Volume II]
JUNE, 1901
[Number 2
THE QUARTERLY
OF THE
OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
THE FORMATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF OREGON.
An address given by Hon. H.W. Scott, President of the Oregon Historical Society, at the unveiling of the Champoeg monument, May 2, 1901.[1]
We are here to-day to commemorate an event that took place on this spot eight and fifty years ago. That event was the birth of the first American commonwealth, the organization of the first American government on the Pacific Coast of the United States of America.
Oregon in those days was much more distant from our Atlantic States in time, and far more difficult to be reached, than America was from Europe when the settlement of the American continent began. The migration
- ↑ The Board of Directors of the Oregon Historical Society, in pursuance of the object of the society to identify and mark historical sites, had, through its committee, Hon. T. T. Geer, Governor of the state, and Assistant Secretary George H. Himes, identified the spot where the vote for organization was taken on May 2, 1843. The Hon. F. X. Matthieu, the only surviving participant in the formation of the Provisional Government, was their main, if not sole, reliance in accomplishing this. Governor Geer then recommended to the next Legislative Assembly of Oregon that it appropriate a modest sum for a monument to mark the spot. The legislature acted in accordance with his recommendation. The monument was unveiled on an anniversary of the event it commemorates in the presence of a large and representative assemblage of citizens of Oregon.
