SCRAPBOOK OF A HISTORIAN
FRANCES FULLER VICTOR
ALFRED POWERS
AMONG THE NUMEROUS scrapbooks in the collections of the Oregon Historical Society is one classified as No. 120. It is the scrapbook of Mrs. Frances Fuller Victor, one of the most important of Oregon historians, who died in a Yamhill Street boarding house in Portland in 1902.
She is best known for her work on the Bancroft histories, but was author in her own name of ten volumes: Poems, 1851; Florence Fane Sketches, 1863-65; The River of the West, 1870; All Over Oregon and Washington, 1872; The Woman's War Against Whisky; or, Crusading in Portland, 1874; Eleven Years in the Rocky Mountains, 1877; The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems, 1877; Atlantis Arisen; or, Talks of a Tourist About Oregon and Washington, 1891; The Early Indian Wars of Oregon, 1894; Poems, 1900.
Her scrapbook consists of 146 pages of pasted clippings of her magazine and newspaper contributions, together with articles, editorials, and reviews about her and her books.
Beginning on page 34 is her first inclusion of an article on an Oregon subject. It is entitled "A Stage Ride in Oregon and California," and describes a trip from Portland to San Francisco in the fall of 1870. Only small parts of it are quoted:
On the afternoon of the 8th of October, I left Portland for San Francisco by the overland route . . . At the time I speak of, the Oregon Central Railroad was only completed to Salem ...
On the afternoon of the 10th, I took my seat in a coach of the California and Oregon Stage Company to commence my long ride to San Francisco . . .
The country from Salem to Albany, a distance of 25 miles, is more broken and picturesque than the 50 miles preceding it. The road was dotted along with fair-goers, who greeted us cheerfully; and our route led us often alongside the gangs of railroad-building Chinamen, and past the piers and trestlework of bridges to be completed for the iron track . ..
Albany is the third town in importance in Western Oregon, ... It looked very pleasant as we bowled rapidly out of it, . . .
