[Footnote 19: By act of July, 1864, congress granted to the State of Oregon, to aid in the construction of a military wagon road from Eugene to the eastern boundary of the state, alternate sections of the public lands designated by odd numbers, for three sections in width on each side of the road, the United States to share in it as a military post road. The land was to be sold in quantities at one time of thirty sections on the completion of ten miles, and within five years, failing which, the land reverted to the United States. The grant amounted to one thousand nine hundred and twenty acres per mile for a distance of four hundred and twenty miles—or more than all given to the state on its admission by one hundred and fifty thousand acres. The company was allowed a primary sale of thirty sections with which to begin surveying. A road was opened from Eugene to and over the mountains in 1867, which was little used or useful. In 1873 the land grant was sold to a San Francisco company, and this immense government gift passed to private ownership in another state.] GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN EARLY OREGON. As we travel through the Willamette Valley with the dispatch and comfort of a well-equipped railway service, we are quickly forgetting how our fathers and grandfathers journeyed. Pioneer experiences and hardships are memories of long ago; another century is dawning, and we say that "the new is better than the old." In the early days of the settlement of this state the horse was the only means of travel, unless one's course lay along the Willamette, and then it was the canoe with paddles that carried trappers, explorers, and occasional Hudson's Bay officials on their journeys. The native grasses were luxuriant and abundant, the climate mild, and every settler's door stood hospitably ajar. Journeying was by easy stages and not irksome. It is pleasant to remember that there was a time when one had time to be leisurely and greet one's friends in a kindly, simple fashion. Civilization was gathered within the four walls of Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia River. Our greatest friend, John McLoughlin, was the chief factor of all the Hudson's Bay Company's establishments west of the Rocky Mountains, and children who have been born in the original Oregon Territory may well "rise up and call him blessed."