Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/250

 favorite gathering place of the Applegate clan. Jesse was contributing letters and articles to the newspapers and was later to write his pioneer classic, A Day With the Cow-Column. It was a literary atmosphere.

The reference quoted from Bancroft is in confirmation of another given as a footnote in volume one:

"Charles Applegate was two years the senior of Lindsey. In 1829 he married Miss Melinda Miller, and with her and several children emigrated to Oregon. He is described as a man of iron constitution, determined will, and charitable disposition. He also possessed considerable natural ability as a writer, having published several tales of frontier life. He died at his home in Douglas County, in August, 1879; respected by all who knew him. Salem Statesmen, Aug. 15, 1879; Roseburg West Star, Aug. 15, 1879."

Mr. Ronald H. Beattie, not finding the stories in the Bancroft Library, nor a manuscript of recollections mentioned as a possibility by Dr. Schafer, reported also that only one of the two newspaper references was available there:

"The Bancroft Library has the Statesman files and in the issue of August 13, 1879, I find a notice of Charles Applegate's death at Yoncalla on August 9, 1879. Included is the sentence about his being a man of iron constitution, but nothing as to his being a writer. Presumably the latter statement appeared in the account given by the Roseburg paper but it is not in the Bancroft files.

There is nothing catalogued in the Bancroft Library about Charles Applegate, nor can I find any other clue as to his writings. Thus I do not know whether they were published in book form, in periodicals or newspapers."

The Roseburg West Star, containing the Charles Applegate obituary, is likewise absent from all Oregon libraries and cannot be found in Roseburg or Douglas County. The search, so far ending everywhere in discomfiture, is too interesting to be abandoned. It is a provocative case for a literary secret service.