of the minor poets from 1850 to 1900, with brief biographical sketches and selections from their poetry. To make the record as complete as possible, ten others for this period are listed with their books, and several are mentioned who did not write books but contributed to the newspapers and magazines.
Ewing Young's two-volume Shakespeare was sold to C. M. Walker for $3.50 at the first auction sale of the estate on May 26, 1841. Three years before this Mrs. Jason Lee of Willamette Settlement had written to her husband the farewell poem given on page 67, and five years later Mrs. Margaret Jewett Bailey of French Prairie, author subsequently of Ruth Rover, contributed to the Oregon Spectator such verses as "Affliction," with the beginning stanza—
A roof withheld the falling dew,
And once I wondered much to see
A drop as pure as drop can be,
Sit laughingly upon each leaf
Like joy upon the eye of grief.
and "May Morning in Oregon," which is printed on page 166. Edwin Markham has been quoted as saying that his mother, Elizabeth Markham, who wrote verses for the Oregon Spectator for several years, beginning in 1848, was "the earliest woman writer recorded in Oregon." In fact, these two women preceded her, one by ten years, the other by two, and Mrs. Bailey was a considerably more competent poet than Mrs. Markham, with whom, however, this chapter will begin, since the other two have been previously considered.
