Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/625

 Society when it was organized. He began his work in January, 1899, and has since continued it, still regularly spending his days in the museum, though he is now 91. He is the author of numerous articles and joint author, with Herbert O. Lang, of History of the Willamette Valley, 1885.

It is not easy to fix the date when the name "Blue Bucket Mines" came into use. It certainly was as early as 1868, for it is positively known that Stephen H. Meek, the leader of the party of immigrants in 1845 over the route after wards referred to as "Meek's cut-off", conducted thirty men that year along that trail in search of the mine of that name, without success.

According to a statement given me by William F. Helm many years ago, whose father, mother, five brothers and one sister and himself were members of the Meek party, "blue bucket" originated in this way: The Helm wagons, yokes and many of the camp utensils, including several buckets, were painted blue. At one camp on a tributary of the John Day River, numerous small yellow pebbles were found along the water's edge and among the grass roots. An attempt was made to catch some fish, but the current being very swift, the effort failed. Then W. G. T'Vault, Thomas R. Cornelius and James Terwilliger, the latter a blacksmith, conceived the idea of using one of the bright pebbles, and, finding it soft, pounded it thin and used it as a sinker on the fish lines. Others did the same. At one of the camps where an experience occurred of the kind here related, two blue buckets were abandoned, the Helm family having no further use for them.

None of the company had any idea of gold at this time. Their minds were fully occupied by the effort to get out of the wilderness, as their situation was very serious. At length the party reached The Dalles and went down the Columbia River on rafts, all settling in the Willamette Valley.

It will be remembered that gold was discovered in California ... in 1848.... Soon afterwards a number of the