Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/49

UMPQUA ACADEMY 39 timers), one of the very early principals of Umpqua Academy. I was then about five years old. We lived on our old home- stead near the foot of Tyee mountain in lower Calapooia val- ley. Mr. Royal and some members of his family came to our home along late in the afternoon, intending to stay over night. I was afraid of strangers, and especially of preachers, al- though I did not then know what the term preacher meant, so it required some persuasion from my father to induce me to let Mr. Royal take my hand. He smiled and tried to be pleasant, but that was all camouflage to my thinking. For several years one of his knees was stiff, and by some irreverent persons he was called "Peg Leg." Years afterward, by an accident, the nature of which my memory now fails to recall, his knee was severely wrenched and thereby restored to mo- bility. It seems now that he was never absent from any meet- ing or camp meeting in those early days. I have heard him preach many times at Wilbur, Calapooia and Coles Valley. He was six feet or more in height, dark of complexion, straight and quick of movement. He served one term, at least, as County School Superintendent for Douglas County, and he was a genuine enthusiast in religious and educational work. Be it remembered there were no railroads in those days. No automobiles, no carriages or buggies, no stage coaches and few horses at the first. The mail was carried on horseback and, when sufficient to require it, by pack horses. W. H. Byars, later a member of the first graduating class of Umpqua Academy, carried the U. S. Mail from Winchester south across Southern Oregon, over primitive roads and trails, via Roseburg, Canyonville, Jacksonville, over the Siskiyou Mountains to Yreka in North- ern California, when but sixteen years old. His hair breadth escapes from Indians and highwaymen, when told now sound like fable. Soon horses became more plentiful and everybody rode horseback, and hacks and buggies came into use. I cannot now recall the occasion of my first visit to Wilbur, but it was some time during the very early days of the Acad- emy when I was a little boy. My mother was a devout Metho-