Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/37



Hall Jackson Kelley 21

States/' The speaker, Andrew Stevenson of Virginia, also presented a similar memorial ''from Alfred Townes of Ken- tucky/*** The memorial presented by Floyd declared that the ''memorialists. . . are mostly engaged in agricultural and mechanical pursuits" and that ''they for themselves, and three thousand others who will associate in solemn covenant with them" asked for a grant of land on the Oregon river between the forty-sixth and forty-ninth parallds of latitude and extending from the Pacific ocean to a longitudinal line one hundred miles from the mouth of the rivcr.^^

This memorial was the work of Kelley, as was explained by Edward Everett of Massachusetts during the following session on December 29, 1828. According to the record:

"His attention had been turned to the subject by the drctun- stance, that he had been called on by a constituent (at the head of an association which wished to emigrate to the region in question), to sutmiit a memorial to congress, at the last session, which, in his own necessary absence, Mr. E. stated he had done, through the courtesy of the gentlemen from Virginia (Mr. Ftoyd). . . . His thoughts had been in this way directed to the subject and he confessed that he had formed a very favorable impression of the general nature of the pro- posed measure."^'

On December 10, 1828, Henry H. Gurley of Louisiana pre- sented "a petition of James M. Bradford, and twenty-four others, stating that they have associated together for the pur- pose of removing to, and permanently settling on, the waters of the Columbia or Oregon river, within the territorial limits of the United States, as a company to hunt, trap, and trade — praying for grants of land, and other encouragement.""

i6ao cong. i test. H. jour., 280.

ijStHUmtnt on the Ortgom Rwer, 20 cong. i mss. H. doc. 139. 4 pp.

18 20 cong. a seas. Rtgister of DthaUs, V, 13a. "As etrlv m i8a6. I began to communicate with membera of CongrcM upon the subject ot the settlement of Oregon; that year, I think, with the Hon. Ttmothjr Fuller, member of the House [from Massachusetts], and with the Hon. Edward Everett in \%2y:*SottUmo$tt of Orogon, 93. As Fuller's last term expired in March, x8as, Kelley was clearly in error; and if we are to accept his sutement, which is unquestionably true as to Everett, we must give him credit for a year earlier than he claimed.

19 so cong. a sess. H. jour., 44.