working for an eternity of fame through the brains of other men and women hired to do the literary labor of producing forty—four octavo volumes of 800 pages each. The Oregon part of this great history was prepared, compared and written by Mrs. Frances Fuller Victor. For many years prior to the issuance of this history of Oregon, Mrs. Victor had been gathering materials all over Oregon and Washington to write a history of these two states. And when Mr. Bancroft decided to undertake this great history work, hearing that Mrs. Victor had gathered up this material he sought her out offering her employment for a term of years, working on his books on condition that she turn over all her gleanings to him as his property; and if she would not do so, he would anticipate her work by bringing out a history of Oregon in advance and thus ruin her prospects. It was what would be called in modern parlance, a "hold up;" and it succeeded; and Mrs. Victor gave all her collections and brain work for twenty-five years to the Bancroft History Company for stated employment as a writer on Bancroft's books for six years. The Bancroft histories are the most complete and valuable on the subject they cover of any of the main works on Pacific coast history; although the same information might have been well set forth in one— half the space they cover.
Following the Bancroft work the next year came the voluminous history of the North Pacific History Company, edited by Mr. Elwood Evans, of Olympia, Washington. This is a large work of two quarto volumes of 650 pages each; and is planned to cover the entire history of Oregon and Washington from the discovery of the country by the Spaniards in 1603 down to the year 1889. The work is especially valuable for the portraits of the pioneers it contains, numbering altogether 670 of very good wood-cut engravings, which will greatly increase in value as the years roll by.
The last formal work of history relating to Portland or Oregon, is that of the city of Portland, by Mr. H. W. Scott. issued in the year 1890. This was the first work specially devoted to the history of this city; and considering the fact that Mr. Scott had on his hands at the same time the editorial management and the leading part in the editorial work of the daily and weekly Oregonian, it is a convincing proof of his immense capacity for mental labor, and his remarkable talent for unexcelled literary composition. But aside from this volume of 600 pages, Mr. Scott was for more than twenty years the most fruitful contributor to the history of the state, and of the northwest in the form of lectures and addresses before literary societies, clubs, associations, and colleges, as well as to the Oregon Historical Quarterly. He had the rare talent of a discriminating judgment as to the facts of history, as well as the philosophical acumen to discern and point out the principles of thought and action which the analysis of co-relating facts establish. And his great service to Oregon, and to mankind in this regard will not be fully apprehended and appreciated until the lapse of time has enabled men to compare and estimate the influence of his mental personality on the political and social movements of his age.
In the line of biography as related to the history of Portland, the work of Mr. Frederick V. Holman in his exhaustive study of the life of Dr. John McLoughlin, seems to stand alone. No just or complete idea of the life work and real character of McLoughlin can be obtained without reading Mr. Holman's book. The monograph in this history furnished by Mr. Holman on McLoughlin's "The Father of Oregon." while it is a masterly statement of a great matter in the fewest possible words, does not fully set forth the great work of McLoughlin, and only gives the reader a desire to hear the whole story, which they can find in Mr. Holman's completed biography of Dr. McLoughlin.
Many other men have devoted much time and patient research to the history of Portland and Oregon, and have made permanent record in the Oregon Historical Quarterly of their studies. Among these should be mentioned Mr. F. G. Young, secretary of the Oregon Historical Society, and professor of history in the State university. Mr. Young also put in one summer vacation in tracing out
