Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/122

106 able number, as the H. B. Co. have a large flock, and manyprivate individuals have a large quantity.

Ere this reaches you, perhaps you will have learned that we have a regular government in most successful operation in Oregon. When I first reached this region about one year ago, I thought any attempt at organization might be premature. I had not, however, been here long before I conceived that a government of some kind was inevitable. It grew out of stern invincible necessity. Our commercial and business transactions were considerable. Difficulties were daily occurring between individuals in relation to their 'claims'; the estates of deceased persons were daily devoured and helpless orphans plundered; crimes were committed and the base and unprincipled and reckless and turbulent were hourly tramping upon the rights of the honest and peaceable. A civilized population, numerous as we were, could not exist without government. The thing was impossible. We therefore organized a government of our own.

"We have no money, no means. I was a member of the Legislature. I had most of the business to do. We passed a tax bill, appointed an assessor and permitted every man not to pay a tax if he chose so to do; but if he did not pay, being able, we disbarred him from suing in the courts as plaintiff.

"At the same time we passed acts to protect all bona fide settlers in their claims to the amount of 640 acres. The tax bill operated like a charm. Nearly all the population paid without hesitation.

"We selected a tall Tennesseean, Joseph L. Meek, for our sheriff. He had been in the mountains with Wm. L. Subblett for eight or ten years, is exceedingly good humored, very popular, and as brave as Julius Caesar. The first warrant he had delivered to him was issued for the apprehension of a very quarrelsome and turbulent man who resisted Meek with a broad axe, but Meek, presenting a cocked pistol, took the fellow nolens volens. The