Page:Oregon, her history, her great men, her literature.djvu/233



m moved forward until it rested on the last placed rail and a speech was made by United States Senator James H. Slater, who was a passenger on his way to Washington, D. C. This. was the first through train from Oregon connecting it with I "the outside world."

The Denny Pheasant. In 1882, Mr, O. N. Denny, who was in the consular service of the United States, located in Shanghai, China, had become an ardent admirer of the na- ^ tive pheasants of that country, which were not only very beautiful of plumage but were superior as game fowl for the table. Mr. Denny decided to send some of the birds to his brother, John Denny, in Linn county, to be turned out on the Oregon ranges. The first shipment was made in the fall of 1881, but through neglect on shipboard nearly all died. In the following spring Mr. Denny sent fifty pheasants which arrived safely and in good condition. They were liberated on the farm in Linn county, where Mr. O. N. Denny had been reared. The neighbors donated several sacks ol wheat which was scattered \u various nearby sections, and the birds becaume at once domesticated in their new surroundings. Pheasants soon became numerous in that part of Linn county, and in a few years extended their range until it now occupies nearly all parts of Oregon and Washington. The Denny Pheasant is a beautiful bird, and while not exactly wild never becomes as tame as other birds of its species. The males are noted for their beautiful and highly • colored plnmage. They alternately occupy the nest during the broodm^^ season willi the females, which in color are not very different from the native pheasants.

Penitentiary Outbreak. On the morning of July 3, 188 3, occurred Oregon's worst penitentiary outbreak. Fourteen convicts within the prison walls captured Superintendent George Collin;^. Holding him before them for defense and striking him with a bar of iron, they advanced and demanded that the prison gates be opened upon pain of death