Joseph Gaston

“ Whitman."
The watch for the night is set; the flute and violin have ceased their soothing notes, the enamored swain has whispered his last good night, or stolen the last kiss from his blushing sweetheart, and all is hushed in the slumber of the camp of one thousand persons in the heart of the great mountains a thousand miles from any white man's habitation, with savage Indians in all directions. What a picture of American ideas, push, enterprise, courage and empire building. Risking everything, braving every danger, and conquering every difficulty and obstruction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And with the first blow of the tomahawk on the head of the un- suspecting victim — Marcus Whitman — and the sight of blood, the savage gave tongue to demoniac yells that harked back a hundred thousand years when the naked savage man fought with clubs, the savage beast.
We here finally reach our bearings in the quest for the rightful ownership of the wilderness of Oregon. Whether it suits our wishes or our preconceived views or not, we are compelled to face the proposition that the white man, black man, red man and yellow man are all on this globe on equal land tenures. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The lumbering caravan moves slowly on, passes behind the bluffs and out of sight, and the anxiety and fears for the lone wagon left behind increase. The train halts for the night, forms its defensive circle, fires are lighted for the evening meal and the shadows of the night are creeping down upon the camp—when, behold, the lone wagon rolls into camp, the doctor smiling and happy—it was a newborn boy—mother and child all right and ready for the continued journey. ”

“ Jefferson read the future as if by inspiration. The great waterways pouring their traffic down to New Orleans at the least possible expense were building up in the great valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers an empire of population. He thought, as everybody else then thought, that the trade of even Pittsburgh, only four hundred miles west of the Atlantic port of Philadelphia, must of necessity float down the Ohio and Mississippi, and go out to the world by way of New Orleans. And also all the traffic west and south of Pittsburgh must go the same way. ”

“ To leave the fertile and salubrious lands on this side of the Rocky mountains and to go beyond their snowy summits a thousand miles, to be exiled from law and society, and to endeavor to extort food from the unwilling sand heaps which are there called earth, is the maddest enterprise that has ever deluded foolish men. ”

“ Captain Smith had drawn out his company of dragoons and left them in line in the plain below. It was a bright, beautiful morning, and the Rogue River valley lay like 'a panorama at our feet ; the exact line of dragoons sitting statue like upon their horses, with their white belts and burnished scabbards and carbines, looked like they were engraven upon a picture, while a few paces in our rear the huge perpendicular wall of the Table Rock towered, frowningly, many hundred feet above us. The business of the treaty commenced at once. ”

“ Sooner or later the right man always comes to a good cause ; and when plain, modest citizen, George Abernethy, was elected the first governor of Oregon, the good people of the new-born state had insured the success of their great enterprise. A spark of genius may strike out a great idea, a dashing general may win a great battle for a noble cause, and a close student may solve a great scheme of government ”

“ The blood and brains which planted civilization in England, just as surely planted the same forces in the wilds of America and then pushed on westward to the Alleghanies, to the Ohio, to the Mississippi, to the Rocky mountains, and finally to Oregon. ”

“ Captain John H. Couch most assuredly drove down the first stake to fasten the city at this point, when he tied up his ship at the foot of Washington street, before there was a house here, and said, "To this point can I bring any ship that can get into the mouth of the great Columbia river." Like most men developed on the high seas, when he knew anything, he was sure and confident of his knowledge. When others were trembling and temporizing for fear Portland would fail like the dozen other places, Captain Couch lost no sleep over their fears. ”

“ We may pause here for a moment and contemplate the mischances of great men—the greatest of men. While the world has accorded to Christopher Columbus the imperishable fame and honor of discovering the American continent, there can be no doubt but that other European mariners had touched on the continent of America before him. ”

“ Lawrence on one side, with steady poise, while over against them are turbulent spirits from Ken- tucky, Tennessee, IMissouri, the plains and the rovers of the sea, men inured to dangers and trials from boyhood to manhood, and ranged behind them mission- aries of the cross, who, like the great Puritan, could "trust God and keep the powder dry." ”

“ For these considerations this greatest gift of nature made known to mankind by unravelling the secrets of electricity, should be absolutely controlled and administered by the State for the use of all its citizens on exactly the same terms and conditions. And thus it is seen that the mountains and forest reserves, holding and conserving the great blanket of snow deposited by winter storms, to be turned loose by the summer's heat and sent down the streams to turn innumerable turbine wheels generating electric power, are one of the State 's greatest sources of wealth and power. ”

“ What then was his surprise and astonishment when he proposed to purchase the trading post of New Orleans, to find the French minister offering to sell him the vast terri- tory of Louisiana, New Orleans, the great rivers and everything else that France claimed in America. The whole tone of France was changed at once, and the bargaining for an empire of land went merrily as a marriage bell. Fif- teen million dollars was the price agreed upon for Louisiana territory; the largest real estate transaction in the world from the beginning of the human race. ”

“ Wholly unlike the experiences of the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru, where the invaders found gold and silver beyond the dreams of avarice, and which they could seize by robbery of the lawful owner and then torture him with flames to discover the mines of the precious metals, the explorers of the great Northern wilderness had to contend with all the forces of nature and tax their physical strength to the utmost limit to secure success. ”

“ What there is in the territory of Oregon to tempt our national cupidity, no one can tell. Of all the countries on the face of the earth, it is one of the least favored of heaven. It is the mere riddling of creation. ”

“ The settlement of Oregon by Americans was started by a wave of religious enthusiasm. Prior to the advent of Jason and Daniel Lee in 1834, Oregon had no place on the map of the world except that of a vast game preserve for the taking of the furry skins of wild animals. Its native Indian population of from fifty to eighty thousand had no standing or consideration whatever in the minds of civilized or Christian men prior to the mission of Jason Lee. To Spaniard, Englishman and American, all alike, the fur trade was the sole excuse for any action in relation to the vast territory known as Oregon. ”

“ And now we see these children of the forest beset by the white men behind and before, and there is no longer any secret the white man does not find out, and the fateful terrors of these white men have followed them to their land-locked mountain retreat. Terror as it was to the Indian, it was a god-send to Mackenzie. He from these incoherent descriptions of places, rivers, mountains and marshes, reckon that he could reach the great river, which he at once supposed to be Carver's Oregon, in ten or twelve days, and from the great river reach the sea coast in a month. ”

“ With his eloquence of speech, his courage, his desper- ate determination to succeed and his refusal to accept defeat, he gathered a new party, of men, he procured supplies for a year, he laid in arms and ammunition to fight Indians, if fight he must, and again sallied forth to claim and conquer the mightiest empire of rich land on the face of the earth, for his God and his king. ”

“ From an intimate acquaintance for half a century it is a pleasure to record here that no other citizen of Oregon has done as much for the general welfare of all classes of its people as this worthy man, now passed on beyond his four-score and ten years filled to the overflowing with useful labor, and still in the harness to help along every good work. His "Farmer's Songs" and "Rhymes of Life" have the genuine Ben Franklin flavor of 1776.
The Historians. Francis Fuller Victor fills a large page in Oregon history, not only as an historian but also as a poet of great merit. ”