USA > Oregon > The Oregon native son, Vol. I > Part 31
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cated lands and put up cabins in February. but were removed with much rigor by govern- ment troops under Jefferson Davis. then a lieutenant in the United States army, and their cabins were burned. Even a shed built afterwards to protect their household goods while the families were absent in Knox county was destroyed. Nevertheless, a claim was se- cured there, and was occupied until a removal to Burlington. Closing out business there in 1840, he was engaged in operating a ferry at Fort Madison. In 1845 he crossed the plains to Oregon.
Reaching the valley, however, without sick- ness or disaster, Judge White purchased a farm near Oregon City, but was soon sought by Governor Abernethy as the very man want- ed for associate judge of Clackamas county under the provisional government. The year following he was advanced to the position of chief justice of Clackamas county. In 1847 he was elected to the legislature, and upon its assembling was appointed one of a .committee of three, to draft a bill to authorize the raising of a military force, to punish the Whitman murderers. The bill prepared was adopted. notwithstanding some vigorous opposition from Colonel Nesmith.
In 1848, in company with Peter H. Burnett, Thomas Mckay and others, he went to the California gold fields. Six weeks' work on the Yuba brought him about a hundred ounces of dust, and the mines were left and San Francisco reached in time to take passage on a bark for Oregon-the same vessel that brought up General Lane and his escort. The journey was uncomfortable, from the crowd, and the passengers were on an allowance of water six of the eighteen days of the passage. The trip from Astoria was by canoe, there being, no other means of transportation.
After his return he became interested in steamboating, and helped to build the Lot Whitcomb, the second steamer built in Ore- gon, of which he was the one-fourth owner.
The Judge resided principally on his farm, until his removal to Portland in 1873. For a number of years subsequently he was engaged in business in Tacoma, but again returned to Portland. After his return he was elected jus- tice of the peace, and held that office three terms. His family are all dead except a son, Eugene D., who is well known in business, social and fraternal circles.
Photo. by Hodson, San Francisco.
COLONEL OWEN SUMMERS. Brevet Brigadier-General.
OREGON NATIVE SON.
VOL. I.
SEPTEMBER, 1899. No. 5.
MRS. ELLA HIGGINSON.
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An Authoress of Oregon Culture who has written Five Classics - Three in Poetry and Two
in Prose.
One of the prettiest little valleys the homeseeker chanced to find in the early days of Oregon, was an amphitheater - excavated in the Blue mountains, a thou- sand feet deep. Every passer-by has noticed its symmetry, remarked its beauty, been inspired with its grandeur, and longed to linger within its great rugged walls. Clear atmosphere, lofty sky, sublimity and sunshine, save when the black storm-cloud angrily crawls up close behind Mount Emily, and with thundering threats sends the stamped- ing herds pell-mell into the deep can- yons, to hide from winds that sway the fir. the tamarack, and the pine. It is one of those places where the heavens fit down so closely over the mountain rim, that the valley and the heavens seem to make up the whole world. In fact, it is world enough for those who live there. Nature made it the abode of home-build- ing, progress and contentment; and the immigrants who settled there seldom have left it to return to the land whence they came.
Once, according to an ancient legend, some Frenchmen traveled that way, and. having ascended a ridge where the old emigrant road peeped over the crest, at the vision lying ahead, suddenly ex- claimed "Grand Ronde!" It was in the month of May, and the first view of the picturesque valley broke in upon them at a time when that spot of emerald,
hidden away in the Blue mountains, waves like a summer sea-a time when the lightning begins to sparkle on the minarets above, and a hundred mineral springs steadily send up clouds of hot steam, rarefying the lower atmosphere and inviting the cool, exhilarating breezes from the high snowcliffs. of the Powder river range. Such was the scene that inspired the Frenchmen to exclaim "Grand Ronde," a name which the ge- ographers have been repeating ever since, a name which will be perpetuated in prose and song.
