Page:Scrapbook of a Historian - Frances Fuller Victor.djvu/2

236 Corvallis, 15 miles further on, is a neat-looking town, beautifully located on the Wallamet, with a mountain of its own—Mary's Peak—to give character to the scenery. From Corvallis there is a good wagon-road over to the coast. ..

Not wishing to hurry through my journey, I stopped a day at the pretty little town of Eugene—to rest and enjoy the scenery, ... I found little enough of business life in this portion of the valley, where neither steamboat nor railroad whistle breaks the quiet monotony, at present; water enough to carry boats to Eugene only existing in the rainy season ...

On the morning following my arrival, I left Eugene—the only passenger, inside or outside the stage. ..

After a day spent at Mr. Applegate's [at Yoncalla] I proceeded on my way, not knowing where I should next seek a day's repose from the constant thumping and bumping of staging ...

At Oakland we supped and changed stages for the night ride. . . It seemed busy-much more so than Eugene ...

At the close of the second night's ride I found myself at Canyonville, a little place at the entrance to the famous Umpqua Canyon. Here we breakfasted and changed wagons again. ..

... between the Umpqua and Siskiyou mountains, we came up on the first evidences of mining operations in abandoned cabins, rockers, sluice-boxes, sieves, etc. The claims had been worked out long ago, and the former population gone, none knew whither. Only these abandoned mining implements, and the torn and disfigured surface of the ground, hinted at former life in these now quiet scenes ...

The Stage company's line brings us to Jacksonville about eight o'clock in the evening. After an hour's delay, we start with a full coach. It was slow climbing the Siskiyou mountain; six miles up, and six down again-a fearful grade, too. ..

Through several pages there is nothing more of Oregon interest except a clipping headed "The Romance and Poetry of Oregon"; "Remarks Upon Poetry and the Poets,'" a general treatment, "Written for and Read Before the Portland Literary Society, By Mrs. F. F. Victor, Jan. 25, 1876, and Published at the Request of the Society"; a short item on "The Oregon Mazamas"; and a long article from the Overland Monthly for August 1869 on "Manifest Destiny in the West."

Then, under date of 1879, is a travel sketch on the Umpqua in which she refers to the Scottsburg that had been and even then was practically no more:

[Scottsburg] is named after Levi Scott, of pioneer memory, who settled here in 1850. For a period of about 11 years it was a thriving business place, being the rendezvous of packers who carried the supplies of all southern Oregon and northern California, then actually engaged in mining, over the mountains on mules. Thousands of mules were kept here for this service, the