Henry Hitchings: Oregon--Beyond the South Pass (c. 1860)
——

Dedicated to the memory of
The Intrepid Pioneers
Who came with the
First Wagon Train
In 1843 over the
Old Oregon Trail
And Saved the "Oregon County"
To the United States.
Erected by Old Oregon Trail Ass'n.
July 4, 1923

Dedicated by
Warren G. Harding
President of the
United States
July 3, 1923
——

" … we have an uninterrupted history of falling somewhat short of our lofty ideals."

I have lately become inordinately interested in the history of my surroundings. I was raised here, and, like anybody, learned to be unimpressed with what I experienced daily from my earliest breaths. Those unfortunate enough to be born into the center of anything understand. Those who were born in Paris, overlooking the Eiffel Tower, had their gauges set to impossible standards so that it might take a true cataclysm to even distantly impress them. Likewise, for me, who only later came to understand that I had been raised very near to the center of the universe, where gravity reliably works right. I found myself secretly pitying those whom I, by most rights, should have envied. Those who'd grown up in New York City or London seemed impoverished in comparison. Those who remained ignorant of my home country all seemed like comparative bumpkins to me, who by all rights probably appeared even more bumkin-ish to them.

Pride of place barely scratches the surface of my feelings about my home country, because I genuinely feel 'of' the place. As I discover more of its secrets, I feel as though layers of myself are being revealed. My sense of self deepens as I visit places here and absorb the stories. Not all of the stories qualify as proud, for much cruelty and stupidity went into this country's discovery and so-called founding. My friends who can count themselves as actual natives better understand. Their ancestors greeted mine, who declared themselves Intrepid for merely moving into another's homeland. Their journeys were harrowing, though, and they did their share of suffering, especially those who crossed in the earliest years, before the Old Oregon Trail had been cleared and broken. They crawled across this continent, and many in their company didn't make it to the end.

Sixty or so years later, the survivors of those earliest crossings became concerned that the route of that trail might have already been lost to history. They created various associations and commenced erecting monuments and memorials to those inevitably Intrepid souls who had traveled into what one emigrant called The Garden Of The World. By then, these people had become that generation's Greatest Generation, as those who strove to achieve anything come to be seen by their sons and daughters, and even to themselves, aided by the soothing salve of time. Each generation in turn becomes the savior of something, and for that time, the object of much public adoration. Presidents dedicate monuments for later generations to discover and ponder.

I know members of my extended family were among those on that first Oregon Trail Wagon Train in 1843. They had migrated out of Virginia's Cumberland country to Missouri, which they found to be distinctly unsatisfactory due to nasty fogs. Grandma died there, aged nearly ninety. They considered Texas, but somebody in the party found a newspaper account about Oregon, and upon that description and little else, they decided to head for Oregon instead. There was little more deliberation behind their monumental decision. They enjoyed a relatively placid crossing. They were lucky to have chosen a competent captain. The Blue Mountains represented the most significant challenge as they had to break trail through heavy timber. Still, their company included many young men accustomed to hard work. They made it across without losing stock.

A hundred and eighty-two years later, The Muse and I happen upon a marker remembering my great-grandfathers' idealized history of their grandfather's legacy. The language reveals a worldview long out of fashion, though it’s one that conservatives seem to have recently more fervently embraced, as these sentiments might be considered "traditional values.” They fervently believed that settlers "saved" Oregon “to” the United States, as if that country had not previously been united by centuries of customs and treaties between the natives. Had no salvation been involved, their fathers might not have seemed Intrepid at all, and legacy and heritage require something on the order of Intrepid behaviors if they're ever to have heroes at all.

We have a fresh batch of hero-makers attempting ascendency now. Another crew of faulty rememberers seeking to engrandize their forebears, who like everybody's, were only human. The urge to make anything great again always requires considerable misremembering, as every legacy seems destined to disappoint if not properly embellished. One man's Intrepid might well have been another's coward, but nobody prefers to consider their forebears cowardly or anything less than noble. So when my bedraggled forebears dragged their sorry asses down out of The Blue Mountains and onto the broad Columbia Plain, The Umatillas greeted them and traded their abundant salmon for their treasures. Three years later, after the so-called Whitman Mission Massacre, pilgrims would no longer welcome the presence of those once-welcoming natives, and an abiding distrust would hover over the once-promised land.

Those forebears went on to create a territory and then a state whose constitution expressly prohibited the presence of African Americans. Also, Chinese and even the so-called native Indians. By then, eighty percent of the natives had been felled by diseases like measles, to which they had no native immunity. The Whitmans were killed for murdering children with infected blankets, a fact they were blythely unaware of. They came to save the native's souls and lost their own in the process, more or less like every Intrepid generation before or since. If we want to Make America Great, we're gonna have to accomplish that on some other basis than 'Again,' for we have an uninterrupted history of falling somewhat short of our lofty ideals.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #CHope , #PureSchmaltz