The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1874-08-13
An Essay, Written on the Queens Birthday
in Virginia.
OREGON TWENTY YEARS AGO..
nv AN ON CAMPAIGNER


Twenty years ago, but very little was known
OF this part of .sUncle Sam's'' domain, beyond
tile information in possession of the United
States Government, procured by Typographical
surveys. The interior of the country Was, even
| to the Observant amongst the American people,
terra iucognita. That immense tract OF
country, lying between the California boundary
line, and British America, outside OF official
phfaseology, was commonly known as Oregon,
her towering mountains, many OF them seeming
high when a hundred miles distant, her mag
nificent forests, her sheltered valleys and fertile
plains, were, to a great extent, the homes OF
OF nomadic tribes, that hunted and fished, be-
times, and roamed from place to place,
at their own convenience or caprice. Many
noble streams were nameless, the roar of a cat
aract, the crash Of some falling giant OF
the woods. that had withstood the storms of
hundred years, the tramp OF the herds of an
telopes, or the death song of the Indian, for
some departed brave, were the only sounds that
found an echo in these vast solitudes.. But this
favored region was not unclaimed. The Ameri-
can war cry OF fifty four-forty, or fight, y alone
saved it from being absorbed in that Empire,
upon which, we are boastingly told, the sun
never sets. England, ever fertile in expedi-
ents for her own ACKNOWLEDGMENT, as prompt
to claim an Island or river, as she would be
to shoot down her subjects if they cried veyy
loud for bread, had looked, with an evil eye,
on the march OF the Anne. lean Pioneer across
the continent. Disappointed in her schemes of
colonization, and orth American land compa-
MES, whose capital would be employed in Lon
don, and compelled to relinquish her unjust
claim to an empire in itself, and true to her old
American policy, she had, through her agents,
the Hudson Bay Company, kindled the torch,
that in after years, Lit up many clearing, and
by which the hardy settlers saw in the light of
his burning cabin, his wife and little ones, tor
tured to death by the merciless savage. The
early settlers of Oregon, the father of the coun-
try, were citizens OF every state, and natives Of
every country in Europe. Even the King of
the Cannibal Islands was represented, as many
OF his subjects were introduced by the Hudson
Bay Company, in the capacity Of servants. -
But afterwards under the shadows of the great
mountains, and beneath the shade of the grand
old forests, the resident Englishmelf grew fat
and goodnatured, and found that he could live
and prosper without vice-royalty. The lum-
bermen from Maine, and the Texan and South
Carolinian together, laid the foundation of cit
les, (and the everlasting Yankee whitfield out
the fixings,) and amongst the whole. might be
found, not few Virginians, who carried with
them, as heirlooms. the rifles handled by their
sires at New Orleans. Brave heralds OF civil
cation they braved the peFils of the American
Desert, and journeyed through wilderness,
! amidst bands of vindictive savages, toiling over
barren wastes, undismayed by the bleaching
bones Of many Of their countrymen who had
preceded them. Their fortunes often carried
them in an an OK cart. They sustained them
selves with one bright hope, an expected home,
an Inheritance, fresh from the hands OF the
Creator, in this Eldorado of the far West.
What vast change has taken place in Ore
gon, since ''the good old times ~ The glory
Of the Indian has departed. The Nabobs have
fled. They can never again revel in barbaric
festivities in the forts. Silent, now, is the can
non ON the Sovereign's birthday. The London
ship, freghted with bright blankets and brass
kettles, to be exchanged for the skin of the fox
and beaver, will never again spread her sails
on Columbia river.
In the colonial days Of Oregon, the Indian
Belle, who would assume all the cares of we'd
del life, with a trousseau Of single gown from
her white consort, may now, at moderate rate,
be robed in the latest Dolly Warden Villages,
hotels and saw mills are now, where but a few
years since, fierce tribes kindled the council
fires, and from where now ascends songs of
praise to the God of the pale faces, twenty
years ago the braves OF the 'sKing George In
dians." danced the scalp dance around the go
ry trophy, torn from the head OF some 'Meli-
can man,
The resources of the Country are a secret,ne
more, The sharp eye of the Californian has
found the gold, and the spirit Of the age has
penetrated through every nook and tangled
wood. Oregon is now well up to her sister
States, in the march Of American progress, and
before her wealth is exhausted, centuries will
have rolled by.
+ Staa1nton, Va. s.=ses