Flathead country. His own testimony on the subject is as follows: "In 1834, Messrs. Jason Lee and Daniel Lee and Messrs. Walker and P. L. Edwards came with Mr. Wyeth to establish a mission in the Flathead country. I observed to them that it was too dangerous for them to establish a mission there; that to do good to the Indians, they must establish themselves where they could collect them around them, teach them to cultivate the ground and live more comfortably than they do by hunting, and, as they do this, teach them religion; that the Willamette afforded them a fine field, and that they ought to go there, and they would get the same assistance as the settlers. They followed my advice and went to the

Willamette, and it is but justice to these pioneers to say that no men, in my opinion, could exert themselves more zealously than they did, until 1840, when they received a large reinforcement of forty or more persons; then the new comers began to neglect their duties, discord sprang up among them and the mission broke up." Such was the statement of Dr. McLaughlin in regard to the estab lishment of the first mission in the then distant wilds of Oregon, and such are such are the recorded facts with reference to the mission station, which became the necleus of the Willamette Valley settlement, which subsequently became and remained for many years, the principal American settlement in Oregon.

W. F. PROSSER.

THE very able article upon the life and public labors of Col. John Arkins, that appeared in the April issue of this magazine, was by an error credited to the pen of Mr. A. N. Towne, a member of the MAGAZINE staff. It should have been credited to Stanley Wood, the able and widely-known editor of "The Great Divide." Mr. Wood is an authority of note upon western men and matters, and it is our loss rather than his that the article did not carry the added weight it would have gained from an acknowledged connection with his pen. The error occurred in this office, and was not that of Mr. Towne.

THE Western Reserve Historical Society at Cleveland, Ohio, has taken a long step forward in its career of usefulness. For a long time it has suffered for a lack of room for the preservation and proper display of the great collection of documents and relics it has for so many years been industriously gathering, and this lack has not been conducive to its growth. The agreeable news now comes that the officers have under consideration the purchase of the building of which the society has for so many years been a part tenant. This would not only provide for immediate needs, but leave space for the most extensive growth for many years to come. A committee is to visit the people of Cleveland and Northern Ohio for the purpose of raising the sixty thousand dollars needed for the purchase, and there is little doubt of their success.

Two of the most valued of the contributors to these pages have recently passed

Mr.

away-the Hon. Russell Errett of Pittsburg, and D. W. Cross, Esq, of Cleveland. Cross was a business man and lawyer, with a taste for letters, and could tell a story of old times with a point and raciness that few could excel, as his "Log-Book" in various issues of this magazine well attests. He was a note-taker of the industrious kind, and in his early days in Ohio set down much valuable material that otherwise would have been lost. He was a genial gentleman and a good citizen, and he will be greatly missed in the community that was for so many years his home. Mr. Errett was also a man of note, not only in his home city, but in the general affairs of Pennsylvania and the nation. He was born in New York city, and received his early education in that State. In 1829 his family went to Pittsburgh, and upon reaching maturity, Mr. Errett went into business in that city. Some years later, he edited the Daily Sun, a penny paper, which existed several years. He then went to Washington, Pa., in 1845 and edited the Washington Patriot, an Abolition organ, for four years. After that he worked on the Commonwealth and the Reporter, leaving the latter in 1852 to become mercantile reporter of the Pittsburg Gazette, which he purchased with Samuel Riddle and D. L. Eaton in 1856. In 1856 he was elected clerk in the State Senate. He served two terms in common council. In 1861 he was re-elected Senate clerk, and in the same year was appointed paymaster in the United States army. He was elected to the State Senate in 1867, but resigned to become assessor of internal revenue under President Grant, and served

till that office was abolished. For four years he was chairman of the Republican State Committee. In 1876 he was elected to Congress, and was re-elected in 1878. President Arthur appointed him United States Pension Agent at Pittsburg in 1883, which office he held till 1887. He was always a busy writer, and in his later years made something of a specialty of Indian questions and history, as the readers of these pages have discovered to their profit and entertainment.

