Jump to content

Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/191

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
News and Comment
165

was the oldest member present, and R. W. Barr, 86, was the oldest man.


LEWISTON CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

The centennial year of the founding of the Whitman-Spalding missions will be commemorated in a number of localities during the year. The first celebration was held May 7-10, at Lewiston, Idaho, sponsored and directed by the Idaho Spalding Centennial Association. Among the prominent events was a pageant, “West of the Lolo Trail," written by Mrs. Fred C. Erb to dramatize important episodes in the history of Idaho. Hundreds of Nez Perce Indians assembled for their annual ka-oo-yit festival with which they mark the first yield of food supplies of the new year. The floral parade had representations of the mission press, the first mission house, and the first grist mill. An exhibit that created great interest was the little mission press, which was originally sent to Lapwai in 1839. It is now owned by the Oregon Historical Society, and was loaned for the occasion. In honor of the centennial the Lewiston Morning Tribune, May 3, issued a special number containing many interesting pictures and articles.


HISTORIC MONUMENTS

A granite shaft, inscribed with the Chinook jargon words “Ankutty Tillikum Musem,"—Here the Ancient People Sleep, was dedicated at the Greenwood cemetery, near North Bonneville, Washington, May 27, 1936. The monument marks the site of the reburial of Indian bones and relics removed from Indian graves on Bradford Island when the Bonneville dam construction began. Lieutenant Colonel C. F. Williams, district engineer, has supervised the collecting which has been going on since 1934, by tribesmen of the Yakima and Warm Springs reservation. Walter Hufford, Stevenson, Washington, represented the Oregon Historical Society at the services. Isabella Underwood, granddaughter of Chief Banaha, unveiled the shaft.

The work of restoring old Fort Stevens, at the mouth of the Columbia, as a historic monument is progressing under the direction of Major William R. Stewart, commandant of the present fort. The Oregon territorial legislature ceded the site of the present military reservation in 1854, and construction of the fort was begun in 1863. It was named for General I. I. Stevens. The restoration will probably be completed by July 4, 1936, when dedication services will be held. A description of the fort is in the Oregon Journal, April 26, 1936.


MISCELLANEOUS

The Oregon Historical Society has received through the courtesy of Mr. Courtland Matthews, field supervisor of the federal document survey, three photographs of the Indian Citizen, a paper edited and published by the Indian children of the Indian Industrial School, at Forest Grove. The photograph shows the first page of volume 1, number 1, February, 1884, another page dated May, 1884; the third page has nothing to indicate the date. The originals were found in a box in the cornerstone of the Clackamas County courthouse when the building was razed, and are now in the possession of County Judge W. O. Vaughan, Oregon City.

The survey of historic records is bringing to light a number of long forgotten documents. In Yamhill County was found a justice court docket recording civil and criminal cases in Lafayette precinct from 1851 to 1854. At Canyon City a copy of the City Journal, July 26, 1869, owned by Perry F. Chandler, editor of the Blue Mountain Eagle, contained an early poem of Joaquin Miller called "From Benoni," and signed C. H. Miller.

Dr. C. A. Arnold, paleobotanist at the University of Michigan, in