Congressman Thurston was a Maine man--a fine type physically, intellectually, and morally. He had early immigrated to Oregon, and was the first congressman from that territory. It was too far to return to Oregon for his summer vacation, over the slow routes of that day, so he went up to Chicopee, Massachusetts, to spend the summers of 1848 and 1849. The house where he boarded was one of the old-fashioned New England double houses, with a wide porch across the entire front. It so happened that a young doctor and his wife occupied the other side of the house, and the front portico was the common retreat in the long summer evenings. He loved to tell of the majestic forests of fir and pine trees, fifteen feet in diameter and three hundred feet high, of the grand rivers, rich soil, and its great future. It was not until 1848 that word reached the States of the tragic disaster at Waiilatpui, and the death of his dear friends, Dr. and Mrs. Whitman. The incidents and heroism of their lives were told by the eloquent, earnest congressman, in a way that made a deep and lasting impression upon the young doctor and his good wife. They were seriously casting about for some wider field in life, and were almost persuaded to make Oregon their future home. Upon the homeward journey to Oregon in 1850, Congressman Thurston lost his life in a great ocean disaster upon the Pacific. The writer was in Oregon at the time, and well remembers the wave of sorrow that spread throughout the territory. After the death of Thurston, the young doctor gave up the Far Western journey, but he still had "the western fever," removed to Illinois, and bought a small farm. Prospecting through that state, Wisconsin and Michigan, he made up his mind that there was money in pine land, and beginning in a small way, marketed the timber, and made money. He at once invested all his money in pine timberland, bought and sold, and ever bought more pine, and the time came when he could readily sell for four times the cost of it. He was an observant man, and his success in locating and selling, by his straightforward way of doing business, soon attracted the attention of capitalists, and they persuaded him to settle in Chicago and buy and sell for them. Soon an immense business was in his hands, which continued for years, and left him with a fortune. He wearied with the years of intense business activity, retired, and said to himself, here is a snug little fortune, what is to be done with it? In the language of a notable address, delivered by the doctor before a great audience at Battle Creek, when he said, "These dead hands can carry nothing out! What, gentlemen, are you going to do with your money?" He soon settled upon a plan to spend his, and that was to use it through deserving struggling Colleges, to give to poor young men and women an intellectual, moral, and religious training. He believed that every institution for its permanency and security should have a