The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. IV / March, 1903-December, 1903

by Oregon Historical Society

Her first book on the history of Oregon was The River of the West, a biography of Joseph L. Meek, which was published in 1870. Many middle-aged Oregonians tell what a delight came to them when in boyhood and girlhood days they read the stories of Rocky Mountain adventures of the old trapper Meek as recited by this woman of culture and literary training, who herself had taken so great an interest in them. The book was thumbed and passed from hand to hand as long as it would hold together, and today scarcely a copy is to be obtained in the Northwest. Intensely interesting as The River of the West is, the chief value of the work does not lie in this fact, but rather in its value to the historian. Meek belonged to the age before the pioneers. It was the trapper and trader who explored the wilds of the West and opened up the way for the immigrant. Later writers freely confess their indebtedness to Mrs. Victor's River of the West for much of their material. The stories of the Rocky Mountain bear killer, Meek, romantic though many of them are, check with the stories given by other trappers and traders, and furnish data for an important period in the history of the Northwest.

In 1872 was published Mrs. Victor's second book touching the Northwest, All Over Oregon and Washington. This work, she tells us in the preface, was written to supply a need existing because of the dearth of printed information concerning these countries. It contained observations on the scenery, soil, climate and resources of the Northwestern part of the Union, together with an outline of its early history, remarks on its geology, botany, and mineralogy, and hints to immigrants and travelers. Her interest in the subject led her at a later date to revise this book and to publish it again, this time under the title Atlantis Arisen.

In 1874 was published Woman's War With Whiskey, a pamphlet which she wrote in aid of the temperance movement in Portland. Her husband was lost at sea in November, 1875, and from this time, she devoted herself exclusively to literary pursuits. During her residence in Oregon she had frequently written letters for the San Francisco Bulletin and sketches for the Overland Monthly. These stories, together with some poems, were published in 1877 in a volume entitled The New Penelope.

This last volume was printed by the Bancroft publishing establishment in San Francisco. The Bancrofts were an Ohio family of Mrs. Victor's early acquaintance. Hubert Howe Bancroft now laid before her his plan for writing the history of the Pacific slope, and asked her to work on the part concerning Oregon. In 1878 she entered the Bancroft library. Leaving the library at the completion of the work, in 1890 she returned to Oregon and was employed by the state in 1893 to compile her History of the Early Indian Wars of Oregon, a volume which was published by the State Printer the following year. She continued to write for the Oregon Historical Quarterly up to the time of her death. Her last published work was a small volume of poems printed in 1900, and selected from the many metrical compositions which she had written for newspapers and magazines through a period of sixty years. She was an able writer of essay, and possessed an insight into the evolution of civilization and government rare, not only for an author of her sex, but for any author. Combining the qualities of poet, essayist and historian, she occupied a position without a peer in the annals of Western literature. She died at Portland, Oregon, November 14, 1902).

Data on Alaska and the Russian Colony at Fort Ross, California, were being collected and translated during these years by Ivan Petroff, a highly educated Russian some time resident at Cook's Inlet. Material from Russia was furnished by the savant M. Pinart who had made a special study of Alaska, and Petroff prepared translations. In 1878 he visited Alaska in search of more material, and spent the year 1879 and part of 1880 in Washington extracting matter from papers, the existence of which he had discovered on the northern trip; (Lit. Ind., 551-561.) Petroff had begun the writing of this material and had done part of the Alaska volume when he left the library to become supervisor of the census of 1880 in the Northern Territory, leaving Mr. Bancroft and others to bring this part of the work to completion.

