THE DEBATED COUNTRY
The world was sad, the garden
was a wild!
The man, the hermit, sighed—till woman
smiled!
—Campbell.
Our army of peaceful occupation scattered along the
more fertile parts of the land, principally among
the valleys. Of course, it should not be forgotten
that what was then called Oregon meant all of what
now is embraced in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, with
part of Wyoming as well. It extended south to
the Mexican possessions of California. How far
north it was to run, it was my errand here to learn.
To all apparent purposes, I simply was one of the
new settlers in Oregon, animated by like motives,
possessed of little more means, and disposed to adjust
myself to existing circumstances, much as did my fellows.
The physical conditions of life in a country abounding
in wild game and fish, and where even careless planting
would yield abundant crops, offered no very difficult
task to young men accustomed to shifting for themselves;
so that I looked forward to the winter with no dread.
I settled near the mouth of the Willamette River,
near Oregon City, and not far from where the city
of Portland later was begun; and builded for myself
a little cabin of two rooms, with a connecting roof.
This I furnished, as did my neighbors their similar
abodes, with a table made of hewed puncheons, chairs
sawed from blocks, a bed framed from poles, on which
lay a rude mattress of husks and straw. My window-panes
were made of oiled deer hide. Thinking that perhaps
I might need to plow in the coming season, I made
me a plow like those around me, which might have come
from Mexico or Egypt—a forked limb bound
with rawhide. Wood and hide, were, indeed, our
only materials. If a wagon wheel showed signs
of disintegration, we lashed it together with rawhide.
When the settlers of the last year sought to carry
wheat to market on the Willamette barges, they did
so in sacks made of the hides of deer. Our clothing
was of skins and furs.
From the Eastern States I scarcely could now hear
in less than a year, for another wagon train could
not start west from the Missouri until the following
spring. We could only guess how events were going
forward in our diplomacy. We did not know, and
would not know for a year, the result of the Democratic
convention at Baltimore, of the preceding spring!
We could only wonder who might be the party nominees
for the presidency. We had a national government,
but did not know what it was, or who administered
it. War might be declared, but we in Oregon would
not be aware of it. Again, war might break out
in Oregon, and the government at Washington could
not know that fact.
