Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/96



38 THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF pREGON

The following poem by Bert Huffman, editor of the East Oregonian of Pen- dleton, Oregon, widely published throughout the country, ' fittingly commem- orates the just fame of that greatest heroine of her race, and the equal of her sex in any race on the continent.

"Behind them toward the rising sun

The traversed wilderness lay — About them gathered, one by one.

The baffling mysteries of their way I To Westward, yonder, peak on peak

The glistening ranges rose and fell — Ah, but among that hundred paths

Which led aright ? Could any tell ?

"Brave Lewis and Immortal Clark!

Bold spirits of that best Crusade, You gave the waiting world the spark

That thronged the empire-paths you made ! But standing on that snowy height,

Where westward yon wild rivers wliirl. The guide who led your hosts aright

Was the barefoot Shoshone girl."

EXPEDITION OF LIEUT. ZEBULON PIKE — 1805

The next year after Lewis and Clark started with their world-renowned ex- pedition to the Pacifie coast. Lieutenant Zebulon Pike of the United States army was ordered by the United States government to explore the sources of the Mississippi river, and establish friendly relations with the Indians whose ter- ritory had but lately been included within the boundaries of the new born Re- public. Taking twenty men from his military camp near St. Louis, and a keel- boat — no steamboats on the great river in those days — seventy feet in length. Pike ascended the Mississippi to its sources and hoisted there the United States flag. This exploration and this act of Pike's determined the point to which dis- tance north the United States could, under ti'eat3^ of peace with England, claim and maintain the northern boundary of this nation east of the Rocky mountains. Pike had not only settled that disputed point but he had made known the course of th^ river itself from St. Louis to its fountain head. Pike made other impor- tant explorations and discoveries among which is the mountain peak in Colorado, which beax's his name. He also mapped the sources of the Platte, the Kansas and the upper reaches of the Arkansas rivers.

And now we reach a period when private enterprise enters the field, pri- marily for furs and trade with the Indians, yet making important discoveries, beneficial to the nation and useful to the western pioneers and especially to the emigrants to Oregon.