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WILLIAM H. GALVANI
who, in 1842, in Hunt's Magazine, solves the great mystery by attributing the whole matter to a supposed tradition, said to have prevailed among the Indians near Lake Superior, of a mighty river of the name of Oregon, emptying its waters into the Pacific. Then, too, Bryant's celebrated "Thanatopsis," written in 1812, refers to the Columbia River as the Oregon "where rolls the O'regon, and hears no sound save his own dashings," Nor should we overlook Professor Josiah D. Whitney's theory of the derivation of the name of Oregon from Ore-jon, or Big-ear, a name supposed to have been applied to the Indians of the Northwest Coast by the early Spanish explorers. 13
Finally, we have more recently been treated to the latest effort of a most fertile imagination, and by not less a person than Joaquin Miller, the poet of the Sierras ; who, after thirty long years of contemplation and inquiry, made the startling discovery that the name of Oregon is derived from the Spanish Oye-el-agua ; hear the waters. 14 Wonderful, most wonderful!
Herein is practically a complete list of the explanations for the derivation of the name of Oregon, explanations which to anyone of a historical or linguistic turn of mind explain noth- ing of its meaning, nor of its actual derivation.
In the absence of documentary evidence, there is but one way to get at the heart of this mystery. We must turn to the early settlers and to the homes they left behind them. Just as the Dutch, the English and the French on the Atlantic, or east coast of the New Continent, applied to their new homes the names of their former cities and districts, so, indeed, the settlers on the shores of the Pacific must have done likewise. Hence, since we have shown and indeed it is admitted on all sides that the first settlers on the Pacific were Spaniards, they, and they only, must have named the new territory, and after some spot most dear to their hearts. Undoubtedly among those Spaniards, who first settled in what has become known as the Oregon country, there were many who fled from Spain because of the political tyranny and ecclesiastical persecution of those
13 Whitney, Josiah D., Names and Places, pag 28. Cambridge, 1888.
14 See, Morning Oregonian, October 21st, 1907.
