chosen and invited to deliver the annual address; and that Rev. Edward R. Geary, of Eugene City, be chosen and requested to deliver the occasional address.

John G. Wright, Daniel Clark and Jasper Minto, were appointed a general committee of arrangements, to make all needful preparations, and arrange a programme for the celebration.

A resolution was adopted authorizing E. M. Waite to print 1000 copies of the transactions of the re union of 1882.

It was resolved that the President and Secretary be authorized to select and arrange for publication such historical matters and biographical sketches as they may deem proper.

Joseph Watt was appointed to negotiate with the officers of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company relative to the terms of a pioneer excursion when the road shall be completed.

Medorum Crawford was chosen and given general authority, in conjunction with the treasurer, to collect dues from members of the Association.

E. M. Waite was appointed committee on printing.

The meeting adjourned subject to the call of the President.

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OPENING ADDRESS.

BY HON. MEDORUM CRAWFORD.

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The tenth annual re-union of the Oregon Pioneer Association, was held at the State Fair grounds, June 15, 1882, and was largely attended. The procession was formed by Al. Zieber, Chief Marshal, with the Capital Guard band in the lead, followed by the pioneers under their different banners. The procession moved around the park once, and then entered and took their seats near the platform. After music by the band, prayer was offered by Rev. J. L. Parrish.

Hon. Medorum Crawford, President of the Association, then stepped forward and delivered the following opening address:

Pioneers of Oregon: In opening the exercises of the day, I can only take time, after giving you cordial greeting and expressing my gratification in meeting you again here, where so many pleasant re-unions have been held, to refer hastily to such reminiscences as pioneers are always pleased to hear and talk about.

Just thirty-six years ago to-day Great Britain relinquished her claim to Oregon, and by treaty conceded to the United States the right to the land which some of us had already taken possession of at risks unparalleled in the history of this century. This is an anniversary that should be sacred to every Oregon ian, and especially to those pioneers who shared in the perils of occupation and the anxiety concerning the settlement of the title to this then disputed territory.

Nine years ago a few of the early settlers desiring to perpetuate history and incidents connected with the settlement on the Pacific coast, organized this society to promote social intercourse and collect from living witnesses facts worthy of preservation.

Annual meetings have been held and able speakers have volunteered to deliver, and furnish for publication, addresses pertaining to the general history of the country, and also the special history and incidents of each immigration from 1842 to 1848. These addresses and proceedings of our society, together with

much valuable historical and biographical information contributed by the most able writers of the Pacific coast, with extracts from the journals of distinguished members of the late Hudson's Bay company, have been published in pamphlets suitable for binding, and altogether will make a volume of near seven hundred pages of interesting and valuable information, which will doubtless furnish the basis of the future history of Oregon.

This is the tenth annual reunion of our Society, and I am pleased to see so many old pioneers take interest enough to congregate on the occasion which should, and I hope will, long be the pioneers' holiday.

Looking back over the forty years since I came to Oregon, a poor immigrant boy in buckskin garments, I find many of my comrades have fallen out of the ranks to rest by the wayside.

Now and then I meet some old grey-beard like myself, who still lingers in the fight, unwilling to be carried to the rear, who remembers the days of boiled wheat and salmon, of pea coffee and trail-rope tobacco, of wooden plows and hickory shirts-when the pony and the canoe furnished the principal means of transportation, an Indian trail the thoroughfare, with a drift log or a dug-out for a ferryboat. But the ranks are thinning Almost every day we see the annoucement, "Another pioneer gone." A few years more and the earliest pioneers will be laid away, and not one in a hundred will be farther remembered or thought of than "my father" or "my mother knew him. They crossed the plains together before the gold mines were discovered in California."

Crossing the plains, going to the mines, and serving in the Cayuse war are especial episodes in the lives of the earliest pioneers, who, growing garrulous in their old age, find no end of incidents, then regarded as mere trifles, but which have been so improved by time and age as to become hairbreadth escapes, fearful privations and deeds of valor.

And, indeed, looking back and contrasting the prosperity, the ease and the luxury enjoyed by the present generation with the poverty and hardships of their ancestors, it is but natural that the trials and privations then encountered should magnify in the minds of those whose lot it was to endure them.

