Delivered at the Interment of Col. E. D. Baker", by Thomas Starr King. Of 78 lessons in poetry, four were from Pacific Coast poets: "Dickens in Camp", by F. Bret Harte; "Across the Plains", by Joaquin Miller; "The Wreck of 'The Wright'", by Samuel L. Sampson; "Tamalpais", by Charles Warren Stoddard. Even in the light of an advanced pedagogy, the selections are excellent, except the over-emphasis on Col. E. D. Baker, a sample of whose eloquence is given in the chapter "Websters of the Columbia." It is a little disappointing to find that Simpson's judgment was distorted by the echoing fame of this magic speaker, but he was not alone. Dr. J. B. Horner, many years later, over-emphasized him in his Oregon Literature. The selection from Judge Deady was then and would still be almost a perfect piece for a Pacific Coast reader. It tells about a 1773 Theobold edition of Shakespeare picked up at auction in Oregon City in the early 70's.
Sam. L. Simpson's work on the readers was satisfactory enough so that he was employed for sometime by the same firm in the preparation of the History of the Northwest Coast, at a salary of $150 a month.
In 1878, What Come of It, a novel by Mrs. H. V. Stitzel, was published in Portland by George H. Himes. Mrs. Stitzel had died before it was finished, and to Simpson came the assignment of completing it and editing it. His part is modestly explained in the preface:
...Shortly after the death of Mrs. Stitzel, in January last, her unfinished manuscript, in the crude and imperfect condition of the first writing, was placed in the hands of Mr. Sam. L . Simpson, who has simply conducted the story to a
