Sometimes the housewife was of another nationality, and claimed a prior right to this beautiful valley. A judge once traveling across Tualatin Plains in the winter was belated by a storm and asked shelter at a trapper's door. He was given a place by the blazing hearth, and the dusky housewife, busy about the evening meal, placed before them potatoes, deliciously roasted in the ashes, venison, bread, butter, milk and tea, while the host interestingly told of having known Captain Bonneville and his party on the plains, as well as members of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. In his journeys he knew the watershed of the Columbia and Missouri by heart, and in one night had set traps in both rivers.
One of Oregon's most polished and charming of her earlier pioneers, was entertained at a frugal board, and in graceful acknowledgment sent the hostess some soup plates from the Hudson's Bay store, and a daughter of the house exhibited them to him forty years afterward. Although he returned to New England to spend many of the last years of his life, his interest in Oregon never waned, and during his visits here his reminiscences of early days were a delight to those who were so fortunate as to hear them.
The first school opened in the original Oregon country for American children was by Doctor Whitman at the Waiilatpu Mission, on the Walla Walla River. The school was attended by the children of missionaries, those who were left orphans, and the children of immigrants who were belated by winter storms and kept from entering the Willamette Valley.
Eliza Spalding was born at Lapwai Mission in 1837, and at ten years of age was sent to Whitman's station in charge of a trusty Nez Perce woman. These two journeyed alone on horseback three days, and camped as many nights by the trail. The air was cold on the table land adjacent to the Snake River, but the child was tenderly cared for by this faithful woman. Eliza was interpreter, owing to her thorough knowledge of Nez Perce, but her school-time at the mission was brief. Fifty years afterward she told of the awful tragedy that ended the life-work of a great and good man and his wife, and those others who shared their fate. Half a century had not obliterated the traces and impression of the horrible crime from the sensitive mind of her who was a child at the time of the massacre.
A little school established in Polk County, early in the forties laid claim to the ambitious title of institute. Whether in the spirit of true democracy, or as a deserving tribute to the great mind that conceived the possibilities of this western land, and with marvelous foresight planned the Lewis and Clark expedition, this little log school house bore the name of the Jefferson Institute. The man who presided there remembered the lore of earlier years, and equally well had he treasured the books of that more fortunate time.
Men and women are living who owe a debt of gratitude to John E. Lyle, and remember with deep affection and respect that he first pointed out the narrow path that led far afield in the great world of study and literature of today.
The theme is endless, when we begin to recall the men and events of other days; much has been written and preserved, and much lost to the world because the demands of later times were great, and those who might have recorded faithfully and well went out into the great beyond without having benefited Oregon's story by handing down such a record.
MRS. WILLIAM MARKLAND MOLSON.