Such was the childhood home of Mrs. Ella Higginson, the charming poetess and noted story-writer, whose life work bids fair to honor the name of the de- lightful valley in which her early thoughts were nurtured. Born at Coun- cil Grove, Kansas, she crossed the plains while an infant, and with her parents located in La Grande, which is beauti- fully situated on the most prominent dais of Grand Ronde valley. The country was sparsely settled, and as yet untried. New people, immigrants, were constantly passing through the town where the whites and the Indians came to trade: and there were ponies and ponies and ponies. And it was then that little May Rhodes, afterward Mrs. Ella Higginson, acquired the love and the art of horse- back riding. Sidesaddles and riding steeds were as fashionable then as in the
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days of Queen Elizabeth; and it is said that the little schoolgirl determined to excel the horsemanship of the queen who made England one of the first na- tions of Europe. It was her delight, and she practiced the art. On her swift steed she swept over the valley, and drank in the poetry of the scenes, the anthem of the winds, and the voice of the thunder as it broke through the mountain gorge. These attuned her muse, and she began to sing to a delighted people. Thus gradually she became a master with the rein and the pen.
True poetry is what the muse has learned in nature without the aid of books-simply direct communion with created things. In order to fathom these wonders, the poet chooses to be alone where naught can disturb him. Solitude is his opportunity, and silence his study hour. He lives amid his thoughts, hence partakes of -the sights and the sounds that inspire them. He loves nature's works, for he sees God in everything about him. The lily, the nightingale, the waters and the mountains, all be- come living things to him, and their in- From Oregon City she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she met, loved and was married to Mr. Russell Carden Higginson, a gentleman of Boston cu !- ture, who descended from Francis Hig- ginson, one of the founders of New Eng- land. In 1882, she with her husband moved to New Whatcom, where they have since resided in their cozy upland home, which furnishes a commanding view of the snow domes and the hills, the ocean and the shore, that have suggested so many themes the authoress has writ- ten in pretty musical English, for the peoples of two continents. fluence upon him is but another one of God's marvelous dealings with man. N. P. Willis, upon visiting the American rapids, applied this thought in these words: "This opportunity to invest Niagara with a human soul and human feelings, is a common effect upon the' minds of visitors, in every part of its wonderful phenomena." Of the influ- ence of scenery upon the feelings and actions, Bayard Taylor. upon viewing the same falls from another point, wrote: "I was not impressed by the sublimity of the scene, nor even by its terror, but solely by the fascination of its wonderful While Mrs Higginson writes both beauty-a fascination which continually poetry and prose excellently, she has tempted me to plunge into the sea of proven herself a true poet, both in verse fused emerald, and lose myself in the and inlines not set in metricalarray. Many
dance of the rainbows." Anthony Tro lope, although not a poet, has reces nized this principle in his utterances ug on visiting the falls: "You will find you self among the waters, as though you be longed to them. The cool, liquid gree will run through your veins, and th voice of the cataract will be the expres sion of your own heart. You will fall a the bright waters fall, rushing down int your new world with no hesitation an with no dismay; and you will rise again as the spray rises, bright, beautiful and pure." Accordingly it must not be ion gotten that the poetess, whose life an works we are studying, lived for a long time beside the Willamette falls at Ore gon City. Nor must the fact be over looked that the Willamette falls are bu a common-sense edition of the Niagara falls, which so many critics have said stimulate genius and influence poctie art. There is a rumble and a dashing in the lines Mrs. Higginson has written that echo back to the splendid dashing and rhythmic rumble of the mighty falls of our poetic river.
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MRS. ELLA HIGGINSON.
i her shortest, unpretentious story sen- ·ences, are little poems within themselves prose poems scattered in bits of trag- oly. like particles of silver and gold. und in the pathway of the Indian, the 'rper and the refugee.
.As a poet she won her first recogni- tion in literary circles. "The Overland Monthly" editorially said of her: "A few years ago there appeared in various Eastern and Pacific coast publications . "The Snow Pearls," and "When the frequent bits of verse of much high merit, fraught with so much feeling, and pos- ·essing so sensuous a charm, that they sprang into immediate promi- nence. Many of them were widely copied by the newspapers East and West, and repub- lished in the leading reviews of London and the East. One of which attracted universal at- tention was "God's ( reed, "which appeared originally in Frank Leslie's Illustrated ELLA HIGGINSON. Weekly. The verses quoted are charac- teristic of the poet:
Her poems, which are always musical, breathe a spirit of piety which commend them to the most refined; and her great spirituality will always win her an in- creasing patronage among the ever- growing circle of readers who learn to regard her as their friend and adviser. Leading London and American review- ers have commented favorably upon what she has written, in her three vol- umes of poetry, "A Bunch of Clover,"
Birds Go North Again." The Boston Evening Gazette, Prov- idence Journal, Chica- go Graphic, Dilletante and the Northwest Magazine have said re- spectively of her work as a poet :
"Its merits are a sim- ple directness, truth to nature, sincerity and feeling that occasional- lv touches the depth of passion."
