Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/194



182

F. G. YOUNG

was an impelling motive that brought a goodly share of the leading spirits among the earliest settlers. The purpose to secure this desirable region to the United States so as to have a national domain four square and facing both oceans actuated spirits like Thomas Jefferson, Hall J. Kelley, Thomas H. Benton. But the projects instigated by these would all have been retarded, they would have languished and possibly have been defeated, had not provision been made to make life worth living in Oregon for the American settler. Ewing Young's leadership and activities prevented a partial relapse to the privations of barbarism in this isolated community and gave the impulse to an advancing standard of living in matters of food, shelter and power to utilize the natural resources.

The personality of Ewing Young expressed itself creatively in the field of economic progress rather than in religion and politics. But it should be noticed that the records show among his belongings a two-volume edition of Shakespeare that he had probably borne along with him through almost intermin- able wanderings as a trapper and trader, from his eastern Tennessee home along the Santa Fe Trail, on beaver hunting trips into the northern provinces of Mexico, back and forth between New Mexico and California, up and down and across the wide dimensions of California and then on that terrifying trip with nearly a hundred horses through the Rogue River Indian country to Oregon. 16 His mental calibre was such that he found his real refreshment and recreation in having his thought move along with that of this mental giant of the ages. In taking the measure of Ewing Young as he was advanced so quickly to leadership in the Oregon community it should be noted that it was without the aid of a subsidy of missionary funds and organization, and also without the backing of the well-knit, privileged and strongly capitalized old-world fur company. He relied only on democratic influence. He was the original exponent of democratic procedure and organization in Oregon expansion.

1 6 Ibid, VIII, p. 266, a8o.