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214 ' Fred Wilbur Powell

tains, shall constitute a territory of Oregon."*^ This was first emphasized by Bourne.^®

But if Kelley was not the first to apply the name, he was the most active in making* it known to the people, which in itself was a real public service, although not of major im- portance.

The Presidents' Range. — In his Memoir of 1839 Kelley said "The eastern portion of the district referred to [southwestern Oregon] is bordered by a mountain range [the Cascades], running nearly parallel to the spine of the Rocky mountains and to the coast, and which, from the number of its elevated peaks, I am inclined to call the Presidents^ range. These iso- lated and remarkable cones, which are now called among the hunters of the Hudson's Bay Company by other names, I have christened after our ex-Presidents, viz.: 1. Washington [St. Helens], latitude 46 deg. 15 min. ; 2. Adams [Hood], latitude 45 deg. 10 min.; 3. Jefferson, latitude 44 deg. 30 min.; 4. Madison [Three Sisters], latitude 43 deg. 50 min.; 5. Monroe [Diamond or Thielsen], latitude 43 deg. 20 min. ; 6. J. Q. Adams [Pitt or McLxDughlin], latitude 42 deg. 10 min.; and 7. Jack- son [Shasta], latitude 41 deg. 40 min.^*

Some contemporary writers, notably Famham and Green- how, were inclined to favor this suggestion; but Mount Jef- ferson alone has retained its name, and Mount Jefferson was originally named not by Kelley but by Captain William Clark. Thus it is possible to determine the source of Kelle/s idea of a Presidents' range.^ There is a Mount Adams in southern Washington, and its name may be the indirect result of Kel-

i8 Bourne, Th« travels of Jonathan Carver, ut supra, 288n; Aspects of Oregon history before 1840, ut supra, 265-6. On January 13, 1823, Kfallary of Vermont proposed an amendment lo the Floyd bill which provided amonR other things that the "tracts of country, in the section described is hereby declared to be the Territory of Oregon." and on January 24 when Walker of North Carolina moved to amend Mallary's amendment by substituting Columbia for Oregon, Floyd objected and the motion was lost. Floyd then proposed and Mallary accepted a substitute which differs only in a few unimportant particulars from the original wording. — 17 cong. 2 sess. Annals of Congress, XL, 601. 678-0. In the course of the debates on his bill Floyd used the terms *'the Oregon ' and "Oregon** interchangeably to describe the territory. See Ibid., 408^.

19 Pp. 53-4.

20 There is a "Presidents' range in Kelley's native state. New Hampshire.