Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/411

Rh glorious past and celebrate a great heritage? Pioneer organizations sprang up, and in the course of a quarter of a century developed a strong consciousness of a heroic epoch, with experiences connected with a great migration and life on a far-flung frontier. Then, too, the Oregon question in our national history, which may be said to date from Thomas Jefferson's letter to George Rogers Clark in 1783 to the settlement of the Northwest boundary in 1846, added to this nucleus of a distinct Oregon sentiment. All this made Oregon good soil for organizations of an historical character. Among the more important to originate were the Oregon Pioneer Association, which was organized in 1873 at Butteville (an intermediate point between old French Prairie and Champoeg on one side and old Willamette Falls on the other), and the Oregon Pioneer and Historical Society founded at Astoria. The latter has not been active in recent years. The former continues its existence, but makes its life purpose consist more and more in the maintenance of a cult of the pioneers rather than in a systematically planned conservation of historical sources and stimulation of historical activities. This restricted interest and function of these pioneer organizations was natural and probably fortunate.

There was with them a hallowed regard for pioneer recollections and pioneer relics as tokens of a heroic past. Events more nearly contemporary suffered in comparison and seemed mean and commonplace. Records of achievements, great or small, that did not hark back over a period of forty or fifty years were counted things of little worth. History in their view had about all been made and the evidence for it was to be found mainly in the memories of its makers. Appreciation of the higher authenticity of the contemporary record was woefully weak. At least no adequate provision was made by these pioneer associations