Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/151

Rh the daily affairs of the people in the first years of the territories.

We have in Oregon, however, a striking instance of the conscious and deliberate adoption bodily of the laws of mother State. The event was of more than academic interest to us in Iowa as the laws adopted by the pioneers in Oregon were the statutes enacted by our first territorial legislature in 1838-39.

The settlement of Oregon constitutes one of the romantic chapters in our pioneer history and not the least noteworthy in the annals of the diplomacy of our National Government. Long continued efforts were made to arouse effective interest in that region: but with meagre results. From 1820 on to 1829, John Floyd, of Virginia, and Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri, had striven earnestly in Congress to induce the National Government to take vigorous steps to establish our authority in that region and to give the pioneers the protection of laws and institutions established in accordance with our forms and processes. But they failed. In 1838, however. another champion arose in the person of Lewis F. Linn, another senator from Missouri. He, like his colleague Benton, sought to arouse public interest in the vast territory in the far Northwest and between 1839 and 1843, the year of his death, introduced various bills and resolutions relating to Oregon, one of which in particular is of interest to Iowans.

Meantime events were rapidly conspiring in Oregon to bring matters to a crisis. The settlers were more or less divided in their allegiance. There were the active friends and adherents of the Hudson Bay Company. The Americans were greatly disturbed by local dissensions, personal jealousies, contentions with the Indians, and religious rivalries. All these things thwarted united, consistent, and continuous efforts to bring about the establishment of our national authority. In 1841 the need of civil organization was made apparent on the death of a noted settler, Kwing Young, near the Methodist Mission station in the Willamette Valley. He died without heirs and how to distribute his property so as