236
THE WEST SHORE.
chose for their farming operations lower French prai
rie, a beautiful and fruitful region. Settlement com
menced in what is now Marion county and thus farming
was inaugurated. F. X. Mathieu, of Butteville, some
years ago owned and may own yet the first land ever
sowed U wLoU iu this oouiity. It was first sowed about
18.'!0 and was farmed continuously for forty-eight years
with good average returns; the forty-ninth year it rest
ed for the first time, and was summer-fallowed. It was
sown again the fiftieth year and produced thirty-five
bushels mr acre. Fifty years ago the first installment
of Protestant missionaries came, in the persons of Rev.
Jason Ixse and his colleagues, who established a Metho
dist mission sixty miles ahove the mouth of the Wil
lamette, at the head of French prairie, so called from
the character of the early settlers. They afterward
moved bm miles south, to Bulem, and laid the founda
tion for Willamette University.
Marion county began to havo civilized men as in
habitant a half century ago, but they were not perma
nent American settlers nor a reliable population. True,
tho mission laid the ground work for Americans to build
upon and proved a valuable aid to settlement and pro
gross in after years, lint another decade commenced
Ixifore the hills and prairies of Champoeg county, as
this was then called, were permanently occupied by
Americans. Then a work began that will go on for all
tima It is interesting to watch the growth and devel
opment of any region. Difforont men who came here
in early timw have left thoir character and impress on
the country. Daniel Waldo will be kuown by the
Waldo hills, where lis was the first settler. So others
have given their names to Krtions of the country they
first occupied. The pioneers were, many of thorn, more
than oommonly able. Many noble men and unselfish
and devoted women came in the forties, and the green
sod that covers their earthly mold is not fresher and
brighter, when May reoalls the world to life, than is
their memory to those who knew them. Waldo was
bluff and lionost, gifted with good sense, and therefore
prosperous. In early days many counseled with him,
and his house was the gathering place in times of doubt
ami supposed danger. He was a plain farmor, and hav.
ing brought with him stock that increased rapidly he
always was forehanded. No matter what prices were
current be asked his own figure, and that was what he
believed to be the fair and reasonable worth of the arti-i-le.
He was often below others iu his charges in the
Hpoeubttive tiniKH of the gold era. Once a neighbor
UuWred him sell his fat steer. " Sixty dollars," said
t'uele Dan. "Too much," said the trader. "You
ueodu'tjtake eui," said Wahlo, and he rode off. A few
days laUr the trader rode up again and said " I guess,
Mr. Waldo, 111 take your steers." "You can have
them for sixty-five dollar." "Too much," he said
again. "You needn't take Vm," said Uncle Dan. A
few days more and he was ready with the sixty-five dol
lars, but Waldo coolly named seventy; the same brief
words passed. The fourth time he rsme they were ser.
enty-five, and the cattle buyer planked down the dust
in haste before the old gentleman could have a chance
for another rise. They were well worth seventy-five
dollars at the outset, but the sharp fellow played a los
ing game in trying to play Dan. Waldo for a grouse.
The old man thought sixty was enough and would have
taken it Children of pioneers who are themselves
now honored as early comers are fond of talking of the
early times when they lived on plain, but wholesome,
fare, and wore home-made garments; they went visiting
twelve or fifteen miles to find their nearest neighbors,
and have a good time together talking of " back in the
states. They had plenty of stock range and good pas
ture. One man tells how he located his claim on the
Santiam so as to command all the range between there
and the mountains. He was a little mistaken in his cal
culations, as the region he thought he had corraled and
fenced in for his own use is now settled by hundreds
and contains some thriving towns, all that, too, in tho
life time of the land grabbor himself. The writer drove
an ox team southward three hundred miles or more,
thirty-five years ago, when there were no towns and few
settlers who farmed much land, no steamboats, no mail
stage, and not eveu ui imagination was there prospect
of the iron horse. The world moved on and here wo
are!
The capital city of Oregon is a gem sot among hills
and prairies and bordered by the silver flow of the Wil
lamette, which enterprising folks threaten to span with
a free bridge that will cost fifty thousand dollars. Every
acre is fenced, goldon harvests gloam in the mid-sum-mor
sun, and yellow grain waves in billows before tho
sway of the ocean breeze. Standing on a summit but a
mile away we look over this capital city with its pinna
cles and spiros, and wonder what genius of fable waved
his wand over the wilderness we saw in 1851, to convert
this prairie into beautiful homes And erect free schools
and churches, and magnificent structures built by county
and stato that rival edifices in older climes nnd in tho
greatest cities of the land Truly it was a wand of pros
perity, wielded manfully by a free people! Marion
county sits by the river's side of the " Waters of Peace;"
stands erect on its fertile plains and glorious hills; she
pushes her strong arm into the ranges where are rich
and yielding valleys and productive foot hills, and wins
prosperity for all alike; she stands in mid-summer heats
whore great Mount Horeb overlooks the winding Elk
Horn valley, and waits for coming time when the veins
of quartz that hold iu trust thoir stores of gold and sil
ver that cluster iu these ranges shull yield thoir troua
ures for the common wealth. From the snowy crown of
Jefforson, robed in eternal whito, she looks abroad over
a diversified landscape that is all her own, And rejoices
that the " native races " are no more. The lodge of the
Calipooia and the Molalla are gone forever, the Bntlered
elk no more guards his flock by Willamette's tide, but
the land is full of dwellings and homes; the Indian's
canoe is no more, but the steamer parts the river's flow
and the world's commerce waits its coming. Over the