Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/250

 242, T. W. DAVENPORT. As a result of my advice, Palmer wished me to confer with some of the leading church members during my visit to Salem the next week, which I did and reported to him their answer confirmatory of my opinion. I met several of them by ap- pointment at the residence of the Rev. J. L. Parrish, and while some of them had received letters from Howard, they had written nothing derogatory to Agent Palmer's well-known character, or expressing a want of confidence in his religious professions. It may be as well to state that Mr. Parrish had been an Indian agent in earlier times and knew something of the task Palmer had before him. He was also a shrewd man of long experience and knew that a mere profession of religion did not take all the selfishness out of human beings. At the close of the conference, Mr. Parrish, with the concurrence of all the participants, said, ' ' Tell Agent Palmer to exercise his own good discretion and be agent. That is what he is put there for. We have not lost confidence in him as a business manager or as a Methodist. ' ' This reply was very soothing to the General's feelings, and Howard, hearing by letter from the same source, mended his ways in fear of dismissal. I cannot pass these references to Palmer without expressing the opinion that of all the men having to do with Indian af- fairs in Oregon, he was best fitted by natural endowment and practical knowledge to make a success of the benevolent de- signs of the government to civilize the Indians. I had become acquainted with him the year of our arrival in the Willamette Valley, in the fall of 1851, and that acquaintance ripened into close companionship during the remainder of his life. In the summer of 1872 I had a contract of surveying a part of the Siletz reservation into twenty-acre tracts, preparatory to allot- ing them to the Indians there, and Palmer attended personally to the work nearly every day, wading with us the Siletz River whenever the occasion required. He saw before the sub- division was made that the lots should be the long way north and south, to give more of them a frontage on the river, and he so reported to the Indian Superintendent Meacham, who procured an order to that effect from Surveyor-General Odell,