“. . . The pioneers of Oregon, those who came here during the first ten years of its settlement, were not in any sense adventurers. Largely drawn from the Mississippi Valley States, mostly farmers, they had in view the acquisition of lands, and intended to pursue their former vocations in their new homes. They were people of some material substance or they could not have afforded the expense of such a journey, and they were men and women of stamina or they would not have attempted, and succeeded, in overcoming the unparalleled difficulties which beset them upon every hand.”
From the biography of T.T. Geer, Fifty Years in Oregon, The Neale Publishing Company 1912
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