The after-dinner talking took the form of suggestions and plans for improving the work of historical research in the Pacific Northwest.
Good Trails as Well as Roads
Mr. Samuel Hill, long recognized as a leader among good roads advocates in the United States and especially in the Pacific Northwest, has launched on a new campaign to supplement the roads with trails in the mountains. This is a splendid idea and one of the first things necessary is to compile a list of the present trails. This will be helpful to historians for by those trails may many threads of early settlements be traced.
Northwestern History in Congress
The Congressional Record, Sixty-third Congress, Second Session, pages 16571 and 16584, shows that interesting passages of Northwestern history were given to members of the House of Representatives during the debate on coal leases. Congressman Albert Johnson of Washington made a convincing speech to set other Congressmen right as to the acquisition of Oregon through discovery, exploration and settlement and not by purchase.
A Survivor of Many Wars
Mr. Thomas W. Prosch has lately been in receipt of a number of letters from his old pioneer friend, Major Junius Thomas Turner of Washington, D. C. Mr. Turner served in the Mexican War of 1846-47; in 1853 in the Rogue River Indian War; in 1855-56 in the Indian War on Puget Sound, and in 1863-64-65 in the Civil War. He located on Whidby Island in 1853, where he took a donation land claim and where he also served as Auditor, Treasurer and County Judge. He was Chief Clerk at different terms of both branches of the Territorial Legislature. He enlisted in the California Battalion of a Massachusetts Regiment, from which, after a year's service he was discharged that he might accept a proffered Lieutenancy in a Maryland regiment, followed soon by a Captaincy. After the war he engaged in clerical service in the Land Office at Washington, D. C., and later in the practice of law, where he has since remained except for a period in Olympia as Secretary to Gov. Alvan Flanders in 1869-70. Major Turner is now in his 88th year. His other pioneer friends in Oregon and Washington will be pleased to learn that the present Congress has considerably increased his pension, taking into account his advanced age; his disabilities and his services in four wars. Major Turner has a son in the Artillery branch of the U. S. Army, who also has served in the Corps of Engineers.