# Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 5/Beginnings of Oregon: Exploration and Early Settlement at the Mouth of the Columbia River

BEGINNINGS OF OREGON—EXPLORATION AND EARLY SETTLEMENT AT THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER.
By H. W. Scott.
I trust I may be able to present the theme on which I am to speak to-night, through my treatment of it will necessarily he inadequate, in a way that will possess some interest for this audience. My discourse is to be devoted to the discovery and exploration of Oregon, and to the first settlement in Oregon, of which Astoria was the seat. I can give the subject but slight treatment, yet I indulge some hope that I may present some parts of the history in a way that may entertain you.
Man, says the poet, is given power to look before and after; and he adds that surely this power was not given "to rust in us unused." Another remarks that if we are indifferent to our ancestors and to what we have derived from them, we are not likely to look to the welfare of our posterity.
I believe it is with satisfaction that our people note an increasing interest in the history of the "Origins of Oregon." Attention to this history must become, more and more, a part ​of the education of our children and youth. Our system of public instruction must be depended on as the main agency in this work. The materials of the early history of Oregon arc very rich and abundant. Indeed the amount of material is almost an embarrassment; and he who begins an address, which necessarily must be brief, can do no better than t<> imitate the manner of the epic cyclist, who, in his invocation of I he muse, asked to be instructed or permitted to begin anywhere at any part of the story.
By invitation I am to-day to give a short account of the beginnings of our history, at this place where those beginnings were made. This locality was the destination of our very first pioneers. Here was the scene of their work. Here, in the vision of the poet, was the band of pioneers, founders of commonwealths, the first low wash of the waves of migration, where soon was to roll a great human sea. We are approaching the end of the first centenary cycle of this movement and the beginning of the second. It is especially fit therefore, that new interest in our history should now be awakened.
In preparation for the Lewis and Clark Centennial there will be much to say and do, till that event shall have been disposed of. During the next four years Oregon, and we trust, neighbor States, also, will be busy with it. We had the centennial of discovery in 1892. when Professor John Fiske was here and delivered his admirable address on the achievement of Captain Gray in his good ship Columbia. We are now soon to have the centennial of the exploration which confirmed to us the great country reached by the discovery. The history of these transactions, as the beginning of American empire on the Pacific Coast, is a record of profound interest. It has its place among the events of first importance in the development of the United States.
The Spaniards, earliest navigators along the shores of the Pacific, missed the Columbia River, and never penetrated the great estuary since known as Puget Sound. Nevertheless, it is well attested that tho Spanish navigator, Heceta, in August, 1775, was off the mouth of the great river, noted its position ​and observed the vast flow of fresh water; and within the next thirteen years the place was distinguished on Spanish charts as the mouth of the San Roque. It was examined by Meares, an English navigator, in July, 1788, who, however, reported that no river existed here. Nearly four years later "this opinion of Meares was subscrihed without qualification by Vancouver, after he had examined the coast minutely, under the most favorable conditions of wind and weather, and. notwithstanding the assurance of Cray to the contrary." Thus Greenhow. The actual discovery of the mouth of the river was made May 11. 1792, by Captain Robert Gray, a New England navigator, who says in his log-l>ook, under that date: "Beheld our desired port, bearing east-south-east, a distance of six leagues. At 8 A. M., being a little to the windward of the entrance of the harbor, bore away and ran in east-northeast between the breakers, having from five to seven fathoms of water. When we were over the bar we found this to be a large river of fresh water, up which we steered." Captain Gray remained in the river from the llth to the 20th of May. He ascended it about 25 miles. Meares left as a memento of his failure the name of Cape Disappointment to the promontory on the north side, where the river debouches into the ocean.
