Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/355

Rh Oregonian swain was possessed of one, we could exclaim, 'Oregon is safe under the Stars and Stripes.'" This was really true at the time, the treaty fully making Oregon a part of the United States having been signed June 15th preceding; but it was not known in Oregon until November 12th following, and then the news was brought by Benjamin Stark on a sailing vessel from Sandwich Islands. The oration was delivered by Peter H. Burnett, a pioneer of 1843, afterward the first governor of California, elected as such by the vote of Oregonians who had gone with him to the mines, and who held the balance of power there.

On September 17, 1846, reference is made to a memorial prepared by Capt. George Wilkes on the subject of a national railroad between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, presented to Congress in December, 1845, asking the legislature to indorse it.

From August 6th to October 1, 1846, John Fleming, the printer, edited the Spectator. Then George L. Curry, fresh from Saint Louis by way of the plains, having come by the southern route through the famous Cow Creek Canyon, being with the first immigrant party that ever entered the Oregon territory from that direction, was installed as editor. Among other things he proposed to do was to give the paper a "firm and consistent American tone." In this number the war with Mexico is foreshadowed.

In the issue of September 5th, Mr. Curry speaks in high terms of the many conditions of Oregon society, and among other things says:

"We feel unfeigned pleasure in announcing to the world that the social, moral, political, and religious state of society in Oregon is at least as elevated and enlightened as can be witnessed in any of the territorial or frontier settlements east of the Rocky Mountains."