Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/160

136 a bronze memorial tablet. Rodney was several times a member of the Oregon legislature, county judge of Lane County, and Regent of the State University. In the same pioneer company were Eugene Skinner and family, for whom the town of Eugene is named. The trains met once again before the Scotts turned off at Fort Hall for a winter in California. Ellen and John parted with the promise of meeting the next summer in Oregon.

Through spring and summer and autumn John Lyle with his wagon climbed the mountains and forded the rivers on the long journey. The swing down the Columbia on rafts brought him face to face with Dr. John McLoughlin "autocrat of the Columbia." Lyle marvelled at what he saw and found no explanation. Dr. McLoughlin, protector of British interests on the Pacific, at the cost of his own position, was furnishing food and shelter to needy American immigrants, advancing necessary supplies and trusting without security to payment when the first crops came in. No man, British or American could fathom the workings of McLoughlin's mind in those days. So all, to some extent, distrusted him.

Almost immediately Lyle opened a school at the residence of Colonel Nathaniel Ford who had come to Oregon the preceding year and located upon a donation land claim near the settlement now known as Rickreall but long known as Dixie. He had built a double log cabin with a fireplace at each end and generously gave the use of one room for the first school in Polk County, taught by John E. Lyle during the winter of 1845-46.

Lyle boarded with Colonel Ford and in so doing stepped into the niceties of living that he enjoyed. The Fords represented pioneering "de luxe". Not only were they charming and cultivated people but they had brought with them negroes, Scott, Robbin and Polly, and their children, who had their own cabins and performed the farm and household labor. It was a happy winter for