Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/395

NOTES ON THE COLONIZATION OF OREGON. 389 entire journey to the Columbia, which is likewise based upon the diary, and is therefore a safe guide for all matters like dates, places, and distances. The student should carefully avoid the pseudo-Burnett source printed in George Wilkes' so-called "History of Oregon," New York, 1845. This account of the 1843 emigration is based on the letters written by Burnett to the New York Herald ; but Wilkes has worked over the material contained in the letters in his own peculiar way and with the deliberate purpose of deceiving his readers concerning the hardships of the western portion of the road. Detailed evidence to prove this charge has been given elsewhere. (See, especially, the Portland Oregonian, Sunday, November 1, 1903.) The journal of Fremont's second expedition affords some material on the emigration, for Fremont saw much of the emigrants at certain points on the route. However, it is a subsidiary source. So are, also, though for a differ- ent reason, the interesting narratives by J. W. Nesmith and others printed in the Oregon Pioneer Association volume. These, while containing much valuable material, are usually in the form of reminiscences which must always be used with caution. One of them, however, Jesse Applegate's "A Day with the Cow-Column," is de- serving of special notice as a peculiarly valuable source. In this paper, read before the Oregon Pioneer Association in 1877, Applegate, the preeminent literary genius of the 1843 emigration, gives an intimate and most delightful account of a typical day on the plains during the long, dreary, overland march. Dealing almost wholly with matters of a general character easily retained by the mem- ory, the document may be followed with safety. And it is a literary gem, which, in my opinion, ought to have a place in every school reader of appropriate grade used in the Coast States. It was reprinted in the Oregon Trail