Gray, sailing out of the river to the northward, met Vancouver, who had sailed into the Straits of Fuca. and was completing his examination of Puget Sound so-called by Vancouver for a member of his party. Later in the year Vancouver sailed for the Bay of San Francisco, leaving his lieutenant. Broughton, to examine the Columbia River. Broughton. in the Chatham, entered the river in November, 1792. Finding it difficult to ascend the river with his bark, small as it was, he took his launch and made his way up the stream 100 miles. To the ultimate point he reached he trave the name of Vancouver. All the way up and down he sprinkled names plentifully. Walker's Island was named for one of his men. To Tongue Point he gave the name it bears to this day. Young's River and Bay he called for Sir ​George Young of the British Navy. To Gray's Bay ho gave the name it bears as a compliment to the discoverer whose ship had lain in it some months before. When Broughton entered the river he found a small English vessel which had been up the coast to the northward on a trading voyage, and on its return southward had turned into the Columbia River. This vessel remained in the river till Broughton was ready to sail with his own brig, the Chatham. It was the bark Jenny, and her commander was Captain Baker. His name is perpetuated in Baker's Bay. The Chatham and the Jenny went to sea together; and Baker, though disappearing then and there from history, has left his name to us forever.
The importance to the United States of obtainment of a footing upon the Pacific was seen even at this early day; but it was appreciated only by a few of our statesmen. To Thomas Jefferson the honor is due to quick and early apprehension of the significance of Gray's discovery. Confirmation of our title to Oregon was associated in his mind with the acquisition of Louisiana. Each was a necessary part of the imperial scheme. Even before the acquisition of Louisiana Jefferson had planned an expedition across the continent to the Oregon country and to the Pacific Ocean. The expedition was not organized, however, before the purchase from France was completed; for in fact we had no right to send an exploring party through the country of the Upper Missouri. A few years later the expedition of Zebulon Pike, into Colorado and southward into Spanish territory was arrested by the troops of Spain; but after the members had been held as prisoners for a time they were returned to the United States. France probably would not have been prepared to arrest an expedition from the United States traversing her territory to reach the Pacific Ocean; but with the completion of the Louisiana purchase the danger of such an incident was averted. The Lewis and Clark party was organized quickly after the purchase, and started up the Missouri River in the year 1804. Wintering at Mandan, on the Missouri, it pressed on in 1805, passed over the Rocky Mountains in the summer of that year, ​descended the Kooskooskie braneh of Snake River, and followed the great water courses of the West, till on the 7th of November, 1805, the horizon of the Pacific Ocean burst upon the view between the two lines of breakers that marked the debouch of the great river into the great. Pacifie sea.
The country was already called "Oregon," though the name had as yet obtained very little currency. In Carver's Travels, published in London in 1778, the name had first appeared. The origin of the name is one of the enigmas of history. Carver professed to have received it from the Indians in the country of the Upper Mississippi, where he had been pushing his explorations. The Indians, he says, told him of the River Oregon, flowing to the Western Oeean; but how much of the tale was his own invention it is impossible to say. He had a geographical theory and was seeking confirmation of it; for the great breadth of the country was known from the general trend of the Pacific Northwest Coast line, and it was naturally believed that so great a country must contain a great river. Yet the Indians of the Upper Mississippi country could not have known anything about it. Carver hit upon the name "Oregon" in some way we never shall know. Jefferson used the word in his instructions to Lewis and Clark, showing that it was beginning to have a vogue before "Thanatopsis" was written; but it was Bryant's solemn poem, with its sonorous verse, which appeared in the year 1817, that familiarized the word "Oregon" and soon put it on every tongue. Various accounts of the Lewis and Clark expedition had appeared both in the United States and Europe before the appearance of "Thanatopsis," but undoubtedly it was Bryant's expression, "Where rolls the Oregon," that did most to spread the name before the world.
The men of the Lewis and Clark expedition were the first Americans who came across the continent to the Oregon country and the Pacific Ocean. Alexander Mackenzie, twelve years earlier, had come from Canada, passing through the continent and over the mountains from Peace River, which flows into Athabasca Lake, and thence discharges its waters ​through the Great Slave River and the Mackenzie, into the Arctic Ocean. From the headwaters of Peace River Mackenzie passed on west to the stream which later took the name of Fraser River, and after following the river for some distance, struck directly west for the Pacific, which he reached in July, 1793. Mackenzie was the first man who crossed the continent to the Pacific Ocean north of the Spanish possessions, which at that time had an indeterminate northern boundary. This boundary was fixed afterward at the forty-second parallel by treaty between the United States and Spain.
