Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/373

Rh where a few farms near the river were cultivated by former employees of the Hudson's Bay Company. West of the Falls some fifteen miles was Tualatin plains, where a few settlors, mostly from Red River, had loeated. Within the present limits of- Yamhill County, the only settlers I can remember were Sidney Smith, Amos Cook. Francis Fletfher, James O'Neil, Joseph McLoughlin, — Williams, Louis La Bonte, and George Gay.

The emigration to Oregon had not yet started. These few men could only be considered the "scouts" looking out a country in the hands of their enemies. And according to the well settled English belief at that time the country never could be settled by the ox team fellows. John Dunn, a clerk in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, wrote a book about Oregon at that time in which he says : ' ' None but the wild and fearless tree-trapers can clamber over those moun- tain precipices and tread these deserts with security. It is true that there have liceii published more favorable accounts within the last year or two by parties who have made the joiirney safely, and who encourage others to make a similar ex- periment, but these accounts are mere bravado." In 1843, the Edinburgh Re- view (British) said: "However the political question between England and the United States, as to the owaiership of Oregon may be decided, Oregon will never be colonized overland from the United States. The world must assume a new phase before the American wagons will make plain the road to Columbia, as they have done to the Ohio." And at the same time the British were ridiculing the efforts to get American settlers into Oregon, a precious little squad of United States senators were burning up the country in the halls of Congress. Says Senator Dayton, of New Jersey :

"I trust I may be pardoned here for reading an extract from a western paper of recent date — Louisville Journal — republished in the National Intelligencer, of this city. Here it is : "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. It is almost as barren as the desert of Africa, and quite as unhealthy as the Cam- pania of Italy. 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. We would not be subjcted to the innumei-able and indescrib- able torture of a journey to Oi-egon for all the soil its savage hunters ever wan- dered over. The journey thither, from all accounts, is horrible enough, but it is paradise when contrasted with the wasting miseries which beset the wretched emigrant when he has reached a point where he fancied his unutterable woes were to cease, but where he finds they are to be increased beyond all endurance. Of the last party of emigrants that left Missouri for Oregon, eight died of star- vation before reaching Fort Hall, which is half-way to the country that is reckoned inhabitable by those who are af39icted with the Oregon mania.

"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. This is the representation given by Cox, Bonneville, Farnham and Hinds. Now that such a wretched territory should excite the hopes and the cupidity of citizens of the United States, inducing them to leave comfortable homes for the heaps of