THE PIONEER ASSOCIATION.

SALEM, JANUARY 2d, 1875.

Much honor is due to the gentlemen who first suggested the design to form a Pioneer Association,—every emigrant of early times approves its object, and desires a faithful fulfillment of its purposes.

History may be properly defined to be that science which treats of man and the events connected with man, both of the past and the present, in all his social relations. Its object is to record each old stirring legend and traditionary story, as well as every important event connected with human society. With truth and clearness we should take care to present traditions and events, as near as may be, in their naked truth, divested of the mists and clouds in which they are too often enveloped.

The Association has been formed with a view to gather material for the archives from living witnesses before these sources shall be closed, and those living witnesses shall be speechless forever,--and to perpetuate the memory of those early pioneers now resting from their labors, as well as those now living, whose sacrifices and sufferings and toil have converted the untaimed wilds of their adopted land into a paradise for their children; to mingle in sweet communion and recount past scenes which they participated in, whether of joy or sorrow, of plenty or want, of sickness or health, of prosperity or adversity-during their long pilgrimage crossing the desert plains or coming by sea, and founding a new settlement to be enjoyed by their descendants. Such annual reunions must result in the promotion of their happiness, and tend to unite hearts in friendship and respect. Let all come to the annual feast, and take each one present by the hand and go back along the stream of years to the hallowed fountains of olden time, and recall ancient memories and live over again the trials and events of "the days of other years," and pay the homage of your hearts to the memory of those of your number who have gone before you. Like your ancestors of Plymouth Rock, who preceded you in the conquest of the sea coast wilderness of the continent, they felt that they had reached the theater upon which duty as well as interest commanded them to devote their labor and lives, to occupy and subdue such a land. You, like them, had exchanged the happy fireside of

You left your

your youth for the discomforts and perils of the wilderness. homes, and cherished associations of your childhood; you were quite as completely exiled, as were the cavaliers who landed upon the wild shores of Virginia, or the Puritans, who sought the snow clad coast of Massachusetts, far from the villages of your birth and childhood; before you the trackless desert of sage and sand, thousands of miles of weary journeys through hostile tribes of savages, and over unexplored mountains; yet you did not shrink from the perilous execution of your high resolves to open here a new theater for civilization, and to found and secure a goodly home for your children. Blessed, forever blessed, be the soil thus consecrated by your toils. It is a goodly land, a land of rivers and brooks of pure water, of fountains, a land of wheat and barley, "Where thou shall eat bread without scarceness." Your descendants will not fail to recognize the solemn obligation they are under to the pioneers, who led the van in a work so glorious. They will recall to mind the memory of their fathers and early friends, with whom more than thirty years ago they were accustomed to meet and mingle in sweet communion, who have crossed the dark river and are realizing the reward of their labors in the bright land to which we are all hastening; and, although no history has recorded their names to the world, or colossal statues erected to record their virtues, the green hillock that covers their dust, the simple turf that marks the place of their rest, will be viewed with a depth of affection and veneration by their descendants, which the sculptured monuments of mere warriors or heroes, however renowned can never hope to command. To suppose that they did not sometimes look back with tearful eyes and yearning hearts, to the familiar scenes and youthful haunts they had abandoned, would be to ignore the common sympathies of their nature. Who, hailing from a distant nativity, does not feel his bosom beat and glow with affection for the spot that gave him birth, for the sacred home beneath whose roof-a mother's hand first rocked his infant cradle—and a parents voice, who first taught his infant tongue to lisp the name of father? Ah, who shall blind the memory of the emigrant from the bright scenes of his youth, the gurgling spring at which he drank, the streamlet in which he angled? Yea, the very trees and rocks among which he has grown up, are objects dear to his affections, and he finds music in the remembered echoes of his native hills.

Thus it was with the pioneers who came here at that early day to build the cabin, to fence the land, to open the roads, to lay out the towns and cities, to establish schools for the education of the young—and to found churches for the worship of God. Nobly have they performed those duties. If we close our eyes and memories for a moment to the intermediate period of thirty years, how we should be startled with the mighty change, physical and intellectual, which have occurred since we first saw these lands in their native wildness and their

infant settlement in their rustic simplicity, this beautiful city and many others that every where adorn the land and bespeak the taste, the wealth, and the prosperity of our people which have emerged from the forest that covered their sites. Everything around us has changed. The vastness of the contrast between the past and the present in the means of commercial intercourse and the transmission of intelligence, the educational progress of the country, the proud architectural monuments, whose broad foundations are laid for future generations, crowning it with schools, and universities, and churches, and works of polished art, will secure to the pioneers of Oregon, an enduring fame for all time to come.

