Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/374



sand is, indeed, passing strange. 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 demon- strated. ' ' Mr. Dayton said : " I read the extract without adopting the sentiments as to the character of the country in the full extent; but this description in a paper of the west so widely circulated as the Louisville Journal, is evident to my mind that public sentiment there in behalf of the settlement of Oregon is not so universal as some gentlemen have presented it. "

In the face of all this the emigration did start for Oregon. And it will be a most interesting question to find out if we can what it was that induced the pioneers to undertake so long, so toilsome, and so dangerous a pilgrimage.

It would be a mistake to conclude that the people of the western states in the years of 1842, 3 and 4 did not know anything about Oregon because there was no mail route to Oregon in those days, and no telegraph lines anywhere, and no boom land companies or daily papers to scatter the news. What little news that did get back to the States from the missionaries and straggling adventurers once in a year, came as if from ' ' wonderland ' ' and was read and passed from house to house and printed in all the western pioneer papers. The writer of this book remembers reading in the county paper in 1844 a letter from Oregon, that every- body else read and talked about, because there was a statement by the writer of the letter that the air in the Willamette valley was so pure and clear that he had seen distinctly a tree at a distance of twenty-five miles. Few, if any, believed the tree story ; but that same reader of that letter after coming to Oregon fifty years ago verified the truth of that letter by seeing himself that same tree distinctly at a distance of twenty-five miles — the tree being on the top of the ridge east of the town of Amity and the observer (along with Ben. Branson) being on the high bare hill in the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation. This is mentioned to show how facts about Oregon took hold of the imagination of the people of the western states and fixed their attention upon this country.

The effort of Congressman John Floyd, of Virginia, to secure action of our government in Oregon has already been referred to on the subject of the Title. But there is another aspect to Floyd 's work. To move the government to act on the title to the country, Floyd must show Congress that Oregon was worth fight- ing for. The history of Floyd's labors for this country shows that he was a far- seeing statesman. He originated problems then that have been verified by time. Floyd argued that the country was worth saving to the nation because of the rich trade that could be developed out of the furs and fisheries ; and out of the wealth of timber, citing the fact that at that early day a cargo of spars had been shipped from the Columbia river to Valparaiso. That was probably the first shipment of timber or lumber from Oregon. Floyd went on in his report to show that by settling this country we could control the trade to China, Japan and the Orient; and that a whaling fishery station at the mouth of the Columbia river would con- trol the whale fisheries off the Pacific which would increase the trade of the country a million dollars a year. Floyd's bill to carry out his patriotic efforts for Oregon finally came to a vote in 1829, and was defeated in the House of Rep- resentatives — yeas seventy-five, nays, ninety-nine. But Floyd's agitation brought to the surface several private schemes. Three thousand persons in Massachu- setts, members of Hall J. Kelley's Company, had petitioned Congress for grants