A GIFT of the greatest value has been recently received by the Johns Hopkins University, in the shape of a donation from Col. J. Thomas Scharf, the Maryland historian, who has given one of the most valuable private collections of Americana in this country. It includes a great number of books, more than 50,000 pamphlets, several hundred unpublished manuscripts, materials for a history of New York city and vicinity, and of Missouri, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Southern States; and several thousand rare autographs. It includes the library of the late Thompson Wescott on Philadelphia history, Frederick Billou's library on Missouri; the valuable unpublished manuscript, mostly on the Southern Confederacy, of the late James H. McCabe; and a part of the library of the late Henry B. Dawson, L.L.D., on Maryland history. The greatest value of this gift lies in the abundance of valuable materials for a history of the Southern Confederacy. The donor believes that Baltimore is the proper depository of Southern Americana, and gives his entire library to the Johns Hopkins University in the hope that other Southern men will follow his example.

THE twelfth and last lecture of the Oneida Historical Society series, for the season past, was by Prof. A. S. Hoyt, who took for his subject "Tennyson, and the Modern School of Poets." He said that the union of the poetic schools and influences that surrounded them made the present century rich in the

sweetest and noblest poetry. He showed that Tennyson is more than the union and embodiment of poetic tendencies and forces, and on the pages of his writing is felt the refined, speculative, complex life of the Victorian era. After analyzing the intellectual forces of this era the speaker took up the development and work of Tennyson and brought out the versatile strength of his genius with much force.

AT the March meeting of this vigorous and progressive society, a resolution was adopted that a committee be appointed to investigate the propriety and advisability of removing the remains of General Nicholas Herkimer from the farm in Danube, Herkimer county, to the monument grounds at Oriskany, and Hon. Samuel Earl, Hon. Titus Sheard and Hon. H. J. Coggeshall were appointed as such committee. Gen. C. W. Darling, the corresponding secretary, has received from the committee a report "that they had taken the matter of removal into consideration, and had come to the conclusion that it is not advisable at this time to recommend it. That while it would be eminently proper that the remains of the brave general should be removed to the grounds made historic by his name and deeds, we are of the opinion that the sentiment in favor of such removal is not sufficiently pronounced or unanimous in Herkimer county, or among those who claim kinship with the general, to warrant the removal at this time, and accordingly we do not advise it. If, however, our individual preferences on the subject were to control, we would not hesitate to say that the monument grounds at Oriskany are the most fitting place for the repose of the remains, and that they should find a resting place there; but all things being considered, we do not recommend the removal."

THE Committee felt justified in going a step beyond its defined duties, and made a general recommendation of some impor

tance: "We can be allowed to say that the grave of General Herkimer has not received proper attention, and an effort should be made to secure a legislative enactment, as well as a sufficient appropriation, provided the relatives concur, in order to enlarge the grounds of the Herkimer family burial lot where the remains of General Herkimer repose, for the purpose of erecting a suitable monument there, and to provide for its future care and maintenance. The committee also recommend that the Oneida Historical Society should be charged by a legislative enactment with this duty. The State of New York, we think, owes this debt of gratitude to the memory of General Herkimer, who sacrificed his life for his country in the hour of its greatest peril. We feel assured that the patriotic sentiment of the entire valley of the Mohawk would be in favor of such action, and we take the liberty of making this suggestion, as the one most likely to meet with universal favor by all who feel an interest in the name and fame of General Herkimer."

AT the meeting in April, the matter was presented to the Oneida Society. President Hutchinson said that he had received a great number of letters from different people objecting to the removal, and others asking that the society should carry it out. The matter of appointing a committee to draft a bill to present to the legislature providing for an appropriation to erect a suitable monument over the grave of General Herkimer, and to secure the proper care of the same, was brought up and discussed at length. Alexander Seward said that the grounds should be kept in order, but that the people of Herkimer county should take pleasure in looking after that. He spoke of the Oriskany monument and the manner in which funds had been obtained for its erection. His attention had been called to the condition of some of the old cemeteries of the city, and if the society had any graveyard

business to attend to, it ought to look after them. A monument erected by legislative enactment would very likely far overtop the monument at Oriskany. Colonel Watson thought that the society had not paid its debt to General Herkimer. If a monument were built over his grave as high as the tower of Babel, he would not care. General Herkimer was entitled to it. He was in favor of taking steps to secure a monument immediately. Dr. Bagg said he had no conception of any vast monument for General Herkimer, but one which would be respectable and testify the regard in which his memory was held. It was decided to appoint a committee to have charge of the matter, and the chair appointed Samuel Earl, of Herkimer; Senator Sheard, of Little Falls; Senator Coggeshall, Hon. John W. Vrooman, and Horace L. Greene, of Fort Plain.

