Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/342

ferred to other hands. He then went to reside at San Francisco, where he died in March 1879.^[1]

1. While on a tour through Oregon in 1878 I was informed that Elijah White, a most important witness in the early annals of the state, was living in San Francisco, and there on my return I found him practising medicine, his office being within a stone's throw of my library. He was exceedingly affable, with an intelligent though not very intellectual face, with bright, penetrating eyes, and for one so well advanced in years, active on his feet and well preserved, though how much of him was padding, and what was the true color of his well-dyed hair and whiskers, I cannot say. Thereafter until his death he was a frequent visitor at my library, and there gave me an exceedingly valuable dictation, which I called Emigration to Oregon, filling many gaps left open by the printed material especially concerning the immigration of 1842. His Ten Years in Oregon, Ithaca, N. Y., 1850, contains the incidents of his journey to and residence in Oregon, as physician to the Mission, his return to the States, subsequent emigration, his labors as Indian agent, explorations, etc., with an account of the formation of the provisional government, and some extracts from Frémont's journal of explorations in Oregon. Previous to the publication of this book he issued a pamphlet in Washington City, containing his correspondence with the Indian commissioner and other documents, the object of which was to assist the passage of a bill reimbursing him for expenses incurred in the administration of authority as Indian agent. This book is called a Concise View of Oregon Territory, Its Colonial and Indian Relations, etc., 72 pages. Another pamphlet called White's Testimonials contains some of the same matter, with other letters, and was apparently intended to assist him in a reappointment to Oregon.