Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/122

106 State House of Oregon may be interesting. From the accounts I have been able to gather it was built with posts sunk into the ground, two and two together, with spaces between them, which were filled in with split timber. Such were the walls, which were held together by horizontal poles laid across the top; and the whole structure was surmounted by rafters made of fir poles, covered by a roof of cedar bark. That edifice, needless to say, has not remained to this day.

The civil officers elected in May were sworn in upon an oath of office drafted by a special committee consisting of Chairman Babcock and Rev. Jason Lee, Harvey Clark, and David Leslie. Then the report of the legislative committee was submitted. It was some what elaborate. We can not follow its details here, but will quote its preamble, as a passage of special interest, to wit: "We, the people of Oregon Territory, for the purposes of mutual protection and to secure peace and prosperity among ourselves, agree to adopt the following laws and regulations, until such time as the United States of America extend their jurisdiction over us." The dispute as to sovereignty with Great Britain was not yet settled; but here was avowal of a purpose to hold the country for the United States. The report of the committee proceeded to divide the territory into four districts. The first called Tuality district, "comprising all the territory south of the boundary line of the United States, west of the Willamette or Multnomah River, north of the Yamhill River, and east of the Pacific Ocean." The second was the Yamhill district, "embracing all the country west of the Willamette or Multnomah River, and a supposed line running north and south from said river south of the Yamhill River, to the boundary line of the United States and California." The fourth district was called the Champoeg district, bounded on the