Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/258



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They hated the cities, "and lived apart, each family by itself, as woodside, plain or fresh spring attracts him." That description written only a hundred years after the birth of Christ, would be a good description of the American pioneer from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; and of thousands of families in Oregon today.

And so we follow up the heart and core of this great movement of a con- quering race to find it building here between the mountains and the mighty ocean the grandest foundation histoiy in all the western world. A history our readers should not onlj^ know themselves, but one they should delight to teach to their children.

For these reasons this narrative will now take up those movements of popu- lation westward which have more of the political and governmental interest and direction than the commercial enterprises described in other chapters. Even before the Revolutionary war began, from 1774 to 1776, the pioneers of Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina commenced drifting over the Allegheny mountains into what is now West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. And during that war, these pioneers in the Ohio valley rendered a great service to their brethren who, under the lead of Washington, was making heroic resistance to the British soldiers. But during the war, as a matter of necessity, all emigration to the west ceased. Nobody knew what the outcome would be. Washington could spare no able-bodied men to go west as long as he had a vin- dictive foe in his front. And the pioneers already in the west had all they could do to maintain their homes and position against the Indian savages, set on by the Canadian British.

But even then the leaven was working in the minds of the great leaders of the people, who were to lay the foundations of this mighty nation, to take and hold the valley of the Mississippi. More than once the question was put to Washington as to what he would do if he was finally defeated and driven back by the British army; and more than once he pointed to the AUeghenies as a sure defense behind which he could lead his veterans, and there forever defy all the hosts of King George and build up an army and a people which would swarm back over the mountains and drive the hated English into the Atlantic ocean. It was to the west, the west, the vast wilderness west, the ex- hausted, starved, tattered and torn veterans of the Continental army turned their waning hopes to find a haven of peace and safety from taxation without representation. Fortunate it was for America, and for humanity, that our colonial ancestors had for their leaders the three greatest men ever produced in any one age 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 profotmd wisdom and humanity moved the whole civilized world, and whose genius com- pelled even his enemies to serve his cause; and Thomas Jefferson, the statesman, seer, and greatest colonizer of all the world. With the three men, supported by the self-sacrificing and invincible soldiers of the Continental army, success of the king was an utter impossibility. Our forefathers had right, justice, the sea and the land, yea, also the mountains on their side. They would not fail.