Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/408

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Frances Fuller Victor.

when in 1841 he died, and his estate escheated to the first formed provisional government of Oregon. Ultimately it was recovered by his son and heir. Thus one of the results of Hall J. Kelley's colonizing scheme was the establishment of an American colony upon the dissolving foundation of a religious one; the organization of a temperance society; the importation of cattle, and the final adoption of a temporary form of government, with his associate's money in its treasury.[1]

To return to the fortunes of Kelley himself, he remained excluded from the fort while Doctor McLoughlin was in correspondence with Governor Figueroa, and, in fact, seems to have continued to reside in hospital quarters during his stay in Oregon, partly out of resentment, and partly because he had no clothing fit to be worn in the society of gentlemen punctilious as those at Vancouver. Roberts says of him that he was dressed in leather pantaloons with a red stripe down the seam, a blanket capote, and a white slouched hat, "rather outre even for Vancouver.' In another place he is spoken of by Roberts as "penniless and ill-clad, and was considered rather too rough for close companionship, and was not invited to the mess. Our people did not know, or care for, the equality he had perhaps been accustomed to. It should be borne in mind that discipline in those days was rather severe, and a general commingling would not do.' Kelley himself says that the cause of his exclusion was that Doctor McLoughlin was well informed of his colonization views and his writings thereon.


  1. The sum recovered by Joaquin, son of Young, twenty-two years after the estate was taken charge of by the missionary officers was only $5,108.94. I am not aware what was the sum invested by Young in the cattle company. Jason Lee put in $500 advanced by Slacum, the settlers $1,100, and Doctor McLoughlin $900, making $2,500. D. Lee makes it $2,880. The number of cattle that arrived was six hundred and thirty. Young had built a saw-mill on the Chehalem, which was destroyed by a flood a short time before his death.