On the results of the expedition of Mackenzie and of the voyage of Vancouver the British Government was already basing a large and general claim to sovereignty on the Pacific. President Jefferson hastened the organization of the exploring expedition to go overland from the United States, for the purpose of strengthening the rights we had acquired through Gray's discovery, and of anticipating further expeditions and claims of Great Britain. Lewis and Clark were not here too soon, for the English already had other expeditions in preparation, and their explorers were on the Upper Columbia but a little later than the return of Lewis and Clark from the mouth of the stream. Simon Fraser, in 1806-8, followed to the sea the river that bears his name, believing at first, as Mackenzie before him had believed, that he was on the Columbia; and another Englishman, David Thompson, whose name is perpetuated in the well-known tributary of the Fraser, was the first man who explored the upper courses of the Columbia River, and some years later he followed it through its whole course to the sea—arriving at Astoria in July, 1811—some four months after the occupation by the Americans. President Jefferson had been exceedingly anxious that the Lewis and Clark expedition should escape the notice of Great Britain and of the British Northwest Company, with whom disputes about territorial rights were feared—but in fact, the expedition did not escape their notice; for no sooner did Lewis and Clark appear on the Missouri than their expedition was ​discovered by the British, and in 1805 the Nort Invest Company sent out its men to establish posts and occupy territories on the Columbia. This party, however, got no farther than the Mandan villages on the Missouri, but another party, dispatched in 1806, crossed the Rocky Mountains by the passage of Peace River, and formed a small trading establishment near the 54th degree of latitude, the first British post west of the Rocky Mountains. But it was not until 1811 that any Englishman came through to the country of the Lower Columbia, and then the Pacific Fur Company, or Astor party, was already established here.
But north of the Columbia River there was basis for the claims of Great Britain; and the controversy known in our history as the Oregon Question, arose. Neither party was, in truth, able wholly to exclude the other, but it was the expedition of Lewis and Clark that gave us the strength of our argument. The talk on our side of "fifty-four-forty or fight" was merely a cry of a party; say rather the insolence of partisanship, for Great Britain's claims to a standing below "fifty-four-forty" rested on a basis too solid to be disposed of in this way; and, besides, our claim of "fifty- four-forty" rested merely upon a convention between the United States and Russia, through which the latter had named "fifty-four-forty" as the southern boundary of her American possessions. But to this convention Great Britain was not a party, and she justly declared that her rights could not be concluded through any negotiation in which she had not participated, or in whose results she had not promised agreement. The question, therefore, was still open as between Great Britain and the United States. Both countries had undoubted claims. Great Britain, by retrocession of Astoria to the United States, after the War of 1812, had acknowledged our right in the country. She had, indeed, never made any serious pretension to the territory smith of the Columbia River, but had insisted on that stream as the boundary line. We had, however, in Gray's discovery, in the exploration of Lewis and Clark and in the settlement of Astoria, a chain of title that made it impossible ​for us to consider this claim. Still, there could be no termination of the dispute till the slow migration of our people to the Oregon country gradually established American influence here; and finally the considerable migration of 1843 gave the Americans a decided preponderance, especially in the country south of the Columbia. But the boundary question dragged along, the British claiming as far south as the Columbia and we claiming as far north as fifty-four-forty, till the final settlement in the year 1846.
The hibernation of the Lewis and Clark party at Fort Clatsop is a familiar story here, especially, since so many of the people have visited the spot and are perfectly acquainted with the surroundings. It is known, of course, that the party first encamped on the north side; but exposure to winter's winds caused them to seek a more sheltered position on the south side, to which they removed about one month after their arrival. From the journal of Captain Lewis we ascertain that rain sometimes fell here, even before there was an official Weather Bureau to guage it. The country round and about is very fully and accurately described in the journal. It is hoped that the site of Fort Clatsop may be acquired for the State. Officials of the State Historical Society have visited it, and some negotiation has been had concerning it. The spot where salt was made by evaporation of sea water for use during the winter and for the return journey has been identified and inclosed. It is in Seaside Grove, between the Necanicum and the ocean, and since identification the "salt cairn" is seen by everyone who visits Clatsop Beach.
Hitherto the journal of Lewis and Clark with its descriptions of the country as it was then, of the Indians and their mode of life, has been too little studied by our people. It should be in all our libraries; knowledge of it is indispensable to any fair comprehension of the basis of our history. It should be studied as the "Anabasis" of the Western World. We are coming to the first centennial of this expedition and intend to celebrate it; but we shall not know much about it, unless we study the journal of Lewis and Clark. Oregon is ​under great obligations to the labors of the late Dr. Elliott Coues, for his edition of 1893, with notes and commentary—the best ever published.
