The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1902-06-20
pinnenrs nf1Sn9.


We left in the East our native place
In eighteen hundred and tiny-two,
Ger the wide wide plains our Way to trace,
Through toll and danger all the way thro.
A journey of hardship, toll and thilst,
TO be remembered and thought upon
When in after years the railroads burst
Through all these barriers of Oregon.
The dusty road, the parching plain,
The vilainous Patte-tOul,muddy stream,
How the thoughts of them still rack the brain
As though waking from some nightmare
dream.
How many victims the cholery claimed
The burial mounds ON the Platte did show,
To be counted by those who remained,
Crossing the pains fifty years ago.
Oh twas sad to leave the dear ones there,
And many Il scalding tear was dropped
Ger the loved and lost ones so fair,
As to bury their remains we stopped.
Then, rallying our nerves, we climbed the
heights
OF the Black Hills and Rocky Mountains,
We kept our vigiS through lonely nights
Beside Sweetwater's purling fountains.
Then DER the rolling rocky land
In the days of eighteen tifty-two
A hardy and dauntless, buoyant band
Determined to conquer their way through
And tell the world the time was nj
10 show what American pluck can do,
For it took people of genuine grit
70 cross the wide plains in flftytwO.
We crossed the sandy and sagebrush plain
Forty miles without water to Green River.
Where the heat of the sand was pain,
And made everything seem in quiver.
Then we scaled Uintahs lofty heights,
And listened to Snake rivers murmuring
call,
As Il hastened on its downward flights
Away from the mountains to Fort Hall.
Then down the Snake river our way did tend,
long weary stretch of sagebrush and sand.
| We bade it farewell at Farewell bend,
| And made our way DER the Burnt river land
| To Powder river valley next we came
| And threaded its sandy stretches through,
| Ever onward, though weary and lame,
Through Grand Ronde and its mountains
of blue.
| Gross the Inland Empires bunch grass lands,
| The Cascade range our Western visions tilL
| We drove our fOOtSore and boneracked bands
Down the perilous sleeps of Laurel hill,
| And found at last where the Willamette sings
TO the bright, green valley and pleasant
lawn,
The goal of our weary wanderings.
| In the land "where rolls the Oregon"
Now, in this semi-centennial year,
| AS pioneers of that far away time,
| The few ofthose many, who still are here,
Should renew that friendship sublime.
For the days remaining to us are few,
The sands of our lives are nearly run.
We leave to II generation new,
To further the work that we begun.
Our thanks ana our aunlfaJlOn, 100,
For the heroic bands who came before,
viii eer be paid as an honest due,
70 sterling worth on this Western shore.
And now as our closing years are drawn,
And we near our final resting place.
We breathe sigh DER the time that's gone,
And rally our nerves for the final race.
The faith that buOyed us up in those days
Is still firm in our bOsOms tOdty,
And as lighting our path ON the ways
Till we HE us rom hence and away.
Though this life shall end there still survives
Christian faith and fervent prayer
That our God who made and watched our
| lives
In our need, will not forsake us there.
CARSON G. MASIKER.
Hood River, Ore, May 25, 1902.