crank, but that was not the case. On the contrary he was a man of distinctive type, of much nobility of purpose, that had just happened in his early youth to imagine that he would not like railroading. And the people that followed his example were people of good blood and in some instances of high education and all in all they made up a fine average community. More than likely many small towns in New England two hundred years ago were like Silverton was twenty years ago, but a town like Silverton was then would be hard to locate nowadays, and the Silverton of to-day is in few respects like the fine old dignified town of even 1885. They were the pioneers and the first generation. To-day it’s different. The old Silverton was given a certain dignity by a very large and remarkably shaped old oak tree that stood in the center of the Main Street; how old it was no one knew but it had been the shade for the Molalla and Santiam Indians for unknown generations and was more than likely in the direct route of these Indians who went to and fro from the Council of the Great Multuomah Tribe on the Columbia River prior to the falling of “the bridge of the Gods.”
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6
PREFACE
