loneerkozi.et1ion; - ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University

ANNUAL ATjDRESS.
There are a goodly number of the early pioneers, both men and women living
and departed, whom I should be pleased to speak of, but on the present,OC.
casion time will not permit.
Our mortality list for the year just passed is a sorrowful one to contemplate.
The relentless march of time will soon have revealed to the last of the old
fathers and mothers the realities of that life which is to come. These old pioneers,
who in their youthful years nurture into life and strength a new born
republic in these then wild regions of the north Pacific Coast, are fast passing
away; a few more joyful re-unions and we of the days of lang syne will be
seen here no more forever. Since our last meeting, many of our beloved members
have laid them dowo to rest. Mrs. Jacob Conser, Mrs. Adeline Crawford,
Mrs. Crump, T. J. Dryer and Geo. L. Cuery, two of our veteran editors of the
Territorial days, E. N. Cooke, a noble old pioneer, long Vice President of this
Associatiofi, I. N. Gilbert and M. G. Foisy, of the immigration of I8l4, John
S. Zeiber, Simeon Smith and many other early pioneers have since .your last
meeting bid adieu to the scenes of this life. May they find a better home beyon&
the mystic river.
Mr. President, to close this meagre and very imperfect sketch in relation to
the early agricultural settlement of Oregon, would be ungenerous to omit making
a short biographical mention of the late Dr. John McLaughlin, the noble
philanthropist of the wilderness, without whose assistance and protecting care
none of those first agricultural settlements of the Territory could have been
commenced nor successfully maintained. He furnished from the farms, the
shops and store houses at Vancouver, teams, cows, hogs, plows, poultry, arms
and ammunition, in brief, all the necessary implements and supplies, or such as
he had, mostly imported from England, sufficient to enable the pioneer settlers
to establish themselves in the occupation of husbandmen, at the same time giving
them assurance of a remunerative market for their produce.
Dr. McLaughlin, as director of the affairs of the Hudson Bay Company west
of the Rocky mountains, had more power over the Indians of the whole Northwest
Coast, which he judiciously exercised,thanall other influences multiplied
and combined. He was a great and just man, having in no instance deceived
them, firm in maintaining the established rules regulating their intercourse,
making their supplies, so far as the Company was concerned, strictly depend
upon their own efforts and good conduct, always prompt to redress the slightest
infraction of good faith. This sound undeviating policy made Dr. McLaughlin
the most humane and successful manager of the native tribes this country has
ever known, while the Indians both feared and respected -him above all other
men. -
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