Joseph Gaston

“ For more than three hundred years the territory of Oregon was a prize for which the most powerful nations in the world contended. And for this country one after another, Spain, Russia, France and England played the rights of discovery, the game of diplomacy and the bluff of threatened war; and all of them to see in the end the final word and the rightful decision rendered, almost wholly by half a hundred American farmers in the Willamette valley. Such a page of exciting incident, unlooked for surprises, and far-reaching consequences cannot be found in the history of any other state or nation. ”

“ Why should these noble men and women, willing to sacrifice life and everything dear to mankind go to far distant Oregon:
And pierce the Barean Wilderness
to plant the banner of the cross? Why pass the tribes between the Missouri and the Rocky mountains and go a thousand miles beyond the Blackfeet rascals that needed Christianizing worse than any other equal number of murdering robbers on the face of the earth? It is the duty of the historian to find out. ”

“ The awful trials endured by the pioneers who opened that old road, where the heroic mothers of Oregon carried their children over the ice and snows of the Cascade Range, can never be comprehended by the gentle women who, in palace cars, with every luxury of modern life, visit the Lewis and Clark Exposition. To the courage, fortitude, and energy of these unconquerable souls is due the honor of founding civilization, establishing law and education, and maintaining religion on the Pacific Coast of North America. ”

“ The truth of history, and justice to all the actors in the great drama of life to be recorded, must be the unwavering guide.
The history of Oregon has been so fruitful a field for writers of every description that it is safe to say that more pages, if not more books, have been written about this region, its discovery, its name, its missionaries, Indians, the trials and sufferings of its immigrants, its novel provisional government and its latter day new laws and politics, than about all the other states west of the Ohio river. ”

“ Judge Boise in his private life was irreproachable and his public life was above suspicion. When a man has reached the great age of Judge Boise, honored and respected as he was, there is no occasion to mourn over his departure. It is just as natural to die as it is to live—all must die—every blade of grass, every flower, every tree, every living creature must die; it is the inevitable law of nature and it is our duty to acquiesce as cheerfully as we can in this unchanging and universal law. ”

“ Not only does this ruling military power of the world, led and ruled by the most successful and brilliant soldier in the history of mankind, turn over this empire of rich territory to the keeping of the young republic of the west, but a greater power than the wealth and resources of the land goes with it — the power to rule two great oceans and dictate the peace of the world. ”

“ European race of men in its all-conquering march from farthest East to farthest West, the history of Oregon is not only national in its fundamentals but also finds its original root-graft in the oldest of the virile tribes of men. The same Providence that cast the Mayflower on the rockbound shores of New England to land the Pilgrim Fathers in a new world, inspired the men and women and furnished them with the faith and courage to overcome mountains, deserts and savage tribes and plant Christianity, civilization and laws in the wilderness of Old Oregon. ”

“ Portland stands alone in its founding and development. In less than sixty years it has arisen from an unbroken forest, uninhabited save by wild beasts and native Indians, separated from its native hearthstones by two thousand miles of unpeopled deserts, plains and mountains, to a city and seaport, one hundred and ten miles from the ocean, that ships more lumber than any other city in the world, more wheat than any other city in America, except New York, and handles more money every day than any other city in the nation of its class. ”

“ Everything in nature, says Emerson, is engaged in writing its own history; the planet and the pebbles are attended by their shadows, the rolling rock leaves its furrows on the mountain side, the river its channel in the soil, the animal its bones in the stratum, the fern and the leaf their epitaphs in the coal, and the falling rain drops sculptures their story on the sand and on the stone. Nearly everything that is known about the geological formation of Oregon is due to the unselfish labors of one man. ”

“ In Washington the public school had not begun; in Oregon it was making here and there its earliest start.
In October, fifty-four years ago, the weather was fine as now. The early rains had washed the smoky dust out of the atmosphere, and the woods were fresh and clean, untouched by frost. The cheerful spirits of the young and lonely traveler, who was on his way from Puget Sound that week, and who was, so far as he knows, the only passenger on the road, put nature also in her cheerfulest mood; for whether we find nature kind and genial, or harsh and sour, depends on ourselves. ”

“ If there is no lesson, no useful thought to the reader, then the history is of no more value than the every-day novel. If those who come after can learn nothing from those who have gone before, it is a waste of time to make up the record for any other purpose than selling the story as any story of fiction might be sold. But the historians of Oregon may justly point with pride to the illustrious history of the state, crowded with examples of the daring, courage, toils and homely virtues of its pioneer settlers ”

