Across America; Or, The Great West and the Pacific CoastRusling, James Fowler
History
Across America; Or, The Great West and the Pacific Coast
Rusling, James Fowler
Overland journeys to the Pacific; Pacific States -- Description and travel; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
Boston, if not the New York, of the Pacific will yet flourish where
now are only the wilds of Washington. The Sound already abounded
in saw-mills, and the ship-timber and lumber of Washington we
subsequently found famed in San Francisco, and throughout California.
She was then putting lumber down in San Francisco, cheaper than
the Californians could bring it from their own foot-hills, and
her magnificent forests of fir and pine promised yet to be a rare
blessing to all the Pacific Coast.
The Portlanders, of course, were energetic, go-ahead men, from all
parts of the North, with a good sprinkling from the South. Outside
of Portland, however, the Oregonians appeared to be largely from
Missouri, and to have retained many of their old Missouri and
so-called "conservative" ideas still. All through our Territories,
indeed, Missouri seemed to have been fruitful of emigrants. Kentucky,
Indiana, Illinois, were everywhere well represented; but Missouri
led, especially in Idaho and Oregon. This fact struck us repeatedly,
and was well accounted for by friend Meacham's remark (top of the
Blue Mountains), "the left wing of Price's army is still encamped in
this region." The tone of society, in too many places, seemed to be
of the Nasby order, if not worse. No doubt hundreds of deserters and
draft-sneaks, from both armies, had made their way into those distant
regions; and then, besides, the influence of our old officials,
both civil and military, had long been pro-slavery, and this still
lingered among communities, whom the war had not touched, and among
whom school-houses and churches were still far too few. Of course,
we met some right noble and devoted Union men everywhere, especially
in Colorado; but elsewhere, and as a rule, they did not strike us
as numerous, nor as very potential. In saying this, I hope I am not
doing the Territories injustice; but this is how their average public
opinion impressed a passing traveller, and other tourists we met _en
route_ remarked the same thing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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