Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/177

 Mrs. Frank Collins (Elizabeth Gilliam). She tells that her father, Colonel Cornelius Gilliam, took her and her sister Retta to the store. The little girls saw the pictures and were so captivated that Colonel Gilliam purchased for one the "Morning Prayer" and for the other the "Evening Prayer." The two little girls looked solemnly into each others eyes and vowed to treasure the pictures as long as life should last and that the first to die should leave hers to the other. The two have long hung on Elizabeth's walls.

"Simple days," says this generation. Recall for a moment the year of 1847 in the Oregon Territory. The Indians as they saw more and more land claimed by the whites were becoming sullen and threatening. The boundary line was settled but no United States government provided and no recognition of legislative or judicial acts of the Provisional Government. Anxiety over land titles was becoming acute. The man who had braved the hardships of the journey across the plains to win the "square mile of land" wanted to be assured of a title. There were not troops and supplies for military defense. It was not pleasing to remember that if trouble came all munitions of war were to be found in the storehouses of the Hudson's Bay Company at Vancouver where James Douglas, now Chief Factor, acted under strict and explicit orders from London. War with the Mexicans was in progress in 'California. There had been no effort to improve or even mark a road from the western states to Oregon. There was not even a provision for transportation of mail across the continent. The isolation was becoming intolerable. November 29, 1847, was the day of the Whitman massacre. Then horror, fear of the Indians, suspicion of the Catholic priests, distrust of the British and burning humiliation over the indifference of the United States!

Jefferson Institute was used as a recruiting station for troops to be sent against the Cayuses. There was