Monday, February 10th
2020
She didn’t even know it, but poor
Oregon was jilted again.
The most frequently asked question on
the streets of Jacksonville in July 1858 was, “Is Oregon admitted?”
It seemed an inevitable answer. After
all, on June 18, the United States Senate had passed the bill that would make
Oregon a part of the United States, and had sent it to the House of
Representatives. Surely they had approved it. Surely President Buchanan had
signed it into law.
If only they had a smartphone, or even
a telegraph line. But they didn’t.
“Latest News from the States,” as the
local newspaper called it, relied on steamships sailing from eastern ports to
Aspinwall (now Colon), on the east coast of the Panama Isthmus. There, the mail
transferred onto the Panama Railroad for a 47-mile trip to Panama City on the
west coast of the Isthmus. From there, more steamships to San Francisco and
Portland, followed by news and letters carried overland, where they eventually
arrived in Southern Oregon.
On July 10, 1858, Jacksonville’s
disappointed newspaper editor William T’Vault tried to put a positive spin on
everyone’s frustration. “Our Washington correspondence and private letters have
not been received,” he wrote. “It was generally thought that the steamer from
New York on the 5th of June would bring us the glad intelligence that the bill
for the admission of Oregon had passed the House. It will not be definitely
known here until about Saturday next, the 17th, whether we are admitted, but we
predict that we are.”
When the Oregon Bill had reached the
House June 5, it was referred to the Committee on Territories, where it remained
without a vote until Congress adjourned nine days later. “We are STILL a
territory,” T’Vault said.
Sympathy for the territory came from an
unexpected source. “We sympathize with our Oregon friends,” said the editor of
San Francisco’s “Alta California” newspaper, “in the disappointment they will
feel at the non-admission of their young State into the Union.”
There were many reasons for the delay,
most revolving around party politics, Oregon voters’ rejection of slavery, and
the question of whether the state’s population was large enough to warrant
admission.
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| Celebrating Oregon Statehood |
By January 1859, Oregon’s certainty of
success had been tempered by its failure the previous year and also by reports
from correspondents in the nation’s capitol. “There is nothing positive in relation
to the admission of Oregon. In fact, the same doubts surround the bill that
have existed since the meeting of Congress.”
What no one in Oregon knew when that
news item was published at the end of February 1859: Oregon was no longer a
territory, but now the 33rd state. The bill had passed both houses, and the
president had signed it Feb. 14, 1859 — Valentine’s Day.
The news finally reached Portland a
month later on March 15. It came with the headline, “Arrival of the Great
Overland Mail! Oregon Admitted into the Union! The steamer Brother Jonathan,”
it said, “reached Portland Tuesday morning, bringing news of the admission of
Oregon.”
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| Steamship Brother Jonathan |
That must qualify as the latest “sorry
I missed you” Valentine’s card ever put in print, and certainly the last one
you expected to see when you started to read this.
Here’s hoping no one forgets you. Happy
Valentine’s Day history snoopers!
Writer Bill Miller is the author of
five books, including “History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history
columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.
