220 Fred Wilbur Powell
date of arrival of Hall J. Kelley, Ewing Young, and the free- men who came with them, or near their date and 1846."**
"Hall Jackson Kelley, a school teacher qf Boston, began a work in behalf of Oregon that Oregon has never yet acknowl- edged or recognized. Kelley was an eccentric man, an en- thusiast, one of those who seize a single idea and devote their lives to it .... He it was, beyond all question, who first urged the settlement of Oregon, insisted upon its practicability and set forth the importance and value of the Oregon coimtry to the United States. Many with whom he came in contact re- garded him merely as a bore or troublesome fellow, and this impression was deepened by a tone in his speech and writings which was regarded as a religious cant ....
"This strange eccentric man can almost be called the prophet of Oregon, the father of migration to Oregon, the man who hastened the fulfillment of Oregon's destiny."**
"The largest results of Wyeth's enterprise are rather to be looked for in the contribution he made in various ways to the furtherance of other enterprises than his own.
"Substantially the same may be said of the enterprise of Hall J. Kelley, the leading promoter of one or more of the emigration societies already mentioned. He contributed ma- terially to the ultimate settlement of the territory by his per- sistent and widespread agitation in the East, and later in some measure by bringing into the Willamette Valley a small band of men, some of whose number became permanent settlers/*"
"We envy none who can look on the story of Hall J. Kelley with contempt. . . . Continually, as I study the features of that early time, I trace the primal influences to Hall J. Kelley as having given them birth. Oregon can afford to kindly remember him for the good he tried to do— and really
29 Minto, The young homesecker, Oregon Historical Society, Procetdimgs, 1900: lao-i.
30 Scott, Annual address, Oregon Pioneer Association, Trwisactiotu, 1890, 9: 33, 35.
31 Wilson, The Oregon question, Oregon Historical Society, Qnarttriy, I, S23-4.
