Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/123

 liECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 115 wishes to preserve his authority and influence without ques- tion. During this same snow, John Meacham, brother of Anson B. Meacham, afterwards Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Oregon, visited me for the purpose of ascertaining the bound- ary of the Umatilla Indian Reservation at Lee's Encampment, and especially if I would consider him a trespasser if he should put up a tavern on the west side of the little brook at the Encampment, My answer was, that the precise place of Lee's Encampment, a point in the reservation boundary, was in dispute without much prospect of being settled, but I could say that while I would avoid unnecessary conflicts with my fellow citizens, if his liquor business should give us trouble to such an extent as to make an exact location of boundary at that place desirable, and he should be found upon the reserva- tion, no doubt I would pour out his liquors and confiscate his property thereon located. Presumably, this answer was not satisfactory to the Meacham Brothers, for next day Anson B. came and visited the greater part of the day, agreeing with me upon all topics of conversation, and especially was he emphatic in declaring himself as good a teetotaler as myself, but that a tavern for the accommodation of travelers must furnish everything guests called for. As to this, we did not disagree, for it was a question to be decided by himself. I could not help thinking, however, that his temperance ideas were not principles of sufficient weight to offset the profits of the trade. As respects locating upon the west side of the Encampment brook, I answered him as I had his brother, and rather than risk a decision of boundary, they bought the stand upon the east side, enlarged it to meet the public wants, and the Blue Mountain tavern, known as Meacham, had a wide and deserved popularity. It has been said by so-called temperance fanatics, that liquor is always and everywhere an outlaw, and so far as my experience goes, the allegation is a mild and impersonal ar- raignment of people who engage in the liquor business. After