Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/578



to allow the provisioual army to drive back the hostile Indians. Then as soon as the hostiles were out of the way Meek proceeded to the wrecked Whitman station and decently re-interred the murdered victims of the massacre, the hasty burial by the Catholic Priest Brouillet not having been sufficient to protect the bodies of the slain from the ravages of the wolves. At this time Meek, with thoughtful tenderness, saved some tresses of the golden hair of Mrs. Whitman to carry to relatives in the states, and one of which was carefully preserved and turned over to the Oregon Pioneer Association, and is now in the rooms of the Oregon Historical Society, City Hall, Portland. And notwithstanding these unavoidable delays, such was the tireless energy of these sturdy pioneers that within sixty days after leaving Oregon City the partj' safely reached St. Joseph on the Missouri river. If one stops to think, and can think of all the dangers, trials and sufferings those men had to endure and overcome on that trip through the snows in the dead of winter, shooting some wild animals and packing scanty supplies of food for themselves, sleeping under any tempo- rary shelter of brush or trees while their horses pawed the snow from dried grass for feed, over a trackless winter waste for two thousand miles, they can get some idea of the fiber, the courage and the real heroism of the men who founded the state of Oregon and saved it to the United States, and who in truth and deed stand "unrival'd in the glorious lists of fame."

It was not an exploit that necessarily incurred great personal dangei*, hard- ship or sacrifice for a Csesar to cross the Rubicon and devastate Gaul ; nor for Napoleon to scale the Alps and pounce down upon Italy ; nor for Grant to hang to the flanks of the rebel armies until they were penned up, exhausted and forced to lay down their arms at Appomattox; but it was a mighty different propo- sition to freeze and starve and bleed with Washington at Valley Forge ; or to march and freeze and wade and fight with George Rogers Clark at Old Vin- cennes and save the Ohio valley to the United States ; or to trudge and fight and starve and freeze with Joe Meek and the Oregon pioneers to save three great states to the American Union and secure a foothold on the great western ocean. And it is a labor of love as well as duty to see that these real heroes and hero- ines of the Great West have justice done their names as far as words and histori- cal records will suffice.

Although Thornton had started for Washington City three months before Meek started, he reached the city only one week before Meek got there; and Meek had the advantage of three months' later news from the west and all the thrilling events of the Whitman massacre. On this account and his superior address and his kinship to the President, he quite overshadowed the educated lawyer and judge, Delegate Thornton. The bill to organize the Oregon terri- tory was then before Congress, and the report that Meek was able to make suf- ficed to load up Senator Tom Benton with one of the best of the many speeches he made for Oregon. On May 31, 1848, Benton in advocacy of the Oregon Bill delivered an address in the senate from which is taken the following extract :

"Only three or four years ago the v/hole United States seemed to be in- flamed with a desii'e to get possession of Oregon. It was one of the absorbing and agitating questions of the continent. To obtain exclusive possession of Ore- gon, the greatest efforts were made, and it was at length obtained. What next ? After this actual occupation of the entire continent, and having thus obtained exclusive possession of Oregon in order that we might govern it, we have seei\