reflected unanimously. It was during his term as governor that the Southampton massacre in Nat Turner's Insurrection took place. An ardent supporter of Jackson, his belief in States rights was deeper. He sympathized with South Carolina in the contest over the tariff and nullification, and was honored by her electoral vote for the presidency in 1832. He died in 1837 at the age of fifty. His son, John Buchanan Floyd, rose to distinction in public life and became governor of the State and Secretary of War in Buchanan's administration.
The sources of Floyd's interest in Oregon are not difficult to discover. He was born on the frontier among the adventurous pioneers of Kentucky. His first cousin, Charles Floyd, was a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, holding the rank of sergeant, and lost his life in the earlier months of its history. The friendship of William Clark, he remarked in a speech in Congress, "he had the honor to enjoy from his earliest youth,"[1] and his admiration for George Rogers Clark is evinced by his naming two of his sons for him.
When Floyd went to Washington in the early winter of 1820-21 he boarded at Brown's hotel with Senator Benton, where he met Mr. Ramsey Crooks of New York and Mr. Russell Farnham of Massachusetts, both of whom had been engaged in the Astoria enterprise. Mr. Crooks, who had earlier been in the employ of the Northwest Company, went overland to the Columbia with Hunt, while Mr. Farnham had gone out in the Tonquin. Benton tells us that "their conversation, rich in information upon a new and interesting country, was eagerly devoured by the ardent spirit of Floyd. He resolved to bring forward the question of occupation and did so."[2] It is sufficiently clear,