To attempt to describe the changes that have taken place in our country, or pay proper tribute to the multitude of brave and generous comrades that have fallen from cur ranks to their final resting places, would require more time and an abler pen than I can command. Nor is it profitable to dwell too much upon the vicissitudes of life. Let us rather contemplate the prosperous present and promising future of our adopted home. The sun of heaven shines upon no spot of earth equal to Oregon, and whatever suffering and privation may have been endured in its settlement and reclamation from its native savages, has been amply compensated by the comforts and blessings now enjoyed.

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ANNUAL ADDRESS.

BY HON. JAMES K. KELLY.

At the close of the President's address, and after music by the band, Hon. James K. Kelly, of Portland, was introduced and delivered the following interesting address on the early pioneer life of Oregon, and important information relative to the formation of the Provisional Government of Oregon:

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Pioneer Association:--We have met together on this pleasant day of June-a day which marks an epoch that is memorable in the annals of Oregon; a day on which was removed the great cloud that for twenty-eight years hung over the title of the United States to the country in which we have our homes. It is a day fit for us to commemorate while the Oregon Pioneer Association shall endure.

We meet within sight of the capital of a young but growing and prosperous State, where a government of our own choice makes, administers and executes the laws of a free and happy people. We are citizens of a commonwealth where we can now procure all the necessaries, comforts and luxuries of civilized life. We have our homes in a land where liberty and law prevail instead of the an. archy which existed when the early pioneers first placed their footsteps upon the soil.

Coming together then as we do on occasions like this, it is natural that our minds should turn back to the days of trial and hardship which every pioneer endured. Memory is busy with the past, and dwells upon the incidents connected with the great jouney over the plains to this land of promise, with all its attendant dangers and privations, its sufferings and sorrows. And then, too, how different was the condition of the pioneers from what it is now. weary days of travel were over; when their toilsome journey was ended, they found themselves dwelling, in a land without government or laws to protect them in their rights or redress their wrongs.

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Again and again had the early settlers forwarded their petitions to Congress, asking in simple and touching language that the laws and the protecting care of the United States government might be extended over them, but all in vain.

Until 1848 every appeal was disregarded; and every supplication of the neglected pioneer was unanswered, and died out as though it had been spoken to the heedless air. Aroused at length to the necessity of adopting a system of law for their own protection, the settlers in the Willamette valley, in 1843, established what in history is known as the Provisional Government of Oregon. And it is upon this subject that I will address you to-day; that is,

GOVERNMENT AS ESTABLISHED AND ADMINISTERED BY THE PIONEERS AND ITS RESULTS.

From the 20th day of October, 1818, to the 15th day of June, 1846, the vast country known as the Oregon Territory was in dispute. The title to it was claimed both by the United States and Great Britain, and by treaty stipulation between them was "free and open to the vessels, citizens and subjects of the two powers." While it was thus open to settlement alike by both, yet it is a fact that until within ten years prior to the close of that joint occupation, the advantages of trade, commerce and colonization were decidedly in favor of Great Britain. The Hudson's Bay Company, one of her most powerful and aggressive corporations, had extended its sway from the Rocky mountains to the Pacific ocean; from California to Alaska. By its great wealth and superior skill it had crushed out all its rivals in the fur trade, and thus acquired unmolested dominion over the whole country west of the Rocky mountains. Its principal factory was established at Fort Vancouver, an eligible and accessible point for sea-going vessels and foreign commerce, while it had its subordinate trading posts throughout the vast interior wherever a successful traffic could be had with the Indians for their furs, in exchange for its goods and merchandise. It had its factors, agents, traders, trappers, voyagers and servants all working in perfect harmony, to advance the interests and increase the power of the giant monopoly, and to destroy every competitor who attempted to trade with the natives for their peltries and furs. Its policy was one of uncompromising hostility towards every person or company who interfered with its traffic or who questioned its exclusive right to trade with the natives, within the territory of Oregon. It had at the time the treaty of 1846 was made, twenty-three forts and trading posts judiciously located for trading with the Indians and trappers in its employ. It had fifty-five officers and five hundred and thirteen articled men under its control, all working together to maintain its supremacy and power.

Besides these men in its actual employ, the Hudson's Bay Company had under its control about fifty Canadians, who had settled in the Willamette Valley on what is known as the French Prairie, and were engaged in agricultural pur suits. These men had formerly been articled servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, and it was bound under heavy penalties not to discharge any of them