In 1890 he came to Portland. The old Portland High School rec ords show that he was principal from 1890 to 1894 and that he had previously had a half year's experience in Portland schools. Later he was for a year president of Albany College. In 1895 he went to the University of Oregon, where he remained until his death on January 4, 1929.
He was one of the greatest benefactors of Oregon history. He edited the Oregon Historical Quarterly from 1900 to 1928; the Commonwealth Review of the University of Oregon from 1916 to 1928; the four-volume History of Oregon by Horace S. Lyman; the Sources of the History of Oregon — including the journals of Medo- rem Crawford, Lawrence Kip, and Nathaniel J. Wyeth — from 1897 to 1899; and the Bulletin of the University of Oregon, Historical Series. And the bibliography of his own writings counts up to 120 articles between 1893 and !929-
In the late summer and early fall of 1900, at the age of 42, he did a very original and very engaging thing in the way of historical research, antedating Ezra Meeker in the idea by several years. He rode a bicycle over the Old Oregon Trail, starting from the east and coming west. In description of its vestiges he sent back two articles to the Oregonian. From these the following selection has been condensed :
Over the Old Oregon Trail on a Bicycle in 1900
North Platte, Neb., Sept. 5 . — On the morning of August 20, 1900, at Council Bluffs and Omaha, we struck the northernmost branch of the old Oregon trail. The great Mormon migration in 1 846-47 passed along this route and that was probably the first considerable use of the north side of the Platte as a thoroughfare. . . . ... we secured interviews with such leading pioneers of Omaha as Dr. George S. Miller . . . Hon. Charles Turner, Judge Doane, and Hon. Edward Rosewater. . . . From these we obtained very definite ideas of the development of this gateway of the westward movement. Mr. George H. Himes writes me that he remembers that when going through in 1853 he walked up the bluff from the Missouri River (on the successive benches of which the city of Omaha now stands). To him it seemed "an interminable stretch of green waving grass, taller than a man" and that was all that could be seen.
