Page:Emergence of Frances Fuller Victor-Historian.djvu/8

 In Oregon City Daniel Harvey, son-in-law of Dr. McLoughlin, presented her with copies of two documents which had been prepared by McLoughlin: one written to defend his land claim title, the other to justify to the Hudson's Bay Company his attitude toward the American settlement in Oregon. In Albany Mrs. Victor met J. Quinn Thornton and his wife and heard Thornton's account of early Oregon. Later that year he wrote her many long letters in his illegible hand. These letters she copied in I899 in her own clear hand writing and presented both originals and copies to Professor Young for preservation in the Oregon Historical Society. Later she also gave him the McLoughlin documents.

From Corvallis Mrs. Victor traveled by stagecoach to Eugene and then on to Yoncalla where she spent about two weeks in the home of Jesse Applegate. Evenings there were devoted to historical reminiscences and discussion as Jesse answered her myriad questions about Oregon. Two years later Jesse Applegate expressed his reaction to Mrs. Victor and her visit in a letter to Elwood Evans of Olympia. Evans had sent him for criticism a chapter of the history of Oregon he was writing, and Jesse did not like it. He wrote:

While I have generally succeeded in escaping from male authors and think I could still fight them off—I have been no match for the ladies of the pen. To one of these I have fallen a helpless victim and surrendered at discretion. I held my own while I kept her at a dis tance but in one of my letters I inadvertently said "If you want information from me you must come to me for it." She took me at my word and in about two weeks she pumped me so dry of historical matter that the stores both of memory and imagination were utterly exhausted. . . there was nothing I could conceal or withhold from the keen scrutiny of this lady, and yet she is as little grateful for the information thus wrung from me as you seem to be for my strictures on your 17th chapter ... If you really seek truth go to her. Perhaps she will give you the benefit of her investigations-what she derived