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
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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