A first-rate authority for the condition of affairs at Astoria, from the arrival of the Astoria party in March, 1811, till abandonment of the enterprise in 1813, is Gabriel Franchere, whose book, written in French and published in Montreal in 1819, was translated into English and republished in New York in 1854. Franchere. it is well known, came in the Tonquin. and remained in the country till Astor's partners here sold out the business to agents of the British Northwest Company, when he returned home, across the continent. It was a large party that left Astoria April 4, 1814. In all there were ninety persons, who embarked in ten canoes. Franchere reached Montreal in September. His statements make it certain that the partners of Astor could have maintained their position in the country had they possessed resolution and courage. Astoria was not in fact captured by the British, but was transferred under a business arrangement to agents of the Northwest Company. True, the British sloop of war Raccoon, of 26 guns, arrived at Astoria soon after the transfer had been made, and it would not have been possible to hold Astoria after that, even had the Americans desired. But Franchere says the Pacific Fur Company need not have retired from the country. "It was only necessary," he explains, "to get rid of the land party of the Northwest Company, who were completely in our power; then remove our effects up the river upon some small stream, and await results. The sloop of war arrived, it is true; but as in the case I suppose she would have found nothing, she would have left, after setting fire to our deserted houses. None of their boats would have dared to follow, even if the Indians had betrayed them to our lurking place. But those at the head of affairs had their own fortunes to seek, and thought it more for their interest, doubtless, to act as they did ; but that will not clear them in the eyes of the world, and the charge of treason to Mr. Astor's interests will always be attached to their characters."
​The principal in this betrayal of Mr. Astor's interests, as well as those of the United States, was Duncan McDougal, who had left the Northwest Company in 1810, to enter Astor's service. He came out in the Tonquin, and soon after took to wife the daughter of old Concomly, chief of the Clatsops. An amusing account of the unctuous and piscivorous nuptials is given in some of the chronicles of the time. There arc tin tures of the story better suited to private reading than to public recital. McDougal remained here till April, 1817, when he finally left "Fort George" and returned to Canada. In selling Mr. Astor out he seems to have been overborne by the superior tact and force of J. G. McTavish, the principal agent of the Northwest Company. One of his associates in the Pacific Fur Company (Alexander Ross) says that McDougal was "a man of but ordinary capacity, with irritable peevish temper, the most unfit man in the world to head an expedition or to command men." Another chronicler says that old Concomly, after the transfer, ' ' no longer prided himself upon his white son-in-law, but whenever he was asked about him, shook his head and said his daughter had made a mistake, for, instead of getting a great warrior for a husband. she had married a squaw." But we shall dwell here no further on these incidents in the early social life in Oregon.
Other writers at first hand, besides Franchere, who have dealt with this early history, are Alexander Ross and Ross Cox, both of the Pacific Fur Company, or Astor party. Ross came in the Tonquin, Cox in the Beaver, Astor's second vessel; Cox's book was published in London in 1831; that of Ross in London in 1849. Ross spent not less than fifteen years in the Columbia River region, after which he settled at Red River. Cox's book covers six years at Astoria from 1811 to 1817. Both narratives have high value.
The same must be said of that portion of the journals of Alexander Henry, which is devoted to the Lower Columbia country. By the painstaking annotations of Dr. Coues, these journals also have been made to possess an inestimable value to all who feel an interest in the early history of Oregon. ​Alexander Henry, of the English party, came to Astoria November 15, 1813. In his journal he has minutely described the conditions then existing here. He visited the Willamette country, of which he has given a description; in one way or another he mentions every man in the country at that time, and, moreover, he made a special catalogue of their names. His journal terminates abruptly, with an unfinished sentence May 21, 1814. On the following day he was drowned in going from "Fort George" to the ship Isaac Todd, which was lying in the river below. Donald McTavish. one of the old proprietors of the Northwest Company, and five boatmen were drowned at the same time.
