Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/828

592 museum." But while the museum is a very gem in its way, and unique and hard to excel among all the museums from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it is still but a small affair compared with Mr. Hawkins' greater work of exploiting the natural beauties and grand mountain landscapes spreading out from the city in all directions.

Next to the men who gave the land and pointed out the beauties of the scenes by roads and trails, comes the man who sought to improve upon nature by cultivation of flowers and fruits. The leader among this class of men is Dr. J. R. Cardwell still a resident of the city. Dr. Cardwell was probably the first to spend his money in testing the climate and soil of this region for the production of exotic fruits and flowers. He imported from France and Germany all the varieties of the prunes that offered promise of success in this state; and out of his importations, after years of trial established a great prune orchard on a beautiful farm near to the south boundary of the city. In addition to the practical work of testing varieties of fruit, and cultivation of the same on different soils, Dr. Cardwell has served as the president and executive officer of the Oregon Horticultural Association for nearly twenty years, giving his services without salary or compensation; and in this way rendering a great service not only to fruit growing in this immediate vicinity, but also to the great fruit industry of the state, of which Portland is the business center and greatly profited by the business.

There is another class of men who have taken the lead in unselfish service to the city where there was little glory to be had and no money to be made; but which nevertheless has been of estimable value to thousands of people and especially young people, in affording not only refined pleasures, but great mental profit and improvement.

There is no public institution in the city that has been so generally patronized and for so many years, and that has given so much of both pleasure and benefit to both old and young as the Portland library. The initial movement to found the library came from a man little suspected at the time of having at heart the mental improvement of the people of the city. Starting in business while yet a boy, and in Portland as a dealer in farm produce, and then engaging his savings in establishing the first shoe and leather store in the little city, Joseph A. Strowbridge established an enviable reputation for integrity and business success. To him is due the honor of raising the money to purchase the first books, a few thousand volumes, in New York city, as a commencement for the library. Mr. W. S. Ladd put down the first subscription, on the condition that the library should be kept out of politics; and it is about the only thing in Portland that has always been kept out of politics.

Along the same lines of service to the public was the gratuitous service to the library of Judge Matthew P. Deady as president of the library association for a quarter of a century.

Fully half of the eighty thousand volumes now in the library must have been selected and ordered by Judge Deady, and the painstaking thought and labor of this work must have altogether taken years and years of precious time of the great justice constantly called upon to decide all manner of serious questions in the highest court in the state.

Forever connected with the Portland library will be the name of John Wilson. Commencing like Strowbridge, with a little store near the corner of Third and Morrison streets, Mr. Wilson labored patiently and persistently for many long years before fortune brought respite and ease to enjoy the precious books his taste and judgment had been slowly accumulating in a private library of his own. His collection of books was rare and valuable beyond anything to be found in any private library on the Pacific coast. Sometimes a whole year would be used up in correspondence with foreign collectors to secure a rare and coveted volume. And all the time he was laying securely the foundations of a great commercial enterprise. John Wilson was one of the founders of the great