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190 HENRY L. TALKINGTON

THE EMIGRANT WAGON.

This historic vehicle has been doing duty since the settle- ments were first made on the Atlantic Coast. It has served the pioneer in his following the course of empire westward. Sometimes it has been alone and sometimes it has been one of the thousand, but it has always meant the same ; the coming of families and the permanent settlement of the country. So it was when the wagons began to come into the Palouse country, the Camas and the Nez Perce Prairies. It marked the close of the transient man and the beginning of the permanent settler.

IDAHO TERRITORY ORGANIZED AND LEWISTON MADE THE FIRST

CAPITOL

The Champoeg Convention of May 2, 1843, passed the Declaration of Independence for the Oregon country. "When the vote was about to be taken, George W. LeBreton, believ- ing there was a fair chance for the adoption of the report of the committee, said : 'We can risk it let us divide and count.' As quick as tongue could utter the words, William H. Gray emphasized the proposition by saying with great animation, 'I second the motion/ Jo. Meek thundered out with an earnest- ness not less than that he would manifest in an attack upon a grizzly bear 'Who's for a divide ?' and as he stepped quickly and nervously in front of the settlers, he added in a voice that rang clear out as though it was the death knell to anarchy, 'All for the report of the committee and organization will follow me/ This move was sudden and quite unexpected at that stage of the proceedings, and it was electrical in its effect. Americans followed the patriotic and large-hearted trapper and his Rocky Mountain companions and their allies, and they counted fifty-two, while their adversaries numbered but fifty. Then in the 'three cheers for our side/ proposed by Meek, there went up such a shout as Champoeg never heard before and never will again."

In June, 1846, a little more than three years after the con- vention above named, Great Britain and the United States