Incomparable among those who have contributed to the literature of this time is Irving; but the historical element in his "Astoria" is overlaid on almost every page by the romantie. He is everywhere on the borderland of romance, when not wholly within its realm. But the art is of so high quality, simple and unobtrusive, that the reader scarcely suspects the narrative, which is true, indeed, in its outline, and apparently the perfection of truth, from the way it appeals to the imagination, through the attractive dress in which it is presented. Irving's story is an epic. Of his tale of the journey of the overland party of the Astor expedition, an appreciative reviewer has said: "No story of travel is more familiar to the public than the tale told by Irving of this adventure, because none is more readable as a tale founded on fact. The hardships and sufferings of the undisciplined mob that struggled across the country were terrible; some deserted, some went mad. some were drowned or murdered, and the survivors reached Astoria in pitiable plight, in separate parties, at different times. This was the second transcontinental expedition through the United States, having been preceded only by that of Lewis and Clark; but to this day no one knows exactly the route. Irving plies his golden pen elastically, and from it flows wit and humor, stirring scene and startling incident, character to the life; but he never tells us where these people went, perhaps for the simple reason that he never knew. ​He wafts us westward on his strong plume, and we look down upon those hapless Astorians, but we might as well be ballooning for aught we can make of this celebrated itinerary." As tu description of the route, this is a true criticism; but Irving has supplied the imagination with a truer picture of the hardships of the expedition, coming and going, than any diary written on the journey could have given us. Men who go through hardships can seldom describe them. Indeed, the most dreadful horrors that men suffer are little remembered.
The only descendant, so far as I know, of any member of the original Astor party now living in Oregon is Colonel Crooks, of Portland, who holds an official position in the O. R. & N. Co. His father, Ramsay Crooks, came with the overland or Hunt party, and returned in the same way. Much of the journey both ways was made in winter, arid the sufferings of the party from destitution, fatigue and cold were extreme. Ramsay Crooks and John Day were separated for a time from their main party, were robbed by the Indians and stripped of their clothing, and as the weather was still wintry (it was early spring), they were saved only by simple good fortune. Perhaps we should say it is "one of those miraculous escapes." Some of their companions, whom they had not seen for a long time, and were not known by them to be in the vicinity, appeared, and they were rescued. Day became insane, and died, it is believed, at Astoria, for to that place he was sent back by Indians after the party had started on its return to the East. Crooks lived to an old age. and died in the State of New York in the year 1859.
It has come to pass now, in the course of nature, that the citizens of longest residence in Oregon are those who were born here prior to 1840, or perhaps I should say 1842. With the single exception of the venerable William, of Forest drove, I know no survivor of the immigrants of American nativity who came previous to that year. But there is a man still living at Port Hill, in the Kootenai country, North Idaho, who saw Oregon before any other person now living ​saw it. This is David McLoughlin, son of Dr. McLoughlin, now over 80 years of age.
He was herein his early boyhood, with his father, over 70 years ago. I am permitted to read an extract. from a letter written by him to a friend in Portland, only a few days since, which is very interesting. He says:
"Oregon was a fine country in my early days—a park on a large scale, that could not be surpassed even by artificial culture. It mattered not at what point immigrants or travelers entered this western shore of America, at each of its thresholds a scene of beauty awaited them. Before the Anglo-Saxon race penetrated the Rockies there was no civilization in the country that is worth mention. It was in its natural state of beauty, romantic and grand, with its endless prairies, streams and forests and wild animals of all kinds for the use of man. Here and there, scattered throughout the country, snow-capped mountains were to be seen, enhancing the grandeur of its scenery.
"The Rockies for many long years served as a barrier against the advance of civilization. This barrier was at last overcome by the immigrants seeking after a new country in the valleys of the far Columbia in 1835-49. But this is not the place to commemorate the trials and privations endured by the immigrants before they reached their final haven. From the banks of the Missouri to the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains they struggled on with a constancy almost unparalleled in history.
"The savage man, the savage beasts, hunger, thirst and disease; in fact, every kind of impediment which nature could place in their way, had all been overcome with Anglo-Saxon tenacity—yet the long journey and accumulations of terrors for their families had shaken the hearts of the stoutest among them.
"It was between Walla Walla and Willamette valleys that the immigrants suffered most, on account of the rains and ​boisterous weather in the fall of the year. I believe there was not one but gave a heartfelt prayer of thanks when they saw the broad valley of the "Willamette bathed in the sunlight beneath them and learnt from others that this was the land of Ophir they sought and that these virgin acres were to be theirs.
