resources, where he had Hved during the preceding four years, ahnost within sight of the Pacific Ocean. At Peoria, Ilhnois, he left one of two Indian boys who had gone east with him, and perhaps partly on that account a special interest was aroused at that place. In the following spring Mr. Thomas J. Farnham of Peoria, with a company of fourteen men, undertook the overland trip to Oregon. He failed to keep his party together, and finished the journey with but three associates. Farnham visited the Whitman mission, and later the Willamette settlement, after which he took ship to the Hawaiian Islands and to California. On his return to the United States he published popular accounts of the Oregon country, as well as of California, which were widely read and helped to swell the rising tide of interest in the far west.
Petitions and memorials. The settlers in the Willamette valley intrusted Farnham with a memorial to Congress, asking that the protection of the United States government might be extended over them. Lee had carried with him from Oregon a similar petition, which was presented to Congress in January, 1839, by Senator Linn. It spoke of the fertility of the Willamette and Umpqua valleys, the unsurpassed facilities for stock raising, the mild and pleasant climate of western Oregon, and the exceptional opportunities for commerce. A special point was made of the growing trade with the Hawaiian Islands, whose people needed the beef and flour produced in the Willamette valley, and would soon be able to exchange for them coffee, sugar.
