to be counted. The ayes were fifty-two, the noes fifty. Another account says the ayes were fifty-five; but it is probable that in the larger number some absentees, or persons who were expected but were not present, were included. Upon the announcement of the vote the opponents of the organization mounted their horses and rode away, leaving the field to the Americans. It was a victory to which missionaries, mountaineers, and independent settlers had contributed; it was a victory of the American spirit, asserted by a courageous few, at this remotest outpost of the American republic. Honor to the spirit and courage of Joseph L. Meek; honor to the leadership and memory of one who, though wholly without conventional culture, and lacking even in the elementary parts of school education, proved himself the man for the place and time.
No list was made at the time of the names of those whose votes that day carried the motion to establish a government in Oregon—the first government on the Pacific Slope within the domain of the United States. Diligent effort has been made to recover the names, and the effort has been almost wholly successful; but the list now obtainable depends on the memory of witnesses who were present, but one of whom survives to this day. This is F. X. Matthieu, who has lived continuously in this vicinity ever since the day of that meeting. Another, John L. Morrison, who came to Oregon in 1842, who built the first house on Morrison Street, in Portland, and for whom the street was named, was, till recently, living upon one of the islands in the northern part of Puget Sound. One of the most active, earnest and forceful of the men who helped to carry the day, May 2, 1843, was William H. Gray, who came with Whitman in 1836. He is one distinctly to be named among the fathers of Oregon. It is
