time, had a few straggling huts, and Portland was a village, with its streets so full of stumps as to require a 264 good driver to get through with safety, and was referred to as a town twelve miles below Oregon City.
To the writer nothing has left such an impression of wilderness and solitude as a journey up the Willamette, forty-five years ago, in a birch-bark canoe, paddled by two Indian guides. The wild ducks were scarcely disturbed, and dropped to the water a hundred yards away, and the three-pronged buck, browsing among the lily pads, stopped to look at the unusual invasion of his domain, and went on feeding.
The population of Oregon in that year, 1850, as shown by census, was 13,294, and that included all of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, with a part of Wyoming and Montana.
After years of importunity, Congress had given Oregon a Territorial Government in 1849. Prior to that—from 1843 to 1849—it was an independent American government, for the people and by the people. Notwithstanding the neglect of Oregon by the General Government, and its entire failure to foster or protect, the old pioneers were true and loyal American citizens, and for six years took such care of themselves as they were able, and performed the task so well as to merit the best words of commendation.
