Harvey W. Scott

“ He was still young—not yet 42 years of age; but "virtue, not length of days, the mind matures"; and, "that life is long which answers life's great end."
A great nature is a seed. The spirit of life and of action which springs from it grows and will grow among men forever. ”

“ We get no proper sense of the majesty of our mountain peaks when near them. We must draw back a little if we would take in their full grandeur.
On this view the work of our missionaries in Oregon rises to proportions more and more majestic, as we study it from the standpoint of history and of consequences; and though others bore lofty spirits and did great work, no name stands or will stand above that of Jason Lee. ”

“ In every sketch of the early history of Oregon it is necessary to make some statement of the controversy between Great Britain and the United States over rights of sovereignty here, I shall not pursue the subject, but must mention it, for it is the key to our pioneer history, and the fact must ever be borne in mind, when dealing with any part of the theme.
As missionaries to the Indians, the little band and those who came after them can not be said to have been successful. After few years not many Indians remained to be educated and civilized. ”

“ Men of preëminence can be estimated only by their peers. Equality of judgment is too scantily bestowed in any living generation to insure a correct decision, to settle the scale of pretension, to arrange the gradations of favor, or the definitive place or title which each is to occupy in the ranks of fame. Contemporary men often pronounce that to be greatest which approaches nearest to themselves, since they are able to look upon it with the distinctness of close proximity. ”

“ It is not my intention to claim merit for one at the expense of another. All our pioneers did well. All performed their part. But it is due to the truth of history to show that Jason Lee was the leader in colonial as in missionary work in Oregon, and that his journey to the East in the interests of Oregon, and his appeal to Washington, antedated the journey and the appeal of Whitman by five years.
We have said the contest between our own people and the subjects of Great Britain for possession of the Oregon Country was the key to our pioneer history. ”

“ There is something unsatisfactory in beginning a history with the mature state of a country. As in biography, so in history, we desire to go back to the cradle and see the growth of social and political life from the first small beginnings. ”

“ Before he had arrived at the end of his journey eastward, Jason Lee heard of the death of his wife in Oregon shortly after he had left her. Bowing as man must to so great a grief and loss, yet his purpose was not shaken. He bestirred himself with all energy to obtain further help for the mission in Oregon, and in October, 1839, with a large party that included many names which became widely known in our pioneer life, sailed from New York in the bark Lausanne for the Columbia River. ”

“ With all men of action it is so. But for his opportunity, given by the Civil War, General Grant would have no name. How slight the original incidents that have linked the name of Jason Lee inseparably with the history of Oregon! The Protestent missions failed, as missions, but they were the main instruments that peopled Oregon with Americans. That is, they were more successful than their authors ever dreamed they could be. They established the foundations of the sovereignty of the United States in the Pacific Northwest. ”

“ It was through their appeals, chiefly, that the Oregon Country was brought to the attention of the pioneer spirit, ever moving westward; and it is not too much to say that most of those who came to Oregon during the first twenty years of settlement and growth were moved to come by the agitation begun and carried on by those engaged in the missionary cause.
There is a vague instinct which leads restless spirits to leave their native country in early life to try fortune elsewhere. ”

“ The absence of written documents in the early ages obliges us to form all our ideas of primitive history from oral traditions, handed down from generation to generation. These become more or less changed by lapse of time and are accompanied with superstition and a belief in the miraculous intervention of the Divinity—a doctrine which it enhances while it envelops the pride of a people with a halo of glory. ”

“ Of the two women who shared with Jason Lee the labors of his life in Oregon, the annals of the time are full of appreciative notice and description. Each was a type of devoted womanhood. Though they gave all for the opportunity to labor in this then unknown field, and sacrificed their lives in it, they are fortunate in name and fame. ”

“ Sorrowful fatality, due to the conditions of remote pioneer life, in which woman had to bear more than her part, and yet in her hour of need could not have the assistance that her sisters in more favored circumstances receive. Such were some of the sacrifices of the pioneer time through which this country was prepared as a dwelling place for the succeeding generations.
It is difficult for any generation to estimate rightly its contemporary men and women of real worth. ”

“ Yet Great Britain, through her channels of diplomatic intercourse—whatever her people here may have said or claimed—never made any serious pretension to the territory south of the Columbia River, but had insisted on that stream as the boundary line. But we had, through Gray's discovery, the exploration of Lewis and Clark, and the settlement of Astoria—even though Astoria had capitulated—a chain of title that made it impossible for us to consider this claim. ”

“ It is small business either to disparage or flatter the ministry. But we may, even at the the grave, speak of the minister as a man. Theology, like conscience, belongs to the private property of each communion ”

“ Change of place is the natural demand of this restlessness of spirit. The world, through all ages, has received the benefit of it; it has been one of the great moving forces in the history of our race. Our Oregon of to-day is a product of it.
The Indian races of Oregon, and in particular of Western Oregon, rapidly melted away. But among the white settlers, fast increasing in numbers after 1840, there was growing field of religious, moral, and educational work. Jason Lee had remarried ”

“ Here at the age of twenty-two he joined the Lee expedition to Oregon. He taught a school at Champoeg in 1835, and in 1836 went to California to obtain cattle for the settlers in Oregon. With Ewing Young he returned with a band of nearly 1200, which laid the foundation for rapid accumulation of the comforts of life and future wealth. In March, 1837, Edwards took the trail for the East, over the plains, with Jason Lee and two Indian boys. Returning to his old home in Missouri, he entered the field of politics and was elected to the legislature. ”

“ But they possess an interest, since they lie at the basis of the creation of the states of the Pacific Northwest; and the smallest details of the beginning of great things have human interest and historic value.
All accounts of the missionary movement to Oregon begin with the story of the four Flathead Indians, who in 1832 made their way over mountains and plains to St. Louis, on a journey whose object the missionary spirit tells us was to obtain religious instruction for themselves and their people. ”

“ There is, moreover, not a little difficulty in finding a later moment which will afford a real starting point. In a mature state each condition is the result of what went before, and the human mind feels compelled to seek causes for this as for every other effect. ”