Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/191



EWING YOUNG AND His ESTATE 179

ing the settlement and the region with a curse which, if per- sisted in, would have been worse than civil war. In place of division and imminent embroilment for the settlement Slacum had with discerning and diplomatic mediation during the few days around the middle of January, 1837, brought harmony and concert of effort in the direction of supplying the most vital needs of the settlement for advancement. The projected distillery of Ewing Young's across the Willamette from the mission was dismantled and he was in charge of the Oregon settlement's most important enterprise. Young, through Slacum's intervention, had exchanged the brand of an outcast and the contemplated role of a destroyer to that of commis- sioned leadership in the community's most vital means to progress. One would have supposed that between such right- minded and sagacious leaders as Lee, McLoughlin and Young such a situation as that from which the colony had just been rescued would have been forestalled in its incipient stages. But affairs were assuming an increasingly ugly and critical aspect until Slacum arrived and through a master stroke of service ensured sobriety, peace, prosperity and continued progress for this pioneer American occupation of the Pacific slope.

GETTING THE FIRST CATTLE FROM CALIFORNIA CALLED FOR DIPLOMACY AS WELL AS DARING AND SAGACITY

With the Oregon cattle party safely landed at Bodega, Cali- fornia, Slacum's role as benefactor of Oregon was ended. He had been sent to Oregon merely to inspect a situation from which a report had gone forth that trouble was brewing for American interests. He had intervened and initiated just the co-operative project that, carried out, opened the way to re- lease and peaceful expansion. The next phase in the realiza- tion of this definite prospect of independence and development for the American settlement in Oregon was that of securing possession of California cattle and getting them safely to Oregon. It was necessary first for Young to secure the re-