Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 15.djvu/196



184 SAMUEL ,ROYAL THURSTON

and Benton. After supper went to the Senate printer to get the bill printed and have it laid on the table in the morning. Wrote letters in the evening, and corrected proof sheet of a long letter to sundry individuals inquiring about Oregon, and went to bed at 11 P. M.

January 31, 1850 Today I went to the Intelligencer office to see the proof sheet of my letter corrected. Attended session of the House which adjourned on the announcement of the death of a member from Ohio. Saw Dodge to get him to in- troduce a resolution about Geological Survey of Oregon. Saw Dickinson and Whitcomb to get them to help on my Indian bill. Came down to my room and wrote a long letter to Capt. Geo. Kimball of "The California Packet" now lying at Boston with a load of emigrants bound to form an agricultural town. I endeavored to persuade him that his company should go to Oregon. I had previously written to Green, editor of the Boston Post, for information about the company and to get him to suggest the propriety of the company's going to Ore- gon. Then wrote a letter to W. Blain 1 to get him to correspond with the N. Y. Herald in order to have our country repre- sented in the columns of that paper. Having heard Douglas was about to report a bill for the admission of California, into the Union, with the southern boundary extending only to where the coast mountains meet the spur of the Sierra Nevada, I went to see him and entreated him not to let slavery touch the Pacific. Told him that no project would do which did not give to California at least to the Sierra Nevada and so following on the dividing ridge between the waters flow- ing into the Pacific from those flowing into the great basin and the Colorado, and extending to the southern line of Cal- ifornia. He assured me he was in favor of admitting California anyhow, rather than that she should not be admitted. He appeared to approve my idea, and I don't believe he will vote for any project to allow any territory to embrace any part of California west of said dividing ridge. We next had a

i Wilson Blain, editor of the Spectator, Oregon City, and a pioneer of 1848.