new state. The actors in the dramatic scene could scarcely have comprehended
the tremendous consequences of their acts, and of the unfolding scheme big with
vast results to two great nations. But this chief actor, at the vital moment, had
the inborn imagination, the bumptious dare-devil courage and dramatic talent,
to seize the only point left him for effect, and make an appeal for the flag. He
had heard in old Virginia, as every American boy has heard, the slogan of every
battle cry — ' ' Rally around the flag, boys ! ' ' Meek saw the chance ; it might have
been an inspiration from boyhood days ; but he caught it instantly, used it most
effectively; won the victory and secured organization, union and combination,
and by that means enrolled his name among the savers of Oregon.
(Joseph L. Meek was a native of Washington county, Virginia, born in 1810. He grew up without education on a Virginia plantation, and being troubled be- cause his father contracted a second marriage, ran awaj' and joined a party of fur traders going to the Rocky mountains, and drifted into Oregon in 1840. He married a Nez Perce woman, and they raised a very respectable family ; his daughter, Olive, is a woman of education, talent and refinement, and his son, Stephen, was a member of the Oregon legislature. Meek had a splendid phy- sique, a magnetic presence, wit, courtesy, and generous to a fault, and if he had been afforded the advantage of an education, would have reached high official station.)
But not all the heroes and savers of Oregon rage the battle field, or pace the forum in the limelight of popular acclaim. Every man at that historic meeting at old Champoeg pi'oved his title to true worth and honorable mention. Victor and vanquished proved their worth in the founding of a new empire. Those who were defeated, promptly and quietly withdrew, showing neither faction or op- position, and proved their real worth as men and citizens in yielding cordial obe- dience to the new government.
Of Francois X. Matthieu, the only one of that band of immortals still living when this history of the events is recorded, too much cannot be said in his praise. Born and reared under the flag that on that day he reluctantly discarded, with all his educational bias, and all his personal associations, with the policy and men who were defeated, it must have been a soul-trying ordeal to cast in his lot with the Americans. But being convinced that it would be better for those men and their families, and the future of the country, to be ruled by the United States than by England, he sacrificed all personal feeling and the associations of his life-time, and voted unselfishly for what he conceived to be the greatest good to the greatest number. On his vote depended the hopes and fears of both sides — the whole mass. Had he remained with the Canadians the vote would have tied evenly and no decision. The future of the community might have drifted helplessly, or broken out into faction and violence. At the least sign of danger- ous strife the great commercial company, backed by England, would have inter- vened, and British immigration and settlement would have followed, and Oregon would have been lost to the United States. And well we may conclude that the single vote cast by the far-seeing and patriotic heart of Francois Xavier Mat- thieu solved a momentous question at a critical moment, and enrolled the name of this true man among the savers of Oregon.
(Francois Xavier Matthieu was born at Montreal, Canada, April 2, 1818; and in 1837, at the time of the Canadian rebellion, was clerk in a store i
