Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/39



Hall Jackson Kelley 23

my adversaries first devised my hurt; and in the year *28, taking the advantage of the pecuniary embarrassments brought upon me by a heavy loss of property in the Three Rivers Manufacturing company, they planned to get from me my princely estate and ccwnfortable home in Charlestown, Mass., believing that by so doing they would deprive me of the means which they supposed necessary for the accomplishment of the Oregon enterprise. . ..

"In the spring of '29, to be at a greater distance from adver- saries who were coming daily to worry and impoverish me and to delay progress in my great and benevolent enterprise, I moved with my family to the village of Three Rivers . . . taking with me what household stuflF the plunderers of my property had left."^

These words of a half-crazed man, written long after the events which they suggest rather than describe, are at least sufficient as evidence that during those years he was active in the cause of Oregon settlement, so active in fact that he merged his personality in it and regarded all men who came into opposition to him as opponents not of him but of the idea which possessed him. Despite opposition, however, men were found who were willing to listen to him, and to lend their names and their influence in his behalf. These men in 1829 joined him in instituting the American Society for Encourag- ing the Settlement of the Oregon Territory. Individual agita- tion was now to be supplanted by organized propaganda. The "vision" was becoming more real and distinct.

23 SffUfmtnt of Oregon, si, 33.

CHAPTER THREE The American Society — Plans and Propaganda

In the course of the discussion of the Oregon question in congress and elsewhere, much was said of companies — ^Brad- ford's company, Kellcy's company, Towne's company. Kelley, however, had no desire to become the leader of a mere band of adventurers, still less of a partnership for profit like Astor's. The name of his organization was carefully chosen. It was to be a "society*' of American citizens who were interested in promoting his plan to secure the American title to Oregon by establishing a settlement in the valley of the Columbia.

At its organization in 1829, the American Society for En- couraging the Settlement of the Oregon Territory elected Gen- eral John McNeil president, Washington P. Gregg treasurer, and Kelley general agent.^ It was incorporated