In 1859 Oregon was admitted into the Union as a sovereign State; the population was 52,465. In 1880 the census gave a total of 174,767 souls, showing an increase of 122,302 in twenty-one years, and an increase of 74,767 over the State census in 1875. But, after all, the history of a State is the history of its people. Nowadays we enter Oregon within twenty days from Liverpool, having been speeded on our journey by steamships and railroads in continuous connections. Within two years the State expects to have two direct lines of Eastern communication--one by the Northern Pacific, the other by a line through the southeastern corner of the State to Reno, on the Central Pacific--shortening the twenty to sixteen days. Within two years more it is hoped that the Oregon Pacific will make communication at Boisé City, Idaho, with independent Eastern lines, and open a still more direct course out to the centers of population and enterprise. But in the early days, from 1846 to 1851, when the tide of settlement ran first this way, their experiences were widely different. Listen to the tales some of these men tell--not old men yet by any means; the vigor and power of life still burn in most of them, for the dates are but thirty years back. But what a different life these pioneers led then! Let me sketch the scene and its surroundings where these "jottings round the stove" are made. It is rather a dusty old room, and a rusty old stove in the middle, and rather a dusty and rusty company are gathered round it. Winter-time is upon us; the rain falls in a ceaseless drizzle, and the drops from the eaves patter on the fallen leaves of the plane-trees round the house. The time is after the noon dinner-hour; no work presses, for the fall wheat is all in, and there is a sense of warmth and comfort within, which contrasts with the dim scene without, where the rain-mists obscure the hills and fill the valley with their slowly driving masses. Five or six of us "sit around"--mostly on two legs of the chairs, and our boots are propped up on the ridge round the stove. We don't go much on broadcloth and "biled" shirts, but we prefer stout flannel shirts and brown overalls, with our trousers tucked inside our knee-high boots. Tobacco in one form or the other occupies each one. Carpets we have no use for, and it is good that the arm-chairs are of fir, as the arms are so handy for whittling, there being no loose pieces of soft wood by. But we are all good friends, and I, for one, do not wish for better company for an hour or two "around the stove." [Sidenote: _A PIONEER IN BENTON COUNTY._] "So the old man came into Benton County in 1845, did he?" "Yes, he and his wife and two young children, and took up a claim there three or four miles from town." "Was there a town then?" "Not much--just three log-cabins and a hut or so; they called it Marysville; it did not get the name of Corvallis till years after." "How about the Indians?"