The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1899-07-15

J. BULL, LAND THIEF.
always ON ALERT FOR WHAT
IS NOT HIS.
aow Oregon Was Saved from His
Capacious Paw-The Story Of q Ride
Across the Continent. by Fred Myron
Colby. v
There is a story Of a ride, back in
the middle of the century, that should
be more familiar to our boys and girls.
1t wal a far more important ride than
Paul Revere's. The hero of Longfel-
lows famous poem rode eighteen miles,
n summer night, to arouse a few
sleeping patriots, and so saved the gun
powder at Concord. The ride of Mar
u Whitman was over s~now-capped
mountains and along dark ravines,
Travelled only by savage beasts and
savage men. 1t was a plunge through
icy rivers, and across trackless pra1-
ries, a ride of four thousand miles
across a continent, in the dead Of win
ter, to saw a mighty territory to the
Union. There are few events In Amer
lean history more striking than this, or
more deserving of remembrance. 1t Is
a story that a patriotic people ought
never to forget. The country now con-
stituting the great states Of Oregon and
Washington was embraced in the Ter
ritory coded to the United States by the
Louisiana purchase, in 1903; but our
government had a prior claim upon the
country-the right Of discovery. In
1892, during the first administration o.
Washington, Capt. Robert Gray, who
had already carried the American flag
around the globe, discovered the mouth
of the Columbia river. He sailed sew
eral miles up the great stream, and
landed and took possession in the name
of the United States. In 1905, under
J%efferson's administration, this vast
territory was explored by Capts. Lewis
and Clark, whose reports were popular
reading for u grandfathers; but the
extent and value of this distant pos
session was very slightly understood,
and no attempt at colonization was
made, save the establishment of the
fur-trading station of Astoria in 1911.
Strangely enough, England, too,
claimed this same territory by virtue
Of rights coded to it by Russia and also
by the Vancouver surveys of 1892. The
Hudson's Bay Company established a
number Of trading-posts, and filled the
country with adventurous fur-traders.
So here was a vast territory, as large
as New England and the state of In
diana combined, which. seemed to be
without any positive ownership. But
for Marcus Whitman it would have
been lost to the Union. 1t vas in 1886
that DR.. Whitman and a man by the
name Of Spaulding, with their young
wives, the first white women that ever
crossed the Rocky Mountains, entered
the valley of the Columbia, and found
ed a mission of the American Board.
They had been sent out to Christian
lie the Indians, but Whitman was also
to build a state. He was at this time
IS years old. In his journeys to and
fro for the mission, he soon saw the
vast possibilities Of the country, and
he saw, too, that the English were al
ready apprised of this, and were rap
idly pouring into the territory. Under
the terms of the treaties of 1918 and
1928, it was the tacit belief that which
yer nationality settled and organized
the territory, that nation would hold
it. If England and the English fur
traders had been successful in their
plans, the three great states Of Wash
ington, Oregon and Idaho would now
constitute a part OF British Columbia.
But it was not destined to be. In the
fall Of 1912 it looked as if there would
be a great importing Of English into
the territory, and DR.. Whitman took
the alarm. There was no time to lose.
The authorities at Washington must
be warned. Hastily bidding his wife
adieu, DR.. Whitman mounted his horse
and started on his hazardous journey.
OF the perils, hardships and delays he
encountered on the way we cannot stop
to tell. His feet were frozen, he near
ly starved, and once am very neal
losing his life in a great snowstorm.
But nothing stayed him. He kept push
ing right on, and at the end of five ter
rible months he reached Washington.
He arrived there a worn, bearded,
strangely picturesque figure. clad en-
tirely in buckskin and fur, a typical
man Of the prairies. He asked audi
ence Of President Tyler and Secretary
Of State Webster, and It was accorded
him. All clad as he was. with his
frozen limbs, just in from his 1900
miles ride, Whitman appeared before
the two great men to plead for Oregon.
His statement vas a revelation to the
administration. Previous to Whitman's
visit it was the general idea in con-
gress that Oregon was a barren, worth
less country, At only for wild beasts
and wild men. He opened the eyes
Of the government to the limitless
wealth and splendid resources Of that
western territory. He told them OF. its
great rivers and fertile valleys, its
covered with forests and Its
mines filled with precious treasures.
He showed them that It was q coun-