..

THE West Virginia Historical and Antiquarian Society has issued a stirring appeal, that we hope may be met by a prompt and generous response. 'The Mammoth Mound at Moundsville, this State," it says, "is in imminent danger of immediate destruction. It is, as you are aware, one of the most remarkable and interesting monuments of antiquity which has survived the flight of time and come down to our day. Ever since the coming of the white man it has been to the antiquarian, the archæologist and the historian, the object of greatest interest to be found in the Ohio Valley. Many men, not only of our own country, but from beyond the seas, have visited it, written of it, made drawings of it, and stood upon its summit wrapt in mingled astonishment and admiration. Few indeed are the existing remains of that race which once dwelt on this continent, and perished from the earth leaving not a line of recorded history behind them, and now it is proposed to pull down and destroy one of the greatest monuments reared by that people of whom the world of to-day knows nothing, save from their earthworks

reared here and there over the continent. Shall the greatest monument of antiquity in the Ohio Valley disappear from the earth? What say you? The West Virginia Historical and Antiquarian Society is making an effort to rescue it from the destroyer's hand, and to that end addresses this appeal for help to the learned societies and liberalminded individuals, hoping that by their aid we can secure our object—that of preserving the mound-that generations yet unborn may behold it."

THE Voices of prophecy concerning the future of America, given in the issue preceeding this, by no means exhausted the sayings of eminent men, as to the future of the new land on the western side of the sea. Here is what John Milton, the author of "Paradise Lost," wrote in 1641: What numbers of faithful and free-born Englishmen and good Christians have been constrained to forsake their dearest home, their friends and kindred, whom nothing but the wide ocean and the savage deserts of America could hide and shelter from the fury of the bishops. O, if we could but see the shape of our dear mother England, as poets are wont to give a personal form to what they please, how would she appear, think ye, but in a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head, and tears abundantly flowing from her eyes, to behold so many of her children exposed at once, and thrust from things of dearest necessity, because their conscience could not assent to things which the bishops thought indifferent? Let the astrologer be dismayed at the portentous blaze of comets and impressions in the air, as fortelling troubles and changes to States; and I shall believe that there cannot be a more ill-boding sign to a nation (God turn the omen from us) than when the inhabitants, to avoid insufferable grievances at home, are enforced by heaps to forsake their native county."

TURGOT, the great French minister and

philosopher, wrote in 1750: "Colonies are like fruits, which hold to the tree only until their maturity; when sufficient for themselves, they did that which Carthage afterwards did that which some day America will do." He again wrote, in the fall of 1770: 'As a citizen of the world, I see with joy the approach of an event which, more than all the books of philosophers, will dissipate the phantom of commercial jealousy. I mean the separation of your colonies (the English) from the mother country, which will be followed soon by that of all America from Europe. It is then that the discovery of this part of the world will become to us truly useful. It is then that it will multiply our enjoyments much more abundantly than when we purchased them with torrents of blood. The English, the French, the Spaniards, will use sugar, coffee, indigo, and will sell their products precisely as the Swiss do to-day, and they will have also, as the Swiss people, the advantage that this sugar, th coffee, this indigo, will serve no longer as a pretext for intriguers to precipitate their nation into ruinous wars, and to oppress them with taxes." Later, on April 6, 1776, he made yet another prophecy: "The present war will probably end in the absolute independence of the colonies, and that event will certainly be the epoch of the greatest revolution in the commerce and politics, not of England only, but of all Europe. When the English themselves shall recognize the independence of their colonies, every mother country will be forced in like manner to exchange its dominion over its colonies for bonds of friendship and fraternity. When the total separation of America shall have healed the European nations of the jealousy of commerce, there will exist among men one great cause of war the less, and it is very difficult not to desire an event which is to accomplish this good for the human race."

AFTER independence was secured, but before the adoption of the Constitution, and