Page:Emergence of Frances Fuller Victor-Historian.djvu/10

 in the town met Thomas Condon, who allowed her to examine his collection of fossils.

Early in August 1865 the Oregonian announced that after energetic researches for information Mrs. Victor was now writing the final draft of her work on Oregon and that many things "which were speedily becoming extinct will now be made matters of history." In October the newspaper published an able article titled "Railroads and Railroad Routes in Oregon," stating that it was an extract from Mrs. Victor's coming history of Oregon. This was, of course, her projected descriptive handbook, but it was not published after all at this time. Later she appended a portion of it to The River of the West, and finally published it entire in 1872, enlarged and brought up-to-date by several more trips, as All Over Oregon and Washington.

The manuscript of her handbook completed, Mrs. Victor discovered not only that she had much interesting historical material left over but also that she had become addicted to historical research. So she continued to correspond with the pioneers and to collect material, this time with an eventual history of Oregon in view.

By the fall of 1865 Frances Victor and Elwood Evans were corresponding about Oregon history. Evans first came to Puget Sound in 1851, returned East the next year, then came back to Washington Territory in 1853 with the Pacific Railroad Survey party as private secretary to Governor Isaac I. Stevens. A lawyer by profession who served as secretary and acting governor of the territory and legislator, he was an active participant in history in the making as well as a student of the past of the region. His correspondence with Mrs. Victor continued until at least 1886, and they freely ex changed ideas and information, even historical documents.

In November 1865 Mrs. Victor, writing to Evans, commented:

I am convinced we have very nearly the same understanding of the interest, the mores, and the romance of that history which attaches to the Northwest Coast. Your synopsis of subjects sounds almost as if I