Read Online Worthy Brown's Daughter by Phillip Margolin - Free Book Online Page B

patriotic bunting had been constructed opposite the spot on the river where the Pacific was docked. Seated in the stands were several dignitaries, including Benjamin Gillette, who was the president of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company; Multnomah County district attorney W. B. Thornton, who was heavily invested in the company; and Jedidiah Tyler. Matthew found a place on the edge of the crowd as the mayor concluded a long-winded introduction of Joe Lane, the former United States senator from Oregon.
    The Democrats had held their presidential nominating convention in Charleston, South Carolina, a month before the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln in Chicago. The delegations of eight cotton states withdrew after the convention rejected a plank that would have guaranteed slavery in the territories. Without these delegates no candidate was able to win the two-thirds majority required for the party’s nomination, so the convention adjourned to Baltimore and chose the fiery orator Stephen A. Douglas as the official nominee of the Democratic Party. The seceders held a rival convention, nominating James Buchanan’s vice president, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, as its presidential candidate and Joe Lane as his running mate.
    A great cheer erupted from the crowd when Lane was introduced. He smiled and waved. There was another blast of steamer whistles and a flourish from the band.
    “Ladies and gentlemen, this is an historic day for Oregon, the West, and our nation,” Lane shouted when relative quiet returned. “In this, our second year of statehood, we are about to witness a first—the Oregon Pony! This steam locomotive, built by the Vulcan Iron Works in San Francisco, is the first ever constructed on the Pacific Coast, and it will be the first to run in our state. But,” Lane said, pausing for effect, “I promise you it will not be the last.”
    Lane waited for the shouts and applause to die down. Then he pointed to the occupants of the viewing stand.
    “Three years ago, the farsighted men sitting on this platform conceived the idea of building a railroad in this state. Someday soon, the Oregon Pony will run on tracks that will eventually stretch to the Atlantic Ocean. Today, we take the first step in fulfilling that dream.”
    Hats flew in the air, the band blared, and the crowd cheered as the transfer of the locomotive from the deck of the Pacific to the dock began. People started moving from the grandstand to the spot where District Attorney Thornton’s portly wife, Abigail, would christen the Oregon Pony. After the christening, Lane, Thornton, and Gillette planned to ride in the cab with an engineer down a short stretch of specially laid track to the railroad bridge that was being built across the Willamette. After the ceremony, the locomotive would be ferried across to the other side of the river where they were laying the line.
    As the crowd swept Matthew toward the Pony, he spotted a young man with a slight build who stood five feet seven inches above the ground and sported bright red hair that contrasted sharply with his pale, freckled skin. At twenty-two, Orville Mason was Oregon’s youngest attorney. He had been given an eastern education by his father, the Reverend Ezekiel Mason, and his Harvard law degree made him an oddity in a state where most attorneys read law while serving