Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/417

 LETTER OF JESSE APPLEGATE

399

the engine, the pioneer follows the beaver to a

more

quiet

land.

True, there are some

among

us

who

differ

from the

rest,

who came

to preach the gospel to the heathen. They are entitled to honor for their motive, however small their success.

But for myself and those of my class I claim no higher motive for coming here than the inherent restlessness of our nature, and if we have done any praiseworthy thing it has only been incidental to aims purely selfish, and so far from being proud of the years I have been in this country, I am ashamed to confess the insufficient motives

upon which

I acted.

Most of us were

well-to-do farmers or, rather, graziers, in the valley of the Mississippi, had young and growing families and the means to educate them up to the requirements of civilization,

which must overtake us

advantages to a land almost

in the end.

unknown, and

We

fled these

to be reached only

by a journey so long and exhaustive that there was no more retrieving it than to return from the grave. Yet we started with slow moving ox teams, encumbered with our wives and children and all our worldly wealth, to cross a continent intersected by great rivers and high mountain ranges and the way beset by fierce and treacherous enemies. Those who came to Oregon in 1843 can never forget the toils,

the dangers, the sufferings of that journey, nor the years that followed after

of want and struggle True, our coming

!

incidentally established or at least hastened the establishment of the Republic on the shores of the Pacific. But is even this much of honor our due? Is it not rather the due of Senator Benton, whose far-seeing statesman-

ship comprehended at that early day the great value of our Pacific possessions, and whose sagacity directed him to the choice of the proper instruments to secure them?

Decree a statue to the Hon. Thos. H. Benton, if you choose, let his humble and almost blind instruments slip away to

but

their

unknown

graves.

Very

respectfully,

JESSE APPLEGATE.