I do not propose to detail the stages of this rapid progress. The material must yet be collected by the Association. Its history must be gleaned from those who shared in those early scenes, and transferred to the record of the Association. The name and lineage of every man and woman who bore a part in the early settlement of Oregon, should have a place in this record. And no doubt, some future historian will weave these materials into a connected and inesting narrative worthy of the theme. Scarcely a month passes, that does not consign to the tomb some member of the veteran band. Shall we make no effort to gather from their lips and garner into the store house of history, the facts and incidents that must perish with them? What is known by them must be recorded quickly. The pioneers can not feel too deeply the solemn weight of their responsibility.

Standing in the great hall of time which links ages past, with unnumbered generations yet to come, it is our solemn duty to inscribe upon its walls the events of our day, whilst they remain unshrouded in the oblivion to which our neglect will consign them.

Let us, then, apply ourselves faithfully to the high duty we have assumed whilst the day lasts. Let us labor to gather up the incidents, the tradition and events of those now distant days, ere they perish unrecorded and unrecoverable. E. N. COOKE.

HISTORY OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT

OF OREGON.

BY HON. J. QUINN THORNTON.

CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE, AND FORMERLY JUDGE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.

The Oregon Pioneer Association having, by its committee, requested me to write a very brief historical sketch of the Provisional Government of Oregon, for publication as a part of the Society's transactions, I now address myself to this task because I could not have been indifferent under any circumstances, to the manifestation of such a wish. And although I may regret that the narrow space within which I am required to confine my observations will make it necessary for me to do little more than bring before the reader the naked facts of the history of the Provisional Government of Oregon without the reflections and comments they would naturally suggest, yet the performance, however imperfect, in other respects, will, I trust, be found to be characterized by a fidelity to truth, without which, that claimed to be history, would be valueless for any of the purposes of instructing mankind.

The history of Oregon naturally divides itself into several distinctly marked periods, as

I. That of the commercial and other voyages and explorations, along the Northwest Coast, commencing with the voyages of Hurbado, Mendoza, Grigalva, and Becerra, in the North Pacific, in 1532, by order of Cortes, and ending with the voyage of Kousensteon and Lisiansky, from St. Petersburgh, to the North Pacific in 1803, and the destruction of the ship Boston, of Boston, by the savages at Nootka Sound in the same year.

2.

The expedition of Lewis and Clark in the year 1804, 1806.

3. Oregon during its occupancy by British and American Fur Companies, commencing in 1806, with Frazer and others in the employ of the Northwest

Trading Company, crosssing the Rocky Mountains, and forming the first British establishment in that part of America on Frazer's Lake, and ending with Capt. Wyeth's attempt in 1834, to form American trading establishments west of the Rocky Mountains.

4. Commencing with the advent of the Methodist Missionaries in 1834, and terminating with the first attempt to establish a Provisional Government in 1841.

5. The history of the Provisional Government.

6. The history of Oregon during the existence of that government down to March 4th, 1849, when General Lane inaugurated the Territorial Government, authorized by the Act of Congress of August 4th, 1848.

7. Oregon during the Territorial Government, terminating on February 14th, 1859, when Congress passed an Act admitting Oregon into the Union with the Constitution adopted by the people November 9th, of the same year.

8. Oregon since the last named date.

The general subject being thus seen in its several parts: The history of the Provisional Government considered in this paper as an integral portion of that history will be more easily comprehended and understood in its relations to the other branches with which it stands associated.

Immediately preceding the time when American citizens as distinguished from American Missionaries came into Oregon to become permanent inhabitants, there were about fifty Canadian-Frenchmen in the Wallamet Valley, who having consorted with native women and spent the prime of their lives in the employment of the Hudson's Bay Company, had retired with their wives and half-breed children to spend their remaining days as cultivators of the soil in the beautiful valley of the Wallamet. These were, nevertheless, dependent upon the Hudson's Bay Company for the supplies necessary to enable them to enter upon ther new mode of life and even to continue in it, since only that Company furnished or could furnish them with a market for the products of their labor. Through these retired employees and others equally dependant, the Hudson's Bay Company believed that it could exert a controlling influence in the settlement of the country and fill it with a population dependant upon the Company for supplies. Moreover, this mixed-blood population was relied upon to rally the Indian warriors of the country whenever this should become plainly necessary to retain the possession of the country, the title to which was then claimed by the United States and Great Britain.

This policy was very clearly indicated by Mr. F. Ermatinger, an officer in the Hudson's Bay Company, in the autumn of 1838, when he said that if any effort should be made by the Government of the United States to remove them