, 1875-06-12

/ tants, TWO or three CnuIChe>, ndnusOnle school
houses, a planing-mill, grist and oil mills
and the usual proportion of shops and stores
The place has lively and cheerful appear
ance, and is the trading center of a rich farm
ing neighborhood. Dayton, twelve mile,
above, has some five hundred people, and il
addition TO other Improvements, has an ex
tensive grist-mill and large woolen factory.
This pretty town is only three years old, and
has a wonderful business-like and go-ahead
| appearance. Some of the cottage houses are
very handsomely finished and Indicate pros.
perity and refinement within. Strangers
who come here TO look for log cabins and
other conditions of backwoods life, will BE-
surprised TO fud everything indicating an
| old and settled civilization In this respect
the settlements in this country are quite
! different from new places in the middle-west.
| Here, they begin with the comforts and refine
ments ct civilization, and keep going with
wonderful enterprise and celebrity. Both
| these towns were founded by Mr.. 5. NJ.
| Wait, a gentleman of great enterprise and
| public spirit, one OF those rare and valuable
| men who inspire life and enterprise all around
them Having got the village of Waitsburg
| well under way, something or other dis
fairs, and he moved up stream and founded
Dayton, which Is already the much larger
and more prosperous town. I visited the
woolen factory, where the power-looms were
clattering and spindles whirring under the
motive power of a big Turbine wheel, and
then sat down on pile Of cloth, TO ask my
self whether | was really in border town of
the farther Northwest, where three years ago
everything was a yoiceless solitude? Here
the Touchet river affords unlimited water
power, and now the progressive people of
Dayton are going 10 build big saw and
planning mill, a beet-sugar factory, and talk
of extending the narrow -guaga railroad on
from Walla Walla; all of which they will
be very apt to do, as they occupy the center
of an agricural country of enormous wealth.
ranging along the foot Of the Blue Noun
tains more than hundred miles. What do
you think of that, for a Territorial village
only three years old ld?-manufacturing fine
cloths from the sleeps back, and with every
appliance of education and refinement which
are looked for III the forty years settlements
of Oregonr Where | write, about $50 miles
northeast Of Salem, | am half deafened and
exasperated by the yociferOus performance Of
canary bird and the riotous uproar of
pretty children racing through the hall,
tricked out by their loving mothers as dainty
as their noisy little eongeners a thousand
miles toward the Golden Gate. Talk of
border life! | don't believe there is any
more of the old fashioned hog and-hominy
kind; not IN this region, at least. The
moving settler sits down in the middle of q
prairie, out of sight of the world, and pres
entity gang-plOws are going, headers and
moving machines are at work, buzZ-saws
are bowling in the distant mountains, school
ma ans are in operation in the village, and
a complete civilization seems TO spring into
existence, like the prophets sheltering vine
Thus 1t has been here, absolutely, on the
headwaters of the TOuchet, one of the thous-
and little feeders of the Columbia and after
a quarter OF century's life III the far west,
am filled with amazement
GENERAL REMARKS
Thus far | have confined myself to general
observations, but have IN the meanwhile ac-
quired many interesting particulars about
the agricultural situation and products of
Eastern Washington Territory, which Will
be presented at another time. l wish it were
possible for me 10 continue on through East
ern Oregon and aid in drawing attention to
that empire Of latent wealth of which people
west of the Cascades and elsewhere know
next to nothing. For myself, notwithstand-
ing all had read and heard related, l had no
tOlerable idea of the situation or of the fruit
full country that still lies unoecupied. I
know little or nothing of it yet, only from
inference in relation to Walla Walla county
adjoining on the north. a good part of which
have tTaversed. The Oregon State line,
following the 42nd parallel OF north latitude,
runs four miles south of Walla Walla City
and thence southwark, along the base of the
Blue Mountains, as far as the eye can reach,
the country is said to beabout the same as
that which | hBye been trying to describe.
l am strongly tempted to invade that inviting
tara iaeogn5ta, which in the dreamy distance
seems like the country beyond Bunyan's
Delectable Mountains and / will, some
day, when the Statesman shall afford me un-
limited leave Of absence. As vet, have only
traversed the lower Nile of the West little
beyond the CataractS, but after while viii
return and penetrate Nubia and Abyssinia.
There is everything for the Statesman to do
for Eastern Oregon and Washington Terri
tory; everywhere | have met the heartiest
kindness and hospitality, aud everywhere
the people express hope and confidence that
the Statesman viii be able and willing to as
sist in removing some of the grievous disabil-
tiles which they have been enduring while
| creating this splendid civilization If live,
and can obtain the cooperation of my kind
employers, they shall not be disappointed.
c. B. MCDONALD.
DAYTON, W. T., May &C.