On the way to Philadelphia, between Newark and Elizabeth City, New Jersey, at a point known as Lyon's Farm, the old Meeker homestead stood, built in the year 1676. Here the Meeker Tribe, as we call ourselves, came out to greet me, nearly forty strong.
On the way through Maryland we saw a good many oxen, some of them driven on the road. The funny part of it was to have the owners try to trade their scrawny teams for Dave and Dandy, offering money to boot, or two yoke for one. They had never before seen such large oxen as Dave and Dandy, and for that matter I never had myself. Dandy was of unusual size, and Dave was probably the largest trained ox in the United States then; he was sixteen hands high and eight feet in girth.
I reached Washington, the capital, just twenty-two months to the day from the time I left home in Washington, the state. As soon as arrangements could be made I went to see President Roosevelt. Senator Piles and Representative Cushman, of the Washington Congressional delegation, introduced me to the President in the cabinet room.
Mr. Roosevelt manifested a lively interest in the work of marking the trail. He did not need to be told that the trail was a battlefield, or that the Oregon pioneers who moved out and occupied the Oregon Country while it was yet in dispute between Great Britain and the United States were heroes. When I suggested that they were "the winners of the Farther West," he fairly snatched these words from my lips. He went even further than I had dreamed of or hoped for, in invoking Government aid to carry on the work. Addressing Senator Piles, the President said with emphasis: "I am in favor of this work to mark this trail. If you will bring before Congress a measure to accomplish it, I am with you and will give my support to do it thoroughly."
Mr. Roosevelt thought the suggestion of a memorial highway should first come from the states through which the trail runs. However, it would be possible to get Congressional aid to mark the trail. In any event, he felt it ought to be done speedily.
Unexpectedly the President asked, "Where is your team? I want to see it."
Upon being told that it was nearby, without ceremony, and without his hat, he was soon alongside, asking questions faster than they could be answered, not idle questions, but such as showed his intense desire to get real information, bottom facts.
President Roosevelt was a man who loved the pioneers and who understood the true West. His warm welcome remains in my heart as one of the richest rewards of the many that have come as compensation for my struggle to carry out my dream.
On the eighth of January, 1908, I left Washington, shipping my outfit over the Allegheny Mountains to McKeesport, Pennsylvania. From McKeesport I drove to Pittsburgh, and there put the team into winter quarters to remain until the fifth of March. Thence I shipped by boat on the Ohio River to Cincinnati, stopping in that city but one day, and from there I shipped by rail to St. Louis, Missouri.
My object now was to retrace the original trail from its beginnings to where it joined the Oregon Trail, over which I had traveled. This trail properly ran by water from St. Louis to Independence, thence westward along the Platte to Fort Laramie.