Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/201



Hall Jackson Kelley 173

in his scheme of emigration, have subsequently settled in that Territory. . . your petitioner has thus been the author of the first permanent American settlements west of the Rocky Mountains." He also called attention to his services after his return in communicating the results of his journey to the public. Upon these grounds he based his claim,^ which he summarized in the following terms :

"Having thus sacrificed' his time, property, and health, being now reduced to poverty, and yet remaining desirous of carry- ing the institutions of his country to the Oregon,^ he most earnestly and respectfully prays of this honorable body, the grant of so much land in that Territory as maiy enable him at once to establish a prosperous colony, and regain some portion of the property which he expended as before described."^*

That this memorial was based on tittle more than a forlorn hope is probable; for Kelley had already turned his attention to the opening of a direct means of communication with the Pacific Coast. For information as to his activities in this direction we are compelled to rely upon the unsupported state- ments in his own writings, which are themselves contradictory and in some particulars clearly erroneous. In after years he declared that after the failure of his second attempt to found a settlement, and after a physical breakdown following his surveying work in Maine,

"I, therefore, determined to ccmtinue in some field of useful enterprise; and turned to a project then on foot, from another quarter; that of a canal or railroad across the Isthmus of Panama. That choice was made, partly to prepare for memori-

12 ''While in the prosecation of the enterprise, it did not so much as enter mv mind ever to apply to Congress for relief, or a reward for any services or sacrifices which I might render the country; but, after its achievement, and mv return home, in 1836, — finding my health greatly impaired, my prooerty, and the very means of acquiring property, gone; and considering the nature of the circumstances which prevented the selecticm and occupancy of a lot of Jand in the Valley of the Wallamet, and also the circumstances which deprived me of a participation in the abundant harvest of the fields I had sown, I thought it my duty to apply for help; and accordingly in 1839, did apply." — Narrative of Events ami Difficulties, vostacripi.

13 26 cong. 1 sess. S. doc. ao: S. jour. 45, 76. According to Kelley a petition in support of his memoriu was presented to congress by a number of citizens of Boston, among whom was the historian, George Bancroft, but no reference to such a document has been found in the official records. — Kelley, Memorial, 1848: 11; Colonigation of Oregon, appx. F; Narrative of Events and Difficulties, appx. F.; Settlemept of Oregon, 118.