Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/325

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chief justice, Peter H. Burnett of Oregon and James Turney of Illinois for associate justices, Isaac W. R. Bromley of New York for United States attorney. Joseph L. Meek, marshall, John Adair of Kentucky, collector of customs. Of these, Turney declined, and O. C. Pratt of California, was appointed in his stead. Burnett declined and Wm. Strong of Ohio, father of Thomas N. Strong, Esq., of Portland, was appointed in place of Burnett. Bromley declined and Amory Holbrook of New York, was appointed in his place.

The most distinguished of these was Gen. Lane, who had served with dis- tinction in the Mexican war. Lane was born in Buncombe county, North Carolina, in 1801. Was moved to Kentucky while a child. Got married at the age of nineteen, and settled in the state of Indiana in 1820. Lane was wholly a self-made man ; winning recognition and fame with all the odds of poverty and lack of education against him. His one talent that never failed him, was an eloquent tongue, supplied with an easy and natural flow of good English. This early landed him in the legislature of Indiana. He went into the Mexican war as a private, was speedily made captain, then colonel, and came out a brigadier- general; and on this record was sent to Oregon as the first governor under the United States law. In Oregon he became delegate to congress. United States senator, and then candidate for vice-president on the pro-slavery ticket, with John C. Breckinridge for president; returned to Oregon in i860, and retired to private life, dying at Roseburg, April 19th, 1881.

Governor Lane reached Oregon in March, 1849, and lost no time in setting the territorial government in operation. One of his first acts was to order a census of the people in the territory. This taken, showed a total population in 1849, of Americans, of 8,785 of all ages and both sexes, and 290 foreigners. But this was not, in fact, half of the people belonging in the territory, on account of the great exodus to the newly discovered gold m.ines of California.

After taking the census, the governor undertook to establish a permanent peace with the Indians, by a liberal distribution of presents to all the chiefs of the different tribes. This did not have much influence, for it was not long until Governor Lane had a lot of trouble with the Klickitats and Cayuses.

At the first session of the territorial legislature called by the governor, a memorial to congress was adopted, asking congress to pay the expenses of the provisional government. But congress always ignored the claim, and never did pay it, clearly showing or acknowledging that the provisional government was wholly an independent government for the protection and benefit of all the people, Americans and British alike.

One of the first duties of the first legislature under act of congress, was to adopt a territorial seal. And they found a design ready for adoption. J. Q. Thornton was at Washington in 1848, working for territorial organization; he anticipated the wants of the territory by drafting a design that was eminently appropriate, an engraving of which is here given. This seal was used by the territorial officers, but does not appear to have been adopted by law. The motto — "Alis volat propriis" — "I fly with my own wings," indicated the origin, crowning honor and distinction of this state, and should never have been abandoned for the senseless design on the present seal of the state.

Now the state has practically no legally authorized seal, alterations in the seal that is used, having been made without authority of law. The original state seal was prepared by Harvey Gordon at the instance of a committee composed of Benjamin F. Burch, L. F. Grover, and James K. Kelly. That original seal shows an escutcheon, supported by thirty-two stars and divided by an ordinary with the inscription "The Union" thereon. In chief are mountains, a wagon, the Pacific ocean, on which a British man-of-war is departing, and an American vessel arriving. This represents the early settlements, and the cessation of the joint occupancy of the country by Great Britain and the United States. The second quartering is in gold, with a sheaf, a plow and a pick, denoting the pursuits of husbandry and mining. Also the seal contains the American eagle, and the