develop a salt spring, and did make some salt. Mr. Victor was drowned in the sinking of an ocean steamship — The Pacific, November 4, 1875, south bound from Victoria, B. C.—and his widow commenced then to write Oregon history.
William H. Gray, the author of Gray's History of Oregon, will forever hold a unique place in the history and early literature of the state. Always in the forefront of the battle for what he conceived to be cause of truth and justice to the pioneers of Oregon, he will be recognized and remembered as one of Homer's heroes:
"Oh friends, be men, and let your hearts be strong.
And let no warrior in the heat of fight
Do what may bring him shame in others' eyes."
Gray will not be remembered so much for his History of Oregon as for the facts and experiences which made the book. While he may not have planned the battle at Old Champoeg on May 2, 1843, he was undoubtedly one of the most active partisans of the American cause at that history-making contest. Mr. Gray was imbued with the idea that the Hudson's Bay Company was scheming to beat the United States out of Oregon Territory, and that the Catholic church was partner in the scheme. And so impressed, he was big with an irrepressible disposition to give battle to these recognized opponents of American occupation of the country, whenever an opportunity offered.
Samuel A. Clarke's "Pioneer Days of Oregon History" is one of the first and best contributions to Oregon history, because Mr. Clarke writes of matters "all of which he saw and much of which he was a part." Mr. Clarke was essentially a literary man with versatile tastes and talents. He could write history, poetry and magazine articles, and edit a political newspaper or a farmer's journal equally well. He was editor of the Daily Oregonian for a time, editor of the Oregon Statesman for years, and editor and proprietor of the Willamette Farmer when that journal had a larger circulation than any other agricultural paper ever published in Oregon.
Brown's Political History. The documentary and political history of Oregon, from the treaty between Great Britain and Spain signed in October 1790, down to the organization of Oregon Territory in 1848, prepared by J. Henry Brown, is one of the most valuable additions to the history of Oregon. Brown was a printer, and conceived the idea of compiling all the official documents, treaties, laws and letters relating to the protracted negotiations between the United States, England and other nations for the possession of the old Oregon territory. With the help of a friend he succeeded in publishing one volume covering the period above named, but ill health and want of means prevented him from completing his long cherished purpose.
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STATE CONVICTS AT WORK ON PUBLIC ROADS
Done at Salem, Oregon, this first day of July, 1912.
Oswald West,
Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Military Forces of the State of Oregon.
Attest: W. E. Finzer, Adjutant-General.
By Order of the Commander-in-Chief,
"W. E. Finzer, The Adjutant-General."
Under the above order a high and impassable fence surrounding the "roadhouse" was torn down by the national guardsmen, and the house taken possession of and held until the owner yielded obedience to the governor and entered into an agreement to conduct his place in a decent and law abiding manner. After this, on August 27, 1912, the governor removed from office George Cameron, district attorney for Multnomah county, because the said Cameron had, in the judgment of the governor, been derelict in enforcing the laws against crime in said county and appointed to take said office Mr. Walter H. Evans.