Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 15.djvu/84

Lee, the two chief figures of the time in the Northwest, were both absent, and it seems to be an open question as to whether they were absent by accident or design. That was the one crucial and pregnant occasion of our early day history. There are some reasons to believe that Dr. McLoughlin, in spite of his relationship to the Hudson Bay Company, desired an inde- pendent government, and that Jason Lee regarded the move- ment as premature, while really favoring the American con- tention. There was no lack, however, of the presence of men bearing names that are familiar to the pages of the pioneer history of the state. It seems a far cry, back to that beautiful May morning in 1843, when that rugged and motley band of frontiersmen gathered here at this romantic spot, on the banks of the Wil- lamette, of whose varied beauties Sam L. Simpson has so sweetly sung. Little conception had they of the import and vast possibilities involved in the action to be taken by them on that day, and it is even yet difficult to estimate how much their decision has affected the historical currents of the world. The scene was one to challenge the highest talent of the historical painter and the story is one worthy the loftiest periods of an epic poet. These men were the vanguard of the millions who have since followed in their footsteps, and of the multiplied millions who are yet to come. Here was the frontier, thousands of miles from the western borderland of civiliza- tion-the northwest corner of a new and an undiscovered continent. The richest half of what we know as the American continent was theirs. In all that vast empire, stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific, now teeming with its millions of souls, and its billions of wealth, there was hardly a home, or a school, or a church, or an orchard, or a grain field, or a solitary mile of railroad. No richer prize ever greed of man. No greater empire ever asked the taking. They stood at the very dawn of two generations of time whose marvelous achievements had never been matched in any pre- ceding thousand years. mpted the Digitized by Microsoft®