Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/842

598 the old Oregon trail through the Rocky mountains, his means of transportation being a bicycle, and his quartermasters accommodations such as he could get from an occasional camper, or mover, or the warm side of an overhanging cliff.

Hon. W. D. Fenton, formerly president of the Historical Society, has also contributed to the Quarterly some of its most valuable papers. His review of the life of "Father Wilbur," is a work of the highest value both in historical research, and literary excellence. His articles on the political history of the state fill a long felt want of an accurate and complete history of that important element of the civic life of Oregon.

And John Minto, one of the real pioneers, cutting hoop poles on Portland townsite before there was any town, and now over eighty years of age, has made Oregon history mighty good reading by his modest, straightforward accounts of the pioneer days. Mr. Minto is a veritable storehouse of information about the pioneers and their experiences. And he tells the story with all the freshness and interest of a man who has just got in from a trip rowing and pushing a boat up the Columbia river for Dr. John McLoughlin last week. Pioneer history does not get old and stale with this veteran who has seen Oregon grow up from a few scattered settlements to a great state booming with ships, railroads, factories, wealth on every hand and nearly a million people. Mr. Minto has spent 66 years in Oregon, and is as fresh as ever. He would not be suspected of "dropping into poetry" like Silas Wegg, but the old pioneer is a poet of no mean ability. His "Rhymes of Life" in Oregon, covering 16 pages, are not only original and very interesting, but show a keen insight into the moral and spiritual natures of men. The following stanza is taken from his "Farmer's Song:"

""To stand for justice, truth, and right, against oppression, fraud and wrong, And by your power, your legal right, succor the weak against the strong; The seed of knowledge deeply plant, restrain ambition, pride and greed; That all shall labor, and none shall want in time of need.""

Mr. Horace S. Lyman, son of the first Congregational minister at Portland, was also for many years of his life an earnest worker on the history of Portland and Oregon. His work ran through a great deal of Scott's history of Portland, and is most generously accredited by Mr. Scott in the preface. Mr. Lyman also contributed many valuable articles to the Historical Quarterly.

The work of Ezra Meeker, the "Trail Marker," in perfecting and perpetuating the history of Portland and the northwest is original and unique beyond that of anything of its kind west of the Ohio river. Mr. Meeker started for Oregon from Eddyville, Iowa, in April, 1852, and with his first born child only a month old. He crossed the plains with an ox team, passing through the terrible scourge of Asiatic cholera, when hundreds of people were dying every day. Meeker with famished wife and baby reached Portland some time in the month of September, 1852, with only $2.75 in his pocket, being five months on the way. Shortly afterwards he made his way to Puget Sound, settled as a farmer near Tacoma, and afterwards introduced hop growing into the state of Washington. His great work, that which has given him a national reputation, consists in his marking the old Oregon trail from the Missouri river to the Columbia river at The Dalles. To accomplish this work Mr. Meeker returned over the trail in the summer of 1906 with an ox team, erecting stone markers along the trail at convenient stations; and finally interesting President Roosevelt to help him get an appropriation from the U. S. treasury of $40,000 to be expended in markers all along the trail from Kansas City to Portland, Oregon.

Edwin Markham, the poet, writer and lecturer, was born in Oregon City, Oregon, in 1852. In 1867 he went to California, where he worked at farming,