The early history is somewhat misty, but the following slight sketch is, I believe, accurate:
The coast of Oregon was visited both by British and Spanish navigators in the sixteenth century. In 1778 Captain Cook sailed along the coast. In 1775 Heceta, and in 1792 Vancouver, both suspected the existence of the Columbia River from the appearance of its estuary. But in 1792 Captain Gray, of Boston, and afterward, in the same year, Captain Baker, an Englishman, entered the estuary itself. It was on Captain Gray's discovery that the United States Government afterward rested its claim to the whole country watered by the great river, the mouth of which he had discovered. But Lieutenant Broughton, of the British Navy, in 1792 or 1793, a very few months after Captain Gray's visit, actually ascended the Columbia for one hundred miles, and laid claim to the country in the name of King George III. In 1804 the American Government expedition of Lewis and Clark crossed the Rocky Mountains, descended the Columbia, and passed the winter of 1805-'6 at its mouth; and the records of their discoveries first drew public attention to the country. In 1810 Captain Winship, also from New England, built the first house in Oregon. Astoria was founded in 1811 by John Jacob Astor, of New York, as a trading-port. The British, while the war was raging in 1813, took possession of the post and named it Fort George. Then followed the Hudson Bay Company, who claimed the sovereignty of the country under the terms of their wide charter. They established their headquarters for the North Pacific coast at Vancouver, on the north bank of the Columbia, about one hundred miles from its mouth. There the fort was built, the settlement formed, farming began, and the Governor of the Hudson Bay Territory had his Western home.
In 1832 the first school was opened. Between 1834 and 1837 missionaries of various denominations arrived, bringing cattle with them; and in 1841 Commodore Wilkes visited Oregon on an exploring expedition by order of the United States Government. From 1816 to 1846 the "joint occupancy" of Oregon by the American and British Governments lasted under treaty.
In 1843 the people were for the first time recognized, and united in forming a provisional government, formally accepted at a general election in 1845. By the year 1846 the white population numbered about ten thousand souls, and in that year the Oregon Territory, including both the present State of Oregon and also Washington Territory, was ceded, under the Ashburton Treaty, by the British Government to the United States.
Congress formally recognized the Territory of Oregon in 1848, and in 1849 General Joe Lane entered office as the first Territorial Governor. His portrait now adorns the Capitol building. And the old general, still erect and in full preservation, in spite of his years and services, has been until this spring of 1881 yet seen and respectfully greeted at many a public gathering.
ENTRANCE AS A STATE.In 1859 Oregon was admitted into the Union as a sovereign State; the population was 52,465. In 1880 the census gave a total of 174,767 souls, showing an increase of 122,302 in twenty-one years, and an increase of 74,767 over the State census in 1875. But, after all, the history of a State is the history of its people.
Nowadays we enter Oregon within twenty days from Liverpool, having been speeded on our journey by steamships and railroads in continuous connections. Within two years the State expects to have two direct lines of Eastern communication—one by the Northern Pacific, the other by a line through the southeastern corner of the State to Reno, on the Central Pacific—shortening the twenty to sixteen days. Within two years more it is hoped that the Oregon Pacific will make communication at Boisé City, Idaho, with independent Eastern lines, and open a still more direct course out to the centers of population and enterprise. But in the early days, from 1846 to 1851, when the tide of settlement ran first this way, their experiences were widely different.
Listen to the tales some of these men tell—not old men yet by any means; the vigor and power of life still burn in most of them, for the dates are but thirty years back. But what a different life these pioneers led then!
Let me sketch the scene and its surroundings where these "jottings round the stove" are made. It is rather a dusty old room, and a rusty old stove in the middle, and rather a dusty and rusty company are gathered round it. Winter-time is upon us; the rain falls in a ceaseless drizzle, and the drops from the eaves patter on the fallen leaves of the plane-trees round the house. The time is after the noon dinner-hour; no work presses, for the fall wheat is all in, and there is a sense of warmth and comfort within, which contrasts with the dim scene without, where the rain-mists obscure the hills and fill the valley with their slowly driving masses.
Five or six of us "sit around"—mostly on two legs of the chairs, and our boots are propped up on the ridge round the stove. We don't go much on broadcloth and "biled" shirts, but we prefer stout flannel shirts and brown overalls, with our trousers tucked inside our knee-high boots. Tobacco in one form or the other occupies each one. Carpets we have no use for, and it is good that the arm-chairs are of fir, as the arms are so handy for whittling, there being no loose pieces of soft wood by. But we are all good friends, and I, for one, do not wish for better company for an hour or two "around the stove."