Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/254

238 by sea. The government of the United States did nothing to encourage or to assist the early settlement of Oregon The peaceful settlement of the Oregon Question, especially by the occupation of Oregon by American citizens, would probably have been impossible. It was a daring determination.

If they had failed! These immigrants of 1843 were intrepid, determined, resourceful, and self-reliant. They were not accustomed to fail in any enterprise they undertook to accomplish.

And so, taking in their own hands the lives of themselves and of their wives and children and their fortunes, they accepted the chances, relying on themselves and their ability to succeed. It was a heroic resolution fully carried out. They surmounted every difficulty. They made roads and crossed great rivers and went over seemingly impassable mountains until they came to The Dalles on the Columbia River, beyond which travel with wagons was impossible at that time. They came down the Columbia River, rescued and succored and assisted to establish themselves in the land they had seen in dreams, the beautiful Willamette Valley, then a fertile wilderness, by that princely great humanitarian, Dr. John McLoughlin, the Father of Oregon. Thus the immigrants of '43 made and showed the way to Oregon for others to follow. This first home-building immigration was followed by successful immigrations, of the same quality of people, in the succeeding years. The coming of these immigrants was the cause of the peaceful settlement of the Oregon Question, which for many years had threatened to embroil the United States and Great Britain in a long and bloody war. The British government feared that the whole Oregon country would be peopled by immigrants from the United States.

And these are the pioneers of Oregon to whom be everlasting praise and glory. The coming to Oregon of its pioneers is one of the most daring movements and one of the most interesting and romantic stories of the settlement and