empire, it is safe to say that women are better than fur-hunters to make a conquest and homes are better than forts.

The first white women that came to this coast came as missionaries. Has the fact not hallowed this half of our country as the mission of the Mayflower hallowed New England? Who shall not say that stronger sons and braver daughters have grown up here for that fact? The first settlers of a territory determine its character. Though the greed for gold brought in hordes of mere fortune-seekers, though cities sprung like magic and Aladdin's tale was surpassed, yet like a seed-germ rocked in the cradle of the Oregon missions lay the schools and colleges, the culture and the virtue of to-day. Not one good deed was ever lost. It has been argued that Indian missions did no good in Oregon. Can any one read history so superficially?

Aside from the great fact of American conquest as a result of their effort, aside from the fact of schools ready built for incoming settlers, we have their positive impress upon the Indians to this day.

In the upper country where Whitman and Spalding located, the Indians that learned to read and write continued to do so to the end of their lives. Long after Whitman's death his Indians went out as he had taught them to do and built their bonfires on the hills to guide the immigrants in; for years they rung the Sabbath hand-bell and kept up their forms of worship, so that when civilization did come they were readier to enter into churches and communities. As a result of Spalding's teaching the Nez Perces ever remained loyal to the American government, and when treaties needed to be drawn up, those very Nez Perces, educated in Mrs. Spalding's school, were the only ones competent to treat for their people and draw them into a peaceable compact.

Those early missionaries were the leaven of this coast in morals, in education, in government, in progress, in patriotism. They broke the road to Oregon, they brought the first wagon, established the first American settlement, organized the first govern

ment, brought the first printing-press, published the first uewspaper, compiled the first history, founded the first schools, brought in the first libraries, and carried over to the Columbia the spirit that founded the colonies of New England. During the chaotic years when California was the battle-ground of ruffians and vigilantes, the Willamette valley was the Pacific depository of law, order and education.

Wherever a missionary set his foot accompanied by his wife, a home was founded, a school established, a college begun. Willamette and Pacific Universities, and Whitman college-there they stand in the borders of the old Oregon as monuments to the joint effort of consecrated men and women, Even the old Spalding mission at Lapwai survives in care of the Macbeth sisters, whose work among the Indians is second only to that of the Spaldings themselves. Women rather than men saw the first solution of the Indian problem, and women on that subject are knights-errant still. As Harriet Beecher Stowe loosened the age-rivetted shackles of the negro, so Helen Hunt Jackson unveiled the humanity of the Indian. But if woman as a missionary laid fountions, woman as a martyr completed the conquest., "If you feel it your duty to go, go, for I did not marry you to hinder but to help in your work," said the bride of Jason Lee as he left her and set out overland to the states bearing a memorial to Congress asking for a United States government for Oregon. He never saw that bride again. Before the beloved one had reached the states, she lay in the grave with a babe on her bosom. "Stay just as long as it is necessary to accomplish all your heart's desire respecting the interests of this country, so dear to us bothour home," said Narcissa Whitman when three years later her husband set out on that famous ride that has become a part of our nation's history. Lost in the lonely mountain snows of that terrible winter, how the lion-heart sank to earth and prayed for her and his country.

Oh, those missionary wives had the hearts of Spartan women; they sent their loved ones forth to unknown dangers in the cause of Christ and country, bidding them, like the woman of old, to

return "with their shield or upon it." And with nobler sacrificë than ever entered the heart of ancient ascetic their apostolic husbands kissed them farewell at the call of duty. Out of these inissionary annals the Shakespeare of the future shall carve a drama that for life-like statuary and living devotion shall rank with only lesser glory with the one drama of the world, the crucifixion. As Christ died for the world, so they died for Oregon.

While this handful of missionaries on the coast were making almost superhuman endeavor to awaken the country to the value of Oregon, a reciprocal movement was on foot east of the mountains. In its inception and result we have a distinguished example of God's overruling providence in the affairs of this nation. The financial stringency of 1837 and succeeding years had set the nation in a ferment. Banks were breaking, business houses were insolvent, mills shut down and the unemployed masses were looking for a laborer's paradise. Eagerly they caught up news of that evergreen land beside the distant ocean. What Bellamy's scheme is now, that Oregon was to the discontents of 1842. All the hardships, all the toils and dangers of savage foe and untried mountain loomed up to terrify, but the wives said: "Go." Woman's faith, like her intuition, leaps all barriers.

