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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 1875)
December. 4 TITE WEST SHORE. An Eighl Page Monthly Illiuirated Paper, publiihed u Portland, Oregon, by L. SAMUEL, i Waihington-M. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, (Including Pottage to any pari of the United Sum:) Out copy, one year, ijoi Smile Number "-' 10 cenu. j Printed by Trio. H. HiMf i, cor. Front ft Wahington iti, RAMBLING NOTES on OLDKX TIMES BY W. I. ADAMS, M.D., A. M., LL.D. There is to me no known country where the people generally are so passionately fond of their adopted home as the Oretrnnian. lie loves the mountains that surround him; adores the rivers fed by eternal snows; is enchanted by the bewitching loveliness of the undulating, grass-covered prairies; sees unfailing beauty in our immensity of for ests; almost worships the familiar snows that have whitened our extinct volcanoes forages; is entranced with the Italian love liness of our summers; gradually begins to hanker after " Oregon mists " in their sea- over, the thrill of pleasure we feel in taking by the hand these old opponents shows how deep and lasting are the impres sions made by associations of pioneer times. We also love the names that mountains, rivers and towns were wont to bear before our now grown-up children were born. The moral sense of every American who had any was outraged when the Bostonians tore down the humble residence of Daniel Webster, and built in its place a palace to light up with a smile the (ace of a simple ton ; but mark all over the the countenances of the man of literature who stood by his side gazing at the modern architecture indi cations of disgust and unutterable scorn. So of the humble residence in the same city that once stood on the hallowed spot where Benjamin Franklin was born, Ore gonians were disgusted when, at the sug gestion of some one, Marysville went down after Korah and his company, and in its stead up rose Corvallis, We were disgust- It would indeed be an interesting history if one could be written by a man (or woman) who would write naked facts, with enough only of embellishment and humor to make it readable a history of Oregon in every sense of the word a history of its institutions, its prominent characters who moulded and led society, great and small; with cuts illustrating the narrative as it passsed along, and containing portraits of men and women who, instead of passing away unknown, are deserving ol more im mortality than is one who, with less brains and less daring, has been honored as "The Pathfinder," and nominated for the presi dency. A long row ol patriots, heroes and incidents, representing familiar faces and familiar scenes that ought to be embalmed in such a book, rises up just now as I shut my eyes and lean over my paper in a mood of dreamy retrospect. There! Like a true clairvoyant that I am (not), I seem lifted in mid air and floating along to some old-time scene or ruin or windmill that will solve the mystery; or, like Wordsworth scratching his hands in crawling through a brier patch after some thing to inspire a nursery rhyme, I may ' light on "a violetj under a mossy stone;" or, well! here is a clam shell. It must have lain here for agej ever since the flood perhaps longer. It must be decom posedsoft, by this time. No, it is hard hard as adamant; a veritable "(hard shell," There! I've got it not as good a thing as Archimedes had when the law of specific gravity flashed across his brain; so, like him, I shan't rush out naked shouting "Eureka!" I am at the last old immi grant crossing of Sandy, ten miles east of Foster's in the Cascades. This petrified shell reminds me that about twenty-five years ago I camped here two days with the most zealous hard-shell Baptist preacher I had ever met. We were waiting for the river, swollen by late rains, to subside, so we could cross and help the immigrants through the mountains, I, too, was a i,L ;ii:pw j I LlBl 111 -J'.' ' T' - r." 1 ,i'l J 7(L!: I'-JWr - III II S'- ''V:- 41- mm f' Tin - fe--. il EXPECTATION, son; and Mull, become, pmud of the name I ed i,h the new name, of course, and we il -Wcb-foot; an I in reluming tow a should have been if the legislature had IhoiMttJ pleas,,,- associations of b, -jionc changed the uatne of Samuel R. Thurston, d.,,,erev,ved,,,men,on byt!,ef.,,,li.r.our tirs, and k- delate to Congn-ss, !'u.;i.,.l.c,res o, the Wniame,,, ,; feeling, d,:: lc he should he.,, arunkcn ,le nm( ()f on a hallowed spot whore some great i ,,,,,, , , i '"""ss "iouiu inc next legislature cliani;i U Ik should hea, H,llle Jrunkcn nm( ()f M (ioi nitiMin, I i ,., . "istorv, wit i vour iwrti ... ' : -tc much iair and ink to prove llut it , . Wo all. im only love our co:,uv ,,d -as the original Ararai on wl.i.l, V,l I N" " a lean, to love l,.,t at tint c deeniol it. ' ark fust touched boitom-consuenily. the pioneer incident. Now, gemle reader, if you have lived here a long lime, vou doubt less have a little of tlm vanitv common to all great men which perhaps induces you to ho tn.il my rcgasus will let n,c down ilecu was twrformed that om. , Ilistoty, with vour IHlrlmh -. ' n , . v-. . uvr ff,n httaj. Wltliwii a lirhllf or a sml.tlr. A.-n ,, IV 1 rl.lo lr,LJi,, AM Uo nui.t curry nir whlthrr he in Well, here I am at a dead halt on Icrra tlKvlvantes. hut wctakethe most intense "rat" part of the name vat exceeding!, inlcirsl m us pro,,-,iiy. We love to lme appropriate. otlici tb ai.onvuin,. v.. ...i...- , , , - - . UVau mi, on r aim c uoui am ay cnangmg 01 our l ie Mace loot. r,,),.,. i -, cn,,l, uta,ro,dsso,ucl,ple.u,e. M nanu, any more t.un we want a M !.ere am T,U, . e love ou, ol a,v,a,es of early d,,s glo, U.rown over our historv. W, wan, : tains Wm a "T" f mmn' the p,oee,s who wh mkJ ,mn lhc ,ril) , I Zlt .ute of the pl.,,s, slute,! us the plea, , knew ,l,em when we wore bucksk,,, and 1 n, anv L-re.,,' deed "w he 7 ure,of p,oec, ,e, and wuhusaie the bar- we no. .Uh our dendant. could sc-e in ,Uk resti pl,ce oT a all 1 Ktcue ox dpM on a .lean rail a, ,',e the pubhc arduves the bucksku, breaches j must lure Wb ,, w ' !,a, olsuucanrnvcsancathe,. lV,;i. we cut up for whip crackers. We want It' r t llorc U a PnrH. cal strife alterwa.ds fiv a time made some '"'' see us as we have seen one an- 1 ' ". J 1"'"'; lmk ' Ac some of us apiurem foes, but, the tank ! "lh" ,hftwK m unattected by malice j mMM of adventures. .- t ,'l,ulv-c- nj we mietKi to try to luve I 1 mi: n against a monument, zealous theologian, pretty well posted in the Pro, and mu of the dogmas deemed " vital " or "essential," located all along as wavmarks between transcendentalism and non-esscntialism that had occupied the for ensic talent of church magnates, and shed rivers of blood, from the excommunication of Arius by the Nicene Council to the happy period when St. Patrick succeeded in banishing the frogs and toads from Ire land. My hard-shell friend, made up in zeal what he lacked in useless rubbish such as is usually found in books. Those two days were riods of combat, though friend ly. Ben. S , believed the doctrine of total depravity, effectual calling, and the final perseverance of saints, if ever a man did. He seemed to think all would be well when the world generally accepted it. came out of that controversy the worse or wear, and earn- the scars yet. I wasn't lucky enough to get the point of a halberd through the joints of his hamcsj-it was' labor wasted on an ironclad. I gave ur