To this difficult position General Palmer was appointed by President Pierce in 1853, just on the eve of an outbreak in southern Oregon, and his term of office coincided with the period of Indian wars. After pacifying the southern tribes, Palmer inaugurated the reservation system, removing the remnants of the tribes of the Willamette valley and their southward neighbors to a large tract in Polk and Yamhill counties, known as Grande Ronde Reservation. This ended the Indian difficulties in that quarter until the Modoc War, twenty years later.

Palmer found the tribesmen east of the mountains more difficult to subdue. Scarcely had he and Isaac T. Stevens, governor of Washington Territory, made a series of treaties (1855) with the Nez Percés, Cayuse, Wallawalla, and neighboring tribes, when the Yakima War began, and embroiled both territories until 1858. During these difficulties the military authorities complained that Commissioner Palmer was too lenient with former hostiles, and pinned too much faith to their promises. Consequently the Oregon superintendency was merged with that of Washington (1857), and James W. Nesmith appointed to the combined office.

Retiring to his home in Dayton, Yamhill County, which town he had laid out in 1850, General Palmer was soon called upon to serve in the state legislature, being speaker of the house of representatives (1862-63), and state senator (1864-66). During the latter incumbency he declined being a candidate for United States senator, because of his belief that a person already holding a public office of emolument should not during his term be elected to another. In 1870 he was Republican candidate for governor of the state, but was defeated by a majority of less than seven hundred votes. From this time forward he lived quietly at Dayton, and there passed away upon the ninth of June, 1881. His excellent portrait given in Lyman's History of Oregon (iii, p. 398) is that of an old man; but the face is still strong and kindly, with a high and broad forehead, and gentle yet piercing eyes.

One of Palmer's fellow pioneers said of him, "he was a man of ardent temperament, strong friendships, and full of hope and confidence in his fellow men." Another calls his greatest characteristic his honesty and integrity. Widely known and respected in the entire North-West, his services in the up-building of the new community were of large import.

Not the least of these services was, in our judgment, the publication of his Journal of Travels over the Rocky Mountains, herein reprinted, which was compiled during the winter of 1846-47, and planned as a guide for intending emigrants. The author hoped to have it in readiness for the train of 1847, but the publishers were dilatory and he only received about a dozen copies before starting. The book proved useful enough, however, to require two later editions, one in 1851, another in 1852, and was much used by emigrants of the sixth decade of the past century.

Palmer makes no pretence of literary finish. He gives us a simple narrative of each day's happenings during his own first journey in 1845, taking especial care to indicate the route, each night's camping places, and all possible cut-offs, springs, grassy oases, and whatever else might conduce to the well-being of the emigrant and his beasts. The great care taken by the author, with this very practical end in view, results in his volume being the most complete description of the Oregon Trail that we now possess. Later, his account of passing around Mount Hood and the initial survey of the Barlow road, produces a marked effect through its simplicity of narrative. His incidents have a quaint individuality, as for instance the reproof from the Cayuse chief for the impiety of card-playing. No better description of the Willamette valley can be found than in these pages, and our author's records of the climate, early prices in Oregon, and the necessities of an emigrant's outfit, complete a graphic picture of pioneering days.

In the annotation of the present volume, we have had valuable suggestions and some material help from Principal William I. Marshall of Chicago, Professor Edmond S. Meany of the University of Washington, Mr. George H. Himes of Portland, Dr. Joseph Schafer of the University of Oregon, and Mr. Edward Huggins, a veteran Hudson's Bay Company official at Fort Nisqually.

With this volume our series of narratives ends, save for the general index reserved for volume xxxi. The Western travels which began in tentative excursions into the Indian country around Pittsburg and Eastern Ohio in 1748, have carried us to the coast of the Pacific. The continent has been spanned. Not without some exhibitions of wanton cruelty on the part of the whites have the aborigines been pushed from their fertile seats and driven to the mountain wall. The American frontier has steadily retreated—at first from the Alleghanies to the Middle West, thence across the Mississippi, and now at the close of our series it is ascending the Missouri and has sent vanguards to the Farthest Northwest. The ruts of caravan routes have been deeply sunk into the plains and deserts, and wheel marks are visible through the length of several mountain passes. The greater part of the continental interior has been threaded and mapped. The era of railroad building and the engineer is at hand. The long journey to the Western ocean has been ridded of much of its peril, and is less a question of mighty endurance than confronted the pathfinders. When Francis Parkman, the historian of New France, going out upon the first stages of the Oregon Trail in 1847—the year following the date of the present volume—saw emigrant wagons fitted with rocking chairs and cooking stoves, he foresaw the advent of the commonplace upon the plains, and the end of the romance of Early Western Travels.

Throughout the entire task of preparing for the press this series of reprints, the Editor has had the assistance of Louise Phelps Kellogg, Ph. D., a member of his staff in the Wisconsin Historical Library. Others have also rendered editorial aid, duly acknowledged in the several volumes as occasion arose; but from beginning to end, particularly in the matter of annotation, Dr. Kellogg has been his principal research colleague, and he takes great pleasure in asking for her a generous share of whatever credit may accrue from the undertaking. Annie Amelia Nunns, A. B., also of his library staff, has rendered most valuable expert aid, chiefly in proofreading and indexing. The Editor cannot close his last word to the Reader without gratefully calling attention, as well, to the admirable mechanical and artistic dress with which his friends the Publishers have generously clothed the series, and to bear witness to their kindly suggestions, active assistance, and unwearied patience, during the several years of preparation and publication.

R. G. T.