Year after year, seven years the annual procession was on the plains before the magic cry of gold let loose the host of fortune seekers. When the stony mountains looked down like the Alps on Hannibal's army; when the pitiless sands scorched the oxen's feet and the wagons fell to pieces; when men sank with fatigue and despair, a giant of courage rose in the heart of the faithful wife. She drove the team, she bathed the fevered brow; like a skilful general she covered the flying retreat before pursuing famine. It is the universal testimony that for quiet endurance the pioneer mothers surpassed the men.

Flying now westward in our Pullman palace car through Utah and Nevada, we catch glimpses of that old immigrant road, a road that was lined with graves and wet with blood and tears. Who can guess what scenes were enacted there? What light feet

danced on the velvety plains of the Platte; what war-whoops sounded on the Snake, what courtships and weddings, what births and deaths occurred on the route across the plains! What a land they found when the last barrier was passed, what homes to be hewn out of the forest! Undaunted men and women came to save an empire from foreign grasp-savages retreated, mills broke up the beaver dam, the plow destroyed the camas-meadow.

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When the cry of massacre startled the Oregon world, woman's patriotism made the flag and stitched on the stars; woman's ingenuity tore up the last sheets for shirts and sent the little colonial army equipped to the fields; woman's forethought dispatched succor to the front and the soldier-boys' sweethearts sent the magic watch word, "Be brave volunteers, fight for your country, we'll hold your claims till the war is over."

When the gold upheaval called all the Oregon men to California, their wives remained to tend the farms and keep the children. Their slender hands barricaded the doors and armed for the savage. Their courageous industry kept alive the schools and shops and the sheltering hearth-fires. It was Oregon's Amazonian age but the Amazons were quiet, patient Christian women. They never dreamed of being heroes, they only tried to do their duty. The deeds of the pioneer mothers are passing into oblivion like the deeds of the German women of old, like the heart histories of the pilgrims of the Mayflower, but the sweet incense of their unselfish lives breathes in our homes and in our social amenities; their example lives in their sons and daughters.

Sisters of the Golden Gate, Oregon was the link that bound you to the Union. An Oregon pioneer, discovered your gold; the possession of Oregon made Columbia dare to reach for California. Oregon opened her first window to the western sea and you opened the door. And what part in all this a few brave women have had is still unwritten history. Let their daughters in this historic Congress rise up to do them honor.

JAMES DUVAL HOLMAN

James Duval Holman was born in August 18, 1814, on his father's farm in Woodford county, Kentucky. He was of the Holman family so well known in the southern and middle States. His mother was a Duval of Huguenot descent, a family of equal position with the Holmans in the South. Of Mr. Holman's greatgrand parents, three came from Virginia and one from North Carolina, His parents were John and Betsey L. Holman, who were married in October, 1810. In 1817 they moved to Tennessee, where they resided for nine years, when they moved to Clay county, Missouri. His mother died in 1841, and his father came to Oregon in the immigration of 1843. In August, 1840, James D. Holman married Rachel Hixson Summers, of Fleming county, Kentucky, who survives him, and now (1895), is living at Portland. Her family is well known in Kentucky, and is closely related to other old families of that State. She was born February 27, 1823, in Fleming county, Kentucky, and in 1840 accompanied her father, Thomas Summers, on a trip to western Missouri. While there she met Mr. Holman and they were married.

Soon after he reached manhood Mr. Holman engaged in mercantile business. During that period the large number of Mormons in this section of Missouri caused great trouble, and partly by reason of his opposition to them and the active measures against them, in which he was a participant, he failed in business in 1845. His failure, too, was caused in part by the bankruptcy of a large number of his debtors. He refused to avail himself of bankruptcy or insolvency laws, and after he came to Oregon, and as soon as he was able to do so, he voluntarily repaid, with accrued interest, all his debts and obligations contracted before his business in Missouri failed.

In 1846, Mr. Holman, with his wife and two children came to