"They have a melody to an unusual degree." "Her work is distin- guished by its delicacy
Forgive me that hear thy creeds Unawed and unafraid:
They are too small for one whose ears Have heard God's organ played- Who in wide. noble solitudes
In simple faith has prayed.
I watched the dawn come up the east. Like angels chaste and still:
I felt my heart beat wild and strong. My veins with white fire thrill.
For it was Easter morn, and Christ Was with me on the hill.
and fire. Her genius makes her cosmopolitan."
"Filled with forceful imagery and sim- iles of beauty. An exquisite bit of work."
"Ella Higginson's genius entitles her to be ranked close to Joaquin Miller.
· There is' heart and soul in her work, embodied in the richest and most delicate imagery."
That some knowledge of her poetry can be gleaned from personal inspection, the following selections are given:
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WHEN THE BIRDS GO NORTH AGAIN.
Oh, every year hath its winter. And every year hath its rain; But a day is always coming When the birds go north again.
When new leaves swell in the forest, And grass springs green upon the plain, And the alder's veins turn crimson, And the birds go north again.
Oh, every heart hath its sorrow, And every heart hath its pain; But a day is always coming ·When the birds go north again.
'Tis the sweetest thing to remember, If courage be on the wane. When the cold, dark days are over- Why, the birds go north again.
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A.PRAYER.
Lord God, thou lettest the green things start A new life every year: Out of their sunken selves they rise. Erect and sweet and clear. Behold the lilies pure, white leaves Unfolding by each mere!
Again the sap mounts in the fir Thro' every swelling vein; Again the clover stirs and thrills. Responsive to the rain: Again the tender grass makes green The lone breast of the plain.
Hear the new, golden flood of song The lark pours to the blue! Behold the strong. undaunted shoot Pushing its brave front through The fallen tree! Lord God. Lord God, Let me begin anew!
Out of my own self let me rise! For. God, if it can be. A new and noble growth may spring From yon decaying tree. Surely a strong, pure life may mount Out of this life of me.
WE TWO IN ARCADIE.
We two have been to Arcadie- But it was long ago; The wild syringa blossomed there. Gold hearts set sweet in snow, And crimson salmon-berry bells- Ah, me, so long ago!
We two went into Arcadie Without one backward glance; Deep thro' the drawn breath of the earth The sun had sent his lance, And every flower straightway sprung Up from her long, sweet trance.
We two alone in Arcadie! The road thro' forest ran, A silver ribbon; and we heard The mellow pipes o' Pan. And followed as he fled thro' lights Of green and gold and tan.
We two went on thro' Arcadie In joy too deep for words: The little clouds were tangled in The trees like beaten curds. We heard the stammering speech of rills And the passion call of birds.
Ah, me, from pleasant Arcadie We two came out-alas! No more to lie beneath the trees In the pale green velvet grass- To listen to the pipes o' Pan And hear his footsteps pass!
Still, still, I know in Arcadie The blossoms fall like snow On happy lovers-as they fell So long. so long ago! But, oh, my love, through Arcadie No more we two shall go.
THE BEGGARS.
Child with the hungry eyes. The pallid mouth and brow, And the lifted, asking hands, I am starved more than thou.
"I beg not on the street; But where the sinner stands, In secret place, I beg Of God, with outstretched hands.
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MRS. ELLA HIGGINSON.
i. thou has asked of me,
Raising thy downcast head. So have I asked of him, So. trembling, have I pled.
Take this and go thy way; Thy hunger soon shall cease. Thou prayest but for bread ..
And I, alas, for peace.
THE MEADOW LARK.
When the first September rain Has gone sparkling down my pane, And the blue has come again, And each leaf with pearls is shaking,
Then a soft voice rises near, Oh, so mournfully and clear That the tears spring as I hear- "Sweet -- oh-Sweet-my heart is breaking!"
Gone the white mock-orange sprays, Gone the clover-scented ways, Gone the dear, delicious days. . And the earth sad tones is taking; But who could the spring forget While that soft voice rises. set Deep in passion and regret- "Sweet-oh-Sweet-my heart is breaking!"
Was it only yester year That I stood and listened here. Without heartache, without tear. For a burst of joy mistaking Those full lyric notes of pain Mounting yet and yet again From the meadows wet with rain-
"Sweet-oh-Sweet-my heart is breaking!"
