Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/354

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336
Leslie M. Scott

drove the first ox-team and wagon over the route in the Summer of 1846, Reuben Gant, later of Yamhill County, who died December 6, 1916, at Philomath, Benton County, where he had lived for many years.

Professor Lyman's narrative is largely that of Palmer's Journal of Travel Over the Rocky Mountains. His narrative of the Naches trail party of 1853 is chiefly that of George H. Himes, a member of the party.

We assume that, had Professor Lyman's space permitted, he would have included in his review the Southern Oregon and the Middle Fork roads.

NARRATIVES OF THE "SOUTHERN" ROUTE

The "southern" route to Rogue River Valley, first opened in 1846, is well described in the narrative of Tolbert Carter, a member of that year's migration, and in the extant journal of the Stearns party of 1853. The Carter narrative appears in the published Transactions of the Oregon Pioneer Association for 1906; the Stearns journal has recently come in possession of the Oregon Historical Society, amplified by Orson A. Stearns of Corvallis, Oregon, who was ten years old at the time of the journey. These narratives are probably the best extant records of the "southern" route. The Carter narrative shows much severer hardships than the Stearns diary of seven years later.

A BARLOW ROAD MONUMENT

Dedication of a Barlow Road monument at Rhododendron, made July 4, 1918, by Multnomah Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, should have been mentioned in the preceding issue of The Quarterly. This monument consists of a stone, inscribed with a bronze tablet, "The Oregon Trail, 1845." The site is near the confluence of Zig Zag and Sandy Rivers, thirteen miles below the summit of the Cascade Mountains. Participants in the ceremonies were: Mrs. John A. Keating, regent of Multnomah Chapter; Rev. E. E. Gilbert, of Oregon City; W. H. H. Dufur, formerly president of the Oregon Pioneer Association; George H. Himes, secretary of