Page:History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana.djvu/12

vi of the history of Idaho we look to the annals of Washington and the rest; and for the history of Washington we must have also the histories of Oregon and the Northwest Coast. I have been thus explicit on this point, in order that the people of Washington, Idaho, and Montana might thoroughly understand how the histories of their respective sections are distributed in this series—histories which if segregated from the series and issued separately would each fill a space equal to two of my volumes.

There were those among the early pioneers who came to the Northwest Coast some who determined, while securing to themselves such homes as they might choose out of a broad expanse, to serve their government by taking possession of the territory north of the Columbia River, not as Vancouver had done fifty-seven years before, by stepping on shore to eat luncheon and recite some ceremonies to the winds, nor as Robert Gray had done, a few years later, by entering and naming the great River of the West after his ship; but by actual settlement and occupation. I need not repeat here the narrative of those bold measures by which these men of destiny achieved what they aimed at. I wish only to declare that they no more knew what was before them than did the first immigrants to the Willamette Valley. Nevertheless, it fell out that they had found one of the choicest portions of the great unknown northwest; with a value measured not alone by its fertile soil, but also by its w^onderful inland sea, with its saltwater canals branching off in all directions, deep, safe from storms, always open to navigation, abounding in