Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/231

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A Hero of Old Astoria
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executive document number 59 of the Thirty-second Congress, started Perry to Japan. McDonald always insisted that he opened the way for Perry, and it was his suggestion that models of western ingenuity should be taken and exhibited.

After years of adventure, Ranald McDonald returned to Oregon, to find it divided into Oregon, Washington and Idaho, and among the ruins of old Fort Colville he spent his declining years. In 1892 he made a pilgrimage to Astoria to press his claims for recompense as heir to the Chinook lands of his grandfather, King Cumcumly. But alas, he found himself, "A prince without a principality, a king without a subject." Sadly he journeyed back up the Columbia where, widely known as "Old Sir Ranald," the aristocratic old man died among his tumble-down buildings at the ripe age of seventy years, August 24, 1894.

Of all Oregonians, Ranald McDonald deserves a statue, pointing toward Japan.