Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/391

Rh river 1818. Clerk of NorthWest company. Chief Factor Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver. Rescued survivors of Whitman massacre, 1847."

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We have gathered here today to honor the life and memory of a man, who is endeared to the early Oregon pioneers and their descendants—a British subject, who heeded the call of humanity and responded to the impulses of his heart, in rescuing American captive women, children, and men, not of his nation, held by murderous Indians after the Whitman massacre, begun November 29, 1847.

There are some persons living in Oregon, who are not familiar with the events of early Oregon history, and why Peter Skene Ogden and his memory are held in such high esteem by the Oregon pioneers and their descendants. All Oregonians should know the history of their state, and particularly the early, the heroic, part of Oregon's history.

While Astoria is the first place in Oregon of American occupation, for it was founded by John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company in 1811, still Oregon City was the headquarters of the early Oregon immigrants, Oregon's earliest capital, and where Dr. John McLoughlin suf-