(The main facts of Petroff's life which had been a very eventful one are here taken from Bancroft's Literary Industries, 270-272. He was born at St. Petersburg in 1842, his father being a soldier. His mother died in his infancy, and at the age of five, he was placed in the military academy of the first corps of cadets at St. Petersburg. Left an orphan when but a boy by the death of his father at the battle of Inkerman, a remarkable talent for languages secured his transfer to the imperial academy of sciences for training as military interpreter. A serious illness caused an impediment in his speech which ended such prospects, but he was nevertheless permitted to continue his studies and became amanuensis for Professor Bohttink while engaged in the preparation of a Sanscrit dictionary. Attached subsequently to M. Brosset, who was making a study of Armenian antiquities and literature, he became so proficient in the language that he was chosen to accompany his superior on a two-year scientific expedition through Georgia and Armenia. He was then sent to Paris to St. Hilaire with part of the material obtained, thence sailing for New York in 1861. After working a short time on the Courier des Etats Unis, he enlisted in the seventh New Hampshire regiment. By hard study he mastered the language, after writing letters for the soldiers as a means of practice, and acquired a proficiency in the use of English such as one seldom meets with in a foreigner. From private he became corporal, then sergeant and color bearer, a rank which he held in 1864, when his company was sent to Florida. He took part in all the battles fought by Butler's army and was twice wounded. After the battle of Fort Fisher, he was promoted to a lieutenancy. Mustered out in July, 1865, he returned to New York, and accepted a position for five years with the Russian American Company at Sitka, believing that this region was sooner or later to pass to the United States. On the way to Alaska he was delayed and improved the time by making a horseback tour of Northern California, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Finding his position filled when he arrived at Sitka, he was given charge of a trading post on Cook's Inlet until the transfer of the territory to the United States in 1867. Subsequently Petroff was appointed acting custom officer on Kodiak Island and was put in charge of the seized barkentine Constitution, with which he arrived in San Francisco in October, 1870. Mr. Bancroft at once sought his services as Russian interpreter for the library. After his return to the government service in the north, he distinguished himself both in 1880 and 1890 by his zeal in securing information concerning Alaska desired by the census bureau, and several times risked his life in this service. Returning to Washington he was subsequently employed both by the census bureau and the state department. With one exception, the Utah volume, this was the last of the series of history proper to the actual authorship of any considerable part of which Mr. Bancroft can lay claim.)

So great was the opposition created among Gentiles in Utah by a turn in the Bancroft history more favorable to the Mormons than they considered fair, and so many and so fierce the charges against Mr. Bancroft in consequence, that he has apparently been very careful to give, in the Literary Industries (pp. 631-640), an extended account of the manner of collecting the material for the History of Utah. Here he tells us that, at an early date in the development of the history project, he realized the difficulty of gaining data on Mormon history, an obstacle apparently so great as to be insuperable. For though the Mormon church have a regular historian, whose duty it is to preserve their archives, the director of the Bancroft project at once perceived the objections which would be made to the turning of this material over to be written up by one not in sympathy with their faith. But he must have seen very clearly that a Gentile history of Utah not unfavorable to the Mormons was the one thing they desired above all else. Accordingly, in 1880, he tells us that he succeeded in showing to their satisfaction that he was not prejudiced against them, and asked Orson B. Pratt, official historian of the Mormon church, for the desired information. John Taylor, president of the church, called a council of its twelve apostles, with the result that it was agreed to comply with the request, and Franklin D. Richards was sent to San Francisco as Professor Pratt's representative, to furnish the Bancroft library with such material as was desired from the official church records.

The year 1880 is an important one for the history project in another and more important respect also. The end of that year found definite plans made for the publication of the History of the Pacific States. Mr. Bancroft had long since decided that, unlike the Native Races, this work should be handled exclusively by his own house, and Mr. Nathan J. Stone was placed in charge of the publication department of the firm, now A. L. Bancroft and Company, to attend especially to this matter. The date of commencement of work by the printers Oak sought to have deferred that there might be no haste in searching out and digesting facts, but against his advice Bancroft determined to begin the publication of the series in 1882, impatient doubtless at the prospect of a deferred return from his large financial investment in the work, and somewhat fearful, as he tells us, lest through some calamity it might never come to publication.

This decision for an early beginning of publication with the general change in plan which it brought, rendered Mr. Oak's complicated tasks too severe, as he was now in failing health. The work of taking notes on the vast amount of material on California and the Spanish Southwest generally had been finished some time before, and, as Oak had now completed his preliminary researches, he determined to give up part of his duties that he might have time to write the volume covering his field. To Mr. Nemos, who up to this time had been employed chiefly on the Mexican volumes, was accordingly turned over the general direction of the half-dozen younger writers, together with the plans of writing, and the management of the note-takers, a change which gave him all interior supervision except over special departments attended to by Mr. Bancroft—such as the work of Oak and Mrs. Victor. Nemos had wonderful ability for drilling men into a common method and served as director of library detail "with remarkable ability and success."

(This was Oak's expression. All who speak of Nemos have much commendation for his ability. He was born in Finland, February 23, 1848, the son of a nobleman. German and piano lessons were first given him by his mother, who belonged to a wealthy family of good stock. After a year's study in a private school at St. Petersburg, he returned home to attend school, and later took a course at the gymnasium, or classic high school, at Stockholm preparatory to entering Upsala university, where a brother was at the time in attendance.