Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/711

 isolated by a lack of roads from the interior, and having considerable business, had no printing-press until October 1870, when the Monthly Guide was started at Empire City, a sheet of 4 pages about 6 by 4 inches in size. It ran until changed into the Coos Bay News in March 1873, when it was enlarged to 12 by 18 inches. In September of the same year it was removed to Marshfield and again enlarged.

The Oregon Pioneer Society was organized October 8 and 9, 1867, at Salem, in the hall of the house of representatives, W. H. Gray being prime mover. The officers elected were J. W. Nesmith president, Matthew P. Deady vice-president, I. N. Gilbert treasurer, and Medorum Crawford secretary. Resolutions were offered to form committees to obtain facts concerning the immigration of 1843, and in reference to the civil and political condition of the country from its earliest settlement.

In the mean time W. H. Gray had founded the Oregon Pioneer and Historical Society, with its office at Astoria, which society made less of the social reunions and more of the collection of historical documents, and which held its first meeting in 1872. I have not been able to find a schedule of its first proceedings. Truman P. Powers, one of Oregon's most venerable pioneers, was its president in 1875. He has only recently died. It strikes one, in looking over the proceedings of that year, that less sectarianism would be conducive to a better quality of history material.

On the 18th of October, 1873, the original society reorganized as the Oregon Pioneer Association, with F. X. Mathieu president, J. W. Grim vice-president, W. H. Rees secretary, and Eli Cooley treasurer. It held its anniversaries and reunions on the 10th of June, this being the day on which the treaty of boundary between Great Britain and the United States was concluded. Addresses were annually delivered by men acquainted with pioneer life and history. Ex-governor Curry delivered the first annual address November 11, 1873, since which time, Deady, Nesmith, Strong, Rees, Holman, Boisé, Minto, Geer, Atkinson, Thornton, Evans, Applegate, Staats, ChadWick, Grover, and others have contributed to the archives of the society valuable addresses. A roll of the members is kept, with place of nativity and year of immigration, and all are eligible as members who came to Oregon while the territory was under the joint occupancy of the United States and Great Britain, or who were born or settled in the territory prior to January 1, 1854. Biographies form a feature of the archives. The association offered to join with the historical society in 1874, but the latter decided that any material change in its organic existence would defeat the prime object of the society, and they remained apart. The association is a popular institution, its reunions being occasions of social intercourse as well as historical reminiscences, and occasions for the display of the best talent in the state. The transactions of each annual meeting are published in a neat pamphlet for preservation. In 1877 the men and women who settled the Rogue River and other southern valleys, and whose isolation, Mining adventures, and Indian wars gave them a history of their own, hardly identical with but no less interesting than that of the settlers of the Willamette Valley, met at the picturesque village of Ashland and founded the Pioneer Society of Southern Oregon on the 13th of September of that year, about 800 persons being present. Its first officers were L. C. Duncan president, William Hoffman secretary, N. S. Hayden treasurer. E. L. Applegate delivered an address, in which he set forth the motives which animated, and the exploits which were performed by, the pioneers. Other addresses were made by Thomas Smith, E. K. Anderson, and John E. Ross. The society in 1885 was in a prosperous condition. Portland Oregonian, Nov. 18, 1867; Portland Advocate, Sept. 14, 1867; Astoria Astorian, April 3, 1875; ''Sac. Record-Union, April 3, 1875; Portland Bulletin, Dec. 6, 1871; Portland Oregonian, March 9, 1872; Ashland Tidings, Sept. 28, 1877; Jacksonville Times'', April 12, 1878.