loneerkozi.et1ion; - ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University

ANNUAL ADDRESS.
costume of that day, never will the eyes of the good people of our old spray.
bedewed city rest upon the like again.
More than half the number whose names are associated with this once brotherly
oldcircle, have linished the journey of life. It is gratifying to be assured that
it is the special mission of this association, to perpetuate the remembrance of
Oregon's departed Pioneers.
The early attempts made by the settlers to form a temporary government
were rather inadequate organizations, and only reached a form equal to the demands
of the situation in July, s845, when the Provisional Government was re
organized under the amended Organic law, submitted to and adopted by the
people.
The leading mind in suggesting and devising this enlarged and more perfect
form of government was found in the person of Jesse Applegate, a genial, unassuming
gentleman, a profound thinker, philosophical in the simplicity of his
methods; He combined in an eminent degree the qualifications fitting him for
a pioneer leader, seeming most to enjoy himself amid the free surroundings of
frontier life. A third of a century ago, when all this wide west was an Indian
country, Jesse Applegate, with a few dauntless pioieers could have been found
always in advance of the migratory tide, building up new homes in the wild
valleys beyond the border settlements, a plain, unpretending farmer, too wise
and generous to be self-conceited; too true to his own convictions of right to
sacrifice principle and independence for temporary popularity or place. As a
member of the Legislative Assembly of the Provisional Government, he was as
able and pure as any man who ever held a seat in that body, yet we find that
some of our cotemporary chroniclers have accused him of being influenced by
favors in the interest of Dr. McLaughlin, or the Hudson Bay Company, insin -
uating that his course was antagonistic to the interests of citizens or the United
States. Such unlike delineations of Jesse Applegate could only have been obtained
from a standpoint where the view was very much obstructed by egotistical
vanities, or the visual rays obscured by the dark shadows of party or sectarian
prejudices. Under such unfavorable surroundings, these historic delineators
were rendered incapable of presenting a fair and faithful view of this old plo.
fleer's generous virtues. That he has had his failings none will doubt, but
who among Oregon's early pioneers I may ask in vain, has been less exempt.
We may console ourselves, fellow members, in the belief that the future historian
will be at no loss in assigning to the sage of Voncalla, the place to which
his eminent services have justly entitled him, while the Oregon Pioneers simply
owe him a lasting debt of gratitude for the disinterested labor which he so
cheerfully performed with an earnest desire to pronote the general welfare of
the pioneer settlers during the trying years of their greatest need.