"Therefore, the immigrants and pioneers of Oregon, men and women of the Anglo-Saxon race, who have given to the western shore of the continent its greatness, deserve the greatest praise, honor and reward for their valor and endurance in raising the Oregon region to its present rank of greatness in so short a time. It is marvelous. It surpasses imagination of man. It has grown to an empire State in wealth, population, culture, and in trade, all in about 60 years.
"They have cleared away the forests, bridged the streams, built cities, spanned the continent and crossed and recrossed and checkered it with highways of iron; they have planted orchards and vineyards upon side hills and in every valley within its borders. It is marvelous to contemplate the achievements and exploits of these people."
And to the missionary effort that preceded the general immigration a debt is due that never should miss acknowledgement, when the story of the acquisition and settlement of Oregon is recited. The missionary enterprise began with Jason Lee in 1834. Next came Samuel Parker in 1835. Whitman and Spaulding, with W. H. Gray, followed in 1836. In 1838 came Walker and Eells. By 1840 there were in Oregon 13 Methodists and six Congregational ministers, 13 lay members of the Protestant missions, three Roman Catholic missionary priests, and a considerable number of Canadian settlers of the Roman Catholic faith. If the missionary effort did not succeed as its authors hoped in its direct purpose of helping the Indians to uplift and regeneration, it did succeed greatly in its secondary purpose, which the American missionaries ever kept in view, namely, in lending aid to the foundation of a commonwealth under the sovereignty of the United States. Long time there was disinclination to give the ​missionary work in Oregon the credit that justly was its due; for after the rush of immigration began the missionary people were, so to speak, inundated by it, and what they had dour was for ;i time overlooked. But going hack, as now we must, to the study of our "origins"—and we shall do this more and more—we are compelled to recognition of the great work which the missionaries did. I do not say that Oregon would not have been held without them; but they were a powerful factor in holding it.
The story of the toilsome inarch of the wagon trains over the plains will be received by future generations almost as a legend on the borderland of myth, rather than as veritable history. It will be accepted, indeed, but scarcely understood. Even now to the survivors who made the journey the realities of it seem half fabulous. It no longer has the appearance of a rational undertaking. Rapid transit of the present time seems almost to relegate the story to the land of fable. No longer can we understand the motives that urged our pioneers toward the indefinite horizon that seemed to verge on the unknown. Looking back at the movement now, a mystery appears in it. It was the final effort of that profound impulse which, from a time far preceding the dawn of history, has pushed the race to which we belong to discovery and occupation of western lands.
Oregon, from the circumstances of her settlement and its isolation, and through natural interaction of the materials slowly brought together, has a character almost peculiarly its own. In some respects that character is admirable In others it is open to criticism. Our situation has made for us a little world in which strong traits of character peculiarly our own have been developed; it has also left us somewhat—indeed, too much out of touch with the world at large. We do not readjust ourselves readily to the conditions that surround us in the world of opinion and action—forces now pressing in upon us steadily from all sides.
The life of a community is the aggregate life of the individuals who are its units, and the general law that holds for the ​individual holds for the society. Only as the conduct of the man as an individual and of the man in society is brought into harmony with surrounding forces, under the government of moral law. can any community make progress; and of this progress experience becomes the test. In our day the multiplying agencies of civilization operating with an activity constantly cumulative and never before equaled, are turned, under pressure of moral forces, into most powerful instruments for the instruction and benefit of mankind. It is probable that nothing else has contributed so much to the help of mankind in the mass, either in material or moral aspects, as rapid increase of human intercourse throughout the world. Action and reaction of peoples on peoples, of races upon races, are continually evolving the activities and producing changes in the thought and character of all. This influence develops the moral forces as rapidly as the intellectual and material; it has brought all parts of the world into daily contact with each other, and each part feels the influence of all the rest. Common agents in this work are commerce in merchandise and commerce in ideas. Neither could make much progress without the other. Populations once were stagnant. Now they are stirred profoundly by all the powers of social agitation: by travel, by rapid movements of commerce, by daily transmission of news of the important events of the world to every part of the world. Motion is freedom : it is science, it is wealth, it is moral advancement. Isolated life is rapidly disappearing: speech writing, the treasures of the world's literature, diffused throughout the world, enlarge and expand the general mind, and show how much is contained within humanity of which men once never dreamed.
