the district of Vancouver,[1] which embraced all that part of Oregon north and west of the Columbia River.[2] But now arose the question of apportionment and other matters connected therewith; a point in legislation upon which Applegate and a few others regarded as most important, to wit: Would the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company become parties to the articles of compact by the payment of taxes, and complying with the laws of the provisional government, which only promised protection to its adherents?[3] Should they refuse their support, they would become outlawed, and the objective point if not the prey of any turbulent spirits of the next immigration, who like Alderman might choose to settle on their lands, or like Chapman, threaten to burn Fort Vancouver.[4]
The committee on apportionment was composed of I. W. Smith, H. A. G. Lee, B. Lee, Applegate, and McClure. Applegate proposed in a private session of the committee to get the sentiments of the Hudson's Bay Company on the question of the compact, and was deputized by them to hold a private inter-
- ↑ It seems from the archives that McClure from the committee on districts reported a bill in relation to two counties north of the Columbia; but that Applegate, who had a prejudice in favor of the word 'district,' was allowed to control the choice. It was his wish, also, to name the two counties Lewis and Clarke; but upon reconsidering the matter, gave up Clarke for Vancouver. Only one district was defined at this time; and at the next session Lewis County was created, and the word 'county' was substituted for district in all the laws where it occurred.
- ↑ Or. Laws, 1843-9.
- ↑ Applegate says: 'To organize a civil or military power that did not include all parties was simply organizing internecine war. To prevent such a state of things, I took a seat in the legislature.' Marginal notes on Gray's Hist. Or., 422.
- ↑ This man is several times referred to in McLoughlin's Private Papers, where he says Chapman boasted that he came all the way from the States for the purpose of burning Fort Vancouver. White relieved the country of this dread by inducing Chapman to return with him to the United States. But there were several dangerous men who came with the immigrations in the territory, of whom McLoughlin stood in fear, one of whom confessed in a Methodist camp-meeting that he had belonged to the famous Murrill band of robbers which gave the authorities trouble for a number of years in the Mississippi Valley. Burnett speaks of several 'idle, worthless young men, too lazy to work at home, and too genteel to steal; while some others were gamblers, and others reputed thieves;' but says that in Oregon they were compelled to work or starve, and that this necessity made them good citizens. Recollections of a Pioneer, 180-1.
