Sir--In compliance with the request you did me the honor to make last
Winter, while in Washington, I herewith transmit to you the synopsis
of a bill which, if it could be adopted, would, according to my
experience and observation, prove highly conducive to the best
interests of the United States, generally, to Oregon, where I have
resided for more than seven years as a missionary, and to the Indian
tribes that inhabit the immediate country. The Government will now
doubtless for the first time be apprised through you, or by means of
this communication, of the immense immigration of families to Oregon
which has taken place this year. I have, since our interview, been
instrumental in piloting across the route described in the
accompanying bill, and which is the only eligible wagon road, no less
than three hundred families, consisting of one thousand persons of
both sexes, with their wagons, amounting to one hundred and twenty,
six hundred and ninety-four oxen, and seven hundred and seventy-three
loose cattle.
The emigrants are from different States, but principally from
Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois and New York. The majority of them are
farmers, lured by the prospect of bounty in lands, by the reported
fertility of the soil, and by the desire to be first among those who
are planting our institutions on the Pacific Coast. Among them are
artisans of every trade, comprising, with farmers, the very best
material for a new colony. As pioneers, these people have undergone
incredible hardships, and having now safely passed the Blue Mountain
Range with their wagons and effects, have established a durable road
from Missouri to Oregon, which will serve to mark permanently the
route for larger numbers, each succeeding year, while they have
practically demonstrated that wagons drawn by horses or oxen can cross
the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, contrary to all the
sinister assertions of all those who pretended it to be impossible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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