Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/340

 man in his county. He was an industrious reader and thinker, full to overflowing of wit and wisdom, which made him one of the most instructive and charming of fire-side companions. As one educated man said of him, "He was chock-full of home-brewed philosophy which went down about the roots of things." He was nominated for Governor, much against his wishes, by the Republican State convention which met at Salem in the spring of 1858, the year that the Democratic party in Oregon split in twain and most of the nominees of the Republican convention resigned from the ticket to encourage the fight. It is recorded somewhere that Mr. Denny also withdrew, but against the record, I assert that the resignation was without his authority. Shortly after the publication of his withdrawal, he made a speech in Silverton, during which one of his old Illinois friends called aloud, "Uncle John! it is reported that you have resigned in favor of the softs, is that so?" The questioner was rather abrupt but Mr. Denny replied without hesitation and with a humorous conversational drawl, "Eli, you have known me a long time and should have a better opinion of me than that. Why should you expect that after a long life spent in fighting the Goths I would at last surrender to the Vandals?" He was fertile and ever brain-ready for casting such thunder bolts, and was never known to be caught out. In the winter of that year he stayed all night at my home on the Waldo Hills, at which time he desired me to go with him to Seattle, which he predicted would become a great city. He was quite old; as he said, "with one foot in the grave and the other ought not to be out;" but his mind was vigorous and youthful and this, with his large experience, made him a most valuable citizen, in fact, a teacher everywhere.

In the spring of 1854, people in the Waldo Hills, busily engaged in farming, heard of an exciting political canvass going on in the towns and at the polling places in Marion County, in which the Democratic candidates were said to be getting the worst of the fight. It was quite odd and wholly unexpected, as the Whigs had made no nominations, in fact