governor. He arrived at Olympia on the 26th of November, 1853, and the new organization was put in operation.^
Beginnings of settlement in southern Oregon. As the gold discovery promoted the prosperity of the Willamette valley and Puget Sound, so it led also to the planting of new communities in other favourable districts of the Northwest. The region known as southern Oregon contains the two important valleys of the Umpqua and Rogue rivers. It had already become known to the pioneers, partly through explorations for a southern emigrant road made in 1846 under the direction of Jesse Applegate. ' A portion of the emigration of that and the following years came to the Willamette over this route; and when Oregon men began going to the gold mines of California, the country became still better known. Wagons and pack trains, men on foot and on horseback, were continually passing back and forth; so that it was not long before a few individuals, impressed with the beauty of the landscape, the excellence of the grass and water, and the
1 General Stevens was a trained soldier and engineer, a graduate of West Point. His success in finding a practicable line for a railroad immediately gave him great influence with the people of Washington, who believed thoroughly in the future of their section. He served as governor till 1857, was then elected delegate to Congress from the territory, remaining in that position till the breaking out of the Civil War, when he went to the field of action. He was killed while gallantly leading his division at Chantilly. The "Life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens," by Hazard Stevens, 2 vols., Boston, 1900, gives a full account of his services and much valuable matter on the history of the