The true life of a people is both a history and a poem; the history is a record of the material development resulting from their industrial energy; the poem represents the growth of character, the evolution of the moral, intellectual and spiritual forces that make up their inner life. These two phases must unfold together, if there is to be any real progress. There is an antagonism between them, yet each is necessary to ​the other. Without cultivation of the material and mechanical, which acts upon matter and produces wealth, man is a mere idler and dreamer, at his best little better than the Arabian nomad. Without cultivation of the moral sentiments, or attention to the calls of his inner and higher nature, he loses himself in gross materialism, and no answer is found in him to appeal to ideas, to heroism, or to exalted virtue.
Phases of the life of a people pass away, never to return. In the first settlement of a country the conditions of nature produce our customs, guide our industries, fix our ways of life. Later, modifications take place, fashioned on changing conditions. This process, long delayed through our isolation is now going on rapidly before our eyes.
In one of his "Ramblers" Dr. Johnson says, truly: "Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of human beings."
The study of our own history is chiefly valuable for its moral significance and influence. It fixes our attention upon the organization and structure of our society, and carries the influence of other times on into our own. It stirs up to activity the forces and agencies that build up character, that indicate duty, that prompt to action. These are the forces we want Busied only with our own times and the conditions they present, we fall into levity; we forget what we owe to our predecessors, and therefore do not know what we possess, nor realize its value. Only can we know what we have or where we are by study of the course through which our present position has been' attained. To live merely in the present, without regard to the past, is to be careless of the future. If a people do not know their own history it is the same as if they had no history. For, a Bacon says, in one of his pregnant sentences: "The truth of knowing and the truth of being is all one; the man is what he knoweth." It is not enough that this historical knowledge be possessed by the few. "The remnant" should not be only the custodians of such a heritage. We may hope that study of our Pacific ​Northwest history will now and henceforth receive the wide attention it deserves. Not the least, therefore, of the grounds upon which we ought to welcome the coming centennial of exploration is the educational work in our own history that it will effect among us. The inspiration of their past is the greatest of motives for a progressive people.
This is a rambling address, not intended to concentrate attention upon any particular event in our history, but merely to contribute a little to the interest of a special occasion, by passing before the mind some of the incidents and events readily offered to the gleaner of our earliest records, with some reflections thereon. The approach of the Lewis and Clark centennial makes all this mass of matter and the mass of it is great worth renewed study; for in the celebration of this centennial we should have a knowledge of the underlying facts of our history, as well as of detail and proportion. It was the Lewis and Clark expedition that enabled us to follow up the claim based on discovery of the Columbia River, and enabled us, moreover, to anticipate the English in their further exploration and discovery. It enabled us to hold the country west of the Rocky Mountains and south of the 49th parallel, to the United States. It gave us the footing that enabled us to negotiate with Spain for the southern boundary of the Oregon country, which was fixed at the 42d parallel. And, as we were already firmly placed on the Pacific Coast at the time of the war with Mexico, it was one of the direct sources of our acquisition of California by the double method of conquest and purchase. Thus we have acquired on the Pacific a vast coast line; we have established great and growing States, supported by a cordon of interior States from the Mississippi westward; we are in position for defense in war and for defense and aggression in trade; at our Pacific ports we are nearest of all the great nations of commerce and civilization to the trade of the Orient. The Lewis and Clark expedition, to which the great results so plainly run back, stands therefore as one of the leading episodes of our national history. We must celebrate its ​centennial in 1905, and celebrate it in;i manner and on a scale commensurate with its national and historical importance. Oregon, of course, must take the lead in the preparation for this event. It is worth while, then, to use every opportunity to awaken interest in the history of the beginning's of American dominion in the Pacific Northwest.
It is in this spirit that I have responded to the invitation for the present occasion. On such a subject it is almost natural to fall into tediousness or prolixity, by attempting to cover too much ground. Short essays, or lectures, in series, offer an excellent method for popular treatment of this great subject, and this can be done with special thoroughness under direction of our State educational system.
* ↑ Address delivered before the Clatsop County Teachers' Institute, April 19, 1901.
* ↑ David McLoughlin died in May, 1908.