I know better. lark. today:
I have walked with sorrow-yea.
I know all that thou wouldst say. And my heart with tears is aching, When across the fading year Thou goest calling far and near, Oh. so mournfully and clear- "Sweet-oh-Sweet-my heart is breaking!"
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Mrs. Higginson is, however, winning her greatest fame as a short-story writer. Her ability in this field of literature was recognized in the stories she wrote for the Oregon Vidette, which suspended
publication some years ago. She after- wards won a prize of $500 offered by McClure's Magazine for the best short story, "The Takin' of Old Mis' Lane," having for her competitors many of the best American writers. Since that time her stories have appeared in the Cen- tury, Harper's Weekly, McClure's Mag- azine, Cosmopolitan, Lippincott's, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, and other leading publications of the East.
These stories of Western life have been published in two volumes, "The Forest Orchid" and "The Flower That Grew in the Sand," the title of the latter volume being subsequently changed by the. Macmillans to "The Land of the Snow Pearls." Of the authoress as a story-writer, the Overland Monthly says: "Her style is strong, powerful and real- istic. . She writes from the heart, of the plain, every-day folk she meets, and consequently she touches the heart. Her stories are unpretentious tales of common people, told simply and natu- rally, yet so vivid and graphic are they, that they charm the reader from the first to the last. She is as keen a student of human nature as she is a close observer of incident and detail, and her sympa- thetic comprehension of the trials and joys, the hardships and the romances, of humble, hard-working people who constitute her characters, and her ability to interpret them with such dramatic power and delicacy of touch as to make the commonplace beautiful, are among the strongest features of her work."
Of her as a story-writer, the Chicago Tribune said: "She has shown a breadth of treatment and knowledge of human verities that equals much of the best work of France." The New York Inde- pendent says: "Some of the incidents are sketched so vividly and so truthfully. that persons and things come out of the
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OREGON NATIVE SON.
Photo. by Moore. MRS. D. H .. STEARNS. President Eliza Spalding Warren Cabin, No. 1.
Photo. by Moore. MRS. E. F. BRIGHAM. First Vice. Pres. Eliza Spalding Warren Cabin.
MRS. DAVID STEEL. Past Grand President, Native Daughters.
Photo. by McAlpin. MISS GERTRUDE HOLMES.
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MRS. ELLA HIGGINSON.
page as if life itself were there." In the Outlook we are told that "she is one of the best American short-story writers." From Public Opinion we learn that "no Eastern writer can do such work better." And the Picayune announces that "she writes of the far West with the sympathy of one who loves it."
The following story. "The Isle of the Lepers," is here given as an illustration of her tremendous power in her chosen field of literary effort:
THE ISLE OF LEPERS.
There was an awful beauty on the Gulf of Georgia that summer night. It was as if all the golds and scarlets and pur- ples of the sunset had been pounded to a fine dust and rolled in from the ocean in one great opaline mist.
The coloring of the sky began in the cast with a pale green that changed deli- cately to salmon, and this to rose, and the rose to crimson-and so on down to the west where the sun was sinking into a gulf of scarlet. through which all the fires of hell seemed to be pouring up their flames and sparks. Long, lumin- ous rays slanted through the mist and withdrew swiftly, like searchlights- having found all the lovely wooded islands around which the burning waves were clasping hands and kissing. The little clouds that had journeyed down to sce what was going on in that scarlet gulf must have been successful in their quest, for they were fleeing back with the red badge of knowledge on each breast. Only the snow-mountains stood aloof. white, untouched - types of eternal purity.
Through all that superb riot of color that heralded the storm which was sweeping in from the ocean, moved a little boat, with a flapping sail, lazily. In it were a man and a woman.
woman was the wife of the man's best friend.
They had left Vancouver-and all else -behind them in the early primrose dawn. Trying to avoid the courses of steamers, they had lost their own, and were drifting. In less than_an hour the storm was upon them. All the magnificent coloring had given place to white-edged black. Occasionally a scarlet thread of lightning was cast, crinkling, along the west. Then, in a moment, followed the deep fling and roar of the thunder. Fierce squalls came tearing up the straits where the beautiful mist had trembled.
The little boat went straining and hiss- ing through the sea. As each squall struck her the sail bellied to the water. There was no laughter, now, no love- glow, on the faces in that boat; they were white as death, and their eyes were wild. Veins like ropes stood out in the man's neck and arms, and the woman could not speak for the violent beating in her throat. She held on to the tiller with swollen hands and wrenched arms. When the boat sank into the black hol- lows. she braced herself and looked down into the water, and thought-of many things. And through all his agon- ized thought for the woman, the man had other, more terrible thoughts, too.
