DOCUMENT.
The following is one of a set of documents giving contemporary evidence on a most important epoch of Oregon history. It was secured by Principal J. R. Wilson.
(From the New Orleans Picayune, November 21, 1843.)
PRAIRIE AND MOUNTAIN LIFE—THE OREGON EMIGRANTS.
During our detention among the upper settlements, before starting out, a constant source of interest to us was the gathering of people bound to Oregon. One Sunday morning, about the usual church hour in a larger place, five or six wagons passed through the town of Westport, and one old man with silver hair was with the party. Women and children were walking, fathers and brothers were driving loose cattle or managing the heavy teams, and keen-eyed youngsters, with their chins yet smooth and rifles on their shoulders, kept in advance of the wagons with long strides, looking as if they were already watching around the corners of the streets for game. There was one striking feature about the party which leads us to name it more particularly. Though traveling on the Sabbath and through the little town that was all quiet and resting from business in reverence of the day, there was that in the appearance of the people that banished at once even the remotest idea of profanation. They were all clean, and evidently appareled in their best Sunday gear. Their countenances were sedate, and the women wore that mild composure of visage so pleasantly resigned, so eloquent of a calm spirit, so ready to kindle up into smiles that is seen more often among churchgoers, perhaps, than in ballroom or boudoir. Some of the women carried books,
