Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/200

182 being admitted to the bar in May 1849 at Albany. He is descended from a long line of lawyers in England; his great grandfather was a commissioned officer in the revolutionary war. In Oregon he acted well his part of pioneer, carrying the mail in person, or by deputy, from Yoncalla to Scottsburg for a period of four years through the floods and storms of the wild coast mountains, never missing a trip. He was elected to the legislature of 1851–2. When Gardiner was made a port of entry, Gibbs became collector of customs for the southern district of Oregon. He afterward removed to the Umpqua Valley, and in 1858 to Portland, where he continued the practice of law. He was ever a true friend of Oregon, taking a great personal interest in her development and an intelligent pride in her history. He has spared no pains in giving me information, which is embodied in a manuscript entitled, Notes on the History of Oregon.

Stephen Fowler Chadwick, a native of Connecticut, studied law in New York, where he was admitted to practice in 1850, immediately after which he set out for the Pacific coast, joining the Umpqua Company and arriving in Oregon just in time to be left a stranded speculator on the beautiful but lonely bank of that picturesque river. When the settlement of the valley increased he practised his profession with honor and profit, being elected county and probate judge, and also to represent Douglas county in the convention which framed the state constitution. He was presidential elector in 1864 and 1868, being the messenger to carry the vote to Washington in the latter year. He was elected secretary of state in 1870, which office he held for eight years, becoming governor for the last two years by the resignation of Grover, who was elected to the U. S. senate. Governor Chadwick was also a distinguished member of the order of freemasons, having been grand master in the lodge of Perfection, and having received the 33d degree in the Scotch rite, as well as having been for 17 years chairman of the committee on foreign correspondence for the grand lodge of Oregon, and a favorite orator of the order. He married in 1856 Jane A. Smith of Douglas county, a native of Virginia, by whom he has two daughters and two sous. Of a lively and amiable temper and courteous manner, he has always enjoyed a popularity independent of official eminence. His contributions to this history consist of letters and a brief statement of the Public Records of the Capitol in manuscript. I shall never forget his kindness to me during my visit to Oregon in 1878. James K. Kelly was born in Center county, Penn., in 1819, educated at Princeton college, N. J., and studied law at Carlisle law school, graduating in 1842, and practising in Lewiston, Penn., until 1849, when he started for California by way of Mexico. Not finding mining to his taste, he embarked his fortunes in the Umpqua Company. He went to Oregon City and soon came into notice. He was appointed code commissioner in 1853, as I have elsewhere mentioned, and was in the same year elected to the council, of which he was a member for four years and president for two sessions. As a military man he figured conspicuously in the Indian wars. He was a member of the constitutional convention in 1857, and of the state senate in 1860. In 1870 he was sent to the U. S. senate, and in 1878 was appointed chief justice of the supreme court. His political career will be more particularly noticed in the progress of this history. But although the Umpqua Company failed to carry out its designs, it had greatly benefited southern Oregon by surveying and mapping Umpqua harbor, the notes of the survey being published, with a report of their explorations and discoveries of rich agricultural lands, abundant and excellent timber, valuable water-power, coal and gold mines, fisheries and