from me is now hers. I cannot object if she now gives you my autobiography. The lady is Mrs. Frances Fuller Victor of St. Helens.[1]
Jesse Applegate did contribute much to Mrs. Victor's knowledge and interpretation of Oregon history. She especially made use of three extremely interesting, detailed letters he wrote her in October and November 1865, in which he described Dr. McLoughlin and his character, the activities of the Hudson's Bay Company and its treatment of American settlers, and the actions of the Methodist missionaries and early government officials and their treatment of McLoughlin.[2]
Early in July 1865 Mrs. Victor began her "Columbiad," going first to Astoria to commence at the beginning with some extracts of Lewis and Clark's Journals fresh in her mind and a copy of Irving's Astoria in her pocket. "With the inquisitiveness usual to me," she wrote, "I set out shortly after my arrival in Astoria to peer into the past, the present and the future of the place."[3] She visited the site of the old fort, but found that little remained in 1865 to remind her of historical events there. She also went to the old customhouse and met the collector of customs, versatile William L. Adams, who invited her to his home and presented her with a file of the Oregon Spectator for 1846 and part of 1847.[4]
From Astoria Mrs. Victor traveled by steamboat and portage railroad as far as Wallula on the Columbia and Pine Tree Rapids on the Snake. She observed with interest the town of Vancouver and the site of the ruins of the Hudson's Bay Company fort and the blockhouses at the Cascades where several people had been killed during the Indian war just a decade before. From the Cascades to The Dalles, at ease in a deck chair on the first class steamer Oneonta, she was thrilled by the grandeur of magnificent scenery which she felt surpassed that along the Hudson River. At The Dalles she stopped at renowned Umatilla House and among others
- ↑ Jesse Applegate to Elwood Evans, October 13, 1867, in Applegate letters, OHS.
- ↑ Jesse Applegate to F. F. Victor, October 15, 29, November 12, 1865, in Applegate letters, OHS.
- ↑ F. F. Victor, "A Voyage Up the Columbia River," San Francisco Evening Bulletin, September 2, 1865.
- ↑ Victor autobiographical sketch.
[316]
