Excerpt from Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition

The title to the country we possess on the Pacific was formed and founded on the three capital incidents Of discovery, exploration, and settlement. I shall not enter at length nor in any detail into the his tory, for it is unnecessary in this presence; but, with the permission Of the committee, I will touch a few heads Of the subject and then pass On to an account Of what we are doing at Portland for this exposition, for we have not come here to solicit the recognition and cooperation Of the United States without first having made large preparations our selves, including subscriptions and payments of money to carry on our project, which already is well advanced.

AS to the discovery. It was a stroke Of fortune, merely, that gave us the discovery. The Spanish navigators from Mexico had been sail ing along the west coast of America for two centuries. Some few had passed far to the north, but nothing really was known Of the country north Of the Bay of San Francisco, and there was not much informa tion, and none Of an accurate kind of the country, from Mexico to San Francisco. The Spaniards, however, laid an indefinite claim to the whole country Of western North America, with, ' however, little upon which to found it. From the known breadth Of the continent and from the trend Of the coast toward the northwest, it had long been conjectured that a great river entered the ocean somewhere north of the fortieth parallel, and repeated efforts were made to find it.

It is very well attested that one Spanish navigator 'saw the mouth Of the Columbia River in the year 1775, but he did not enter the stream. He noticed, however, the vast outflow of fresh water, and marked very accurately the latitude. Some years later an English navigator, Meares, undertook to verify the Spanish navigator's asserted discovery, but failed. This was in the year 1788. He made such examination as he could of the locality indicated, but somehow missed it, and recorded his Opinion that no river existed there. Four years later, that is to say, early in the year 1792, George Vancouver, a more noted English navigator, passed the same spot, and subscribed, without qualification, to the Opinion of Meares, that no river existed there.' Yet within a very short time, a few weeks after Vancouver had passed the place, the river was entered by Captain Gray in the trading bark Columbia, Of Boston. He was on the coast on a trading expedition, and almost accidentally dropped in there. He ascended the river for about 25 miles, remained a fortnight or more, took his Observations and then sailed northward, entering the Straits of Fuca. Here he met Van couver, who was just completing the examination Of our great estuary, which Vancouver named Puget Sound. Vancouver was its first explorer. Names he gave were sprinkled plentifully all over the Puget Sound country.

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