Straight ahead of them arose the white, chalky shoulder of an island. He realized that he was powerlass to avoid it. There was one low place, sloping down, green, to a beach of sand, but the sharp outlines of rocks rose between- and there was no shelter from the wind. Still, it was their only chance. That or death. (He wished afterward that it had been death.) He braced himself and pulled at the ropes until spots of blood The quivered before his eyes. .
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OREGON NATIVE SON.
"Port!" he yelled. "Port hard!" But the woman gave one gesture of despair; her hands fell from the tiller, and she sank in a huddle to the bottom of the boat.
It seemed but a moment till the boat struck and they were struggling in the waves. But a strip of headland now cut off the worst fury of the storm. The water was calmer; and, as the man was a powerful swimmer, they, after a fierce battle with the waves, reached the shore and fell, dumbly, in each other's arms, upon the beach, exhausted. .
Suddenly, as they lay there, above the sounds of the winds, the waves and the ·crushing to pieces of their boat upon the rocks, another sound was borne to their ears-a long, moaning wail that was like :a chant of the dead, so weird and terrible . was it.
They staggered to their feet. Coming ·down to them from a little row of cabins above were a dozen human creatures, the very sight of which filled them with terror. Some were without eyes; others without hands or arms; others were crawling, without feet. And as they ap- proached, they wailed over and over the one word that their poor Chinese tongues had been taught to utter: "Un- clean! Unclean! Unclean!"
Both the man and the woman under- stood; but the man only spoke. "Great God !. It is D'Arcy island!" he said, in. his throat. "The island of lepers!"
The woman did not speak; but she leaned heavily upon him. The waves pounded behind them, and the firs on the hill above them bowed, moaning. before the storm-some never to rise
again. And still, above everything. arose that awful wail-"Unclean! Un- clean!"
The man looked down upon her. Al- ready she seemed far, far from him. She had lost everything for him-but he was thinking, even now, of what he had lost for her. They were stranded upon an island whereon there was no human be- ing save the lepers placed there by the British government-an island at which steamers never landed, and from which escape was impossible, unless they sig- naled. (And these two dared not signal.) For lepers there are only silence and opium-and death.
His voice shook when he spoke again : "What accursed luck-what damnable luck-steered us here!" he cried, bitterly.
Then the woman spoke, lifting herself from him and standing alone.
"It was not luck at all," she said. steadily; "it was God."
Then, suddenly, she cast all her trem- bling, beautiful length downward and lay prone, her face sunken to the wet sand. And lying so, she clasped her hands hard, hard, behind her neck, and cried out in a voice that lifted each word. clear and distinct, above the storm-so deep, so terrible was it with all passion. all submission, all despair-the most sublime prayer ever uttered by woman: "Oh, Thou God-Who hast guided us two to the one spot on earth where we belong! I see! I understand, Oh, Thou awful God-Thou just God!"
The lepers, crawling back to their hovels, left those two alone, but their weird wail still sank through the falling darkness-"Unclean! Unclean!"
JOHN B. HORNER, A. M., LITT. D.
Nowhere else on the globe can one find a country as Edenic as this part of its great expanse.
"Nowhere under the sun are there as many undeveloped resources as we have on every hand.
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WRECKED BEESWAX AND BURIED TREASURE.
Great interest has been taken in Ore- gon concerning pre-historic wrecks that occurred long before occupancy by the comes from aboriginal sources, and is sometimes lost in the mists of the prim- itive era. Pieces of obsolete wreckage have been resurrected from the sands, and abundant evidence is found in masses of beeswax, that is indestructi- ble, also found on the ocean shore south of the Columbia.
Beeswax is not given to romance, save, perhaps, when taking shape in Mrs. Jarley's wax works, for commercial bees- wax is one of the most unsentimental articles of commerce. The original comb that holds the luscious stores of the preternaturally "busy bee" may touch on the romantic, or, as a taper used to illume festive scenes before coal · gas or fragrant kerosene and the electric lights of today became illuminators, might have been a theme to treat of; but the beeswax of Nehalem, pounded in the surf until battered and blackened out of all recognition, had no essential claim for inspiration until its history de- veloped to cause imagination and fancy to wonder at its origin.
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