“ He never made any money for himself, but he did much to make fortunes for other people. He was not a cracked-brained theorist, pursuing unsubstantial chimeras, as some writers have sought to make out, but a clear-headed, far-seeing enthusiast, patriotically seeking the honor and prosperity of his country. And, if like Jefferson and Benton, he could see in the future the great importance of this great country of the Pacific slope, when the timid great men and cowardly little men of the United States Senate could not, or would not see it, it is to his honor and not his discredit. ”

“ Has all the experience of two thousand years, the statesmanship of Pericles, the wisdom of Cato, the learning of Bacon, the patriotism of Washington and the great heart of Lincoln — all, all gone for nothing? Is there no wisdom in counsel; no strength in combination? Is it now to be a factional scramble for place and power by antagonistic and diverse interests ; great capitalists, great corporations, multi-mil- lionaires, deft political schemers, all appealing to the ignorance, prejudices or self- interest of rival and incoherent bodies of unorganized voters? ”

“ To the men and women of this age the account of the Hunt party and others will not appear as fairy stories, but rather as a hideous phrensy of a diseased or intoxicated imagination. But few people can comprehend it, and not a few may disbelieve it altogether. But only by such dangers, trials and privations of those fearless, self-sacrificing heroes was Oregon saved to the United States. There is now no more West ; there is no more wilderness ; there is no more privation, danger or heroism. The palace car glides swiftly from the Missouri to the great Pacific ocean ”

“ To accomplish this result the pioneers who founded the city of Portland passed through every phase of human experience. Toils, labors and dangers beyond number or description; joys, sorrows, pains, suffering and death. The unmarked graves by the wayside of those who fell in the march to Oregon were thousands. The dust and heat at times were intolerable. Think, if you can, of a moving mass of humanity and dumb brutes, often mixed in inextricable confusion, moving along in a column twice as wide as Portland street. Here and there were drivers of the loose cattle lashing them to keep moving. ”

“ On the one hand is seen the heroic examples of the pioneers of the northwest conquering the wilderness by following a peaceful industry and opening the way for great states that command the respect and dominate the forces of the New World, while on the other hand, is beheld the cancer of unrestrained avarice as the curse of feeble and unstable governments that are rent with bloody strife and unceasing rebellion. ”

“ And no matter how much we may condemn the Hudson Bay Company for holding the country solely for furs, and working the Indian to discourage American fur traders, there is a silver lining to even that cloud, as we shall see later on. The Hudson bay men got along with the Indians, prevented bloody wars, like those that ravaged the Ohio valley and visited upon the pioneer settlers on the Ohio a thousand more terrors than ever troubled the pioneer Oregonians, by skillfully turning the sexual instinct of the race to the work of peace with the savages, and profits to the corporation. ”

“ A thousand million dollars has been expended by Christian men and women to enlighten and Christianize the people of Asia and Africa, the most of which has been wasted for want of proper understanding. And it is one of the forgivable weaknesses of mankind that he acts more from impulse than reason. But enlightened by knowledge, it is the noblest praise of fellowman that he will give his life for his country, or risk it for his fellowman-even a barbarian. There were two moving influences or causes which set in motion the great scheme of planting the gospel in the hearts of the Oregon Indians. ”

“ We would not be subjected to all the innumerable and indescribable tortures of a journey to Oregon for all the soil its savage hunters ever wandered over. All the writers and travelers agree in representing Oregon as a vast extent of mountains, and valleys, of sand dotted over with green, and cultivable spots. Russia has her Siberia, and England has her Botany Bay, and if the United States should ever use a country to which to banish its rogues and scoundrels, the utility of such a region as Oregon will be demonstrated. ”

“ In the heart of what seemed a boundless desert, on a wild stream that forbid even a crossing, without a single pack horse, with rapidly vanishing supplies of food, at the near approach of winter, and utterly ignorant of the country before them to be traversed before reaching their goal, a more hopeless situation could hardly be imagined. That they survived and overcame dangers and obstacles that could not be foreseen or imagined. shows the fibre, courage and endurance of men whose like or equal has never been seen in any other part of the world. ”

“ Washington, the all-wise leader, whose great soul could not be moved by great success or still greater defeat; Franklin, the diplomat, whose profound wisdom and humanity moved the whole civilized world, and whose genius compelled even his enemies to serve his cause; and Thomas Jefferson, the seer, prophet, and greatest colonizer of all the world. With three such men, supported by the self-sacrificing and invincible soldiers of the Continental army, success of the King was an utter impossibility. ”