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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1889)
THE WEST SHORE. 17 THE GENEALOGY OF OREGON. WHEN, half a century hence, the student gazes upon the map of the United States and sees one unbroken line of sovereign states from the Atlan tic to the Pacific, and then turns to the map of to-day and finds that more than a thousand miles of terri tories intervene between the solid wall of states on the east and their sister commonwealths bordering on the Pacific, he will be certain to ask how it hap pened that in the history of the development of America the wave of civilization swept over such a vast region and broke on the narrow strip at the ut most western verge of the land; how it was that be fore Minnesota became a state California entered the Union, and that just after Minnesota entered the gate, and while Kansas and Nebraska were still in territorial vassalage, Oregon passed the guarded por tals of the nation and became a sovereign state. There were then no highways of commerce binding thete western states to their sisters by parallel bands of steel, no telegraph lines along which flashed the electric spark of intelligence, none of the multitude of conveniences and common interests that unite and are enjoyed by the two sections to-day, or the still greater multitude that will be known at the time the student of fifty years hence shall ask these important questions. Let us answer him now, and not only him but the thousands of to-day to whom these great facts are unfamiliar, and who wonder why it is that " way out west," in the land of the setting sun, in the recion " where rolls the Oregon in all the grandeur, but with none of the solitude, referred to by the poet, there has for thirty years been a state of our common Union, to reach which one must traverse more than a thousand miles of territories. Oregon and California, two sister states of the Pa cific have a lineace and history as diverse as ilaico ' - and Florida. How California was conquered irom, Mexico by Fremont and Stockton, how the gold dis corery of 1&18 brought to its shores the wild rush of humanity of 1819, and carried the state into the Union in 1850 without passing through the territor ial stage, is a matter of almost common knowledge. Such an air of romance clings to The c!aj of oM, The lay of The lay of '4', that there is little fear of the main facts of the geneal ogy of California passing from the minds of the youth of America. Not so with Oregon, the bright-it gem in the crown of the indomitable pioneer, who ha car ried the principles of a free people and a represent tive government from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and made them the enduring foundation of the grandest nation the world has ever seen. No chanco discovery of hidden gold, no meteoric flight, brought Oregon within the charmed circle, but the sterling patriotism, the patient endurance, the unflagging industry and zeal of the sturdy pioneer men and women of Amer ica carved it from tho wilderness of "continuous woods" and made it a state, worthy to rank with tho older members of tho great sisterhood. Twenty years of patient effort, amid discouragements unnum bered and dangers bravely encountered, were required to complete the period of its birth, and it is this story, briefly told, which should bo recited to every citizen of tho Union for all timo to come. When, a little moro than a century ago, tho United States sprang into being as a nation, Oregon was known in namo only, and that namo was applied simply to a great river which was supposed to flow westward from the llocky mountains to tho Pacific, but whoso source, mouth or any intermediate portion no whito man had ever seen. This river was known to Americans and Englishmen as tho Oregon aud tho River of tho West, whilo tho Spaniards called it tar iously Rio do Aguilar and Rio do los Reyes. As a matter of fact, the country north of California had no name by which it was distinctively known, and no Caucasian had over placed foot on tho soil of either Oregon or Washington. In 171)2 Captain Robert Gray, in tho American ship Columlfa, discovered and entered this largo River of tho West, and named it Columbia. A few weeks later Captain (leorgo Van couvcr, in command of an English exploring cijxvlU tion then on tho coast, having heard of dray's dis covery, appeared c(T tho mouth of tho river, and sent ono of his vessels, tho Chatham, under the command of Lieutenant W. 11 Uroughton, into tho river, and this officer ascended tho stream in a boat a ilisUnco of one hundred and twenty miles. Tho samo year Alexander Mackenzie, a memUr of tho Northwest Company, a Canadian fur company, tnado tho first 'overland journey from tho cast to tho Pacific, reach ing the ocean on tho present cout of IJrituh Colum bia, Ho discovered Eraser river, which, upon his re tarn, was supposed to lo the same stream tho mouth of which Gray had entered tho samo year. This er ror was not corrected until twenty years bad f UjmJ, and the stream was then named in honor of Himon Eraser, who ha1 established a jit in that region for tho Northwest Company, in ISM. Meanwhile, tho United States ha1 Uken steps to perfect iU title to tho region drained by tho Columbia. In 1S03 Presi dent Jefferson negotiated a treaty with Franc, by which all the territorial rights of that nation in North America were conveyed to tho United States for tho sum of 15J0O,000.0a Under the title of IuUiana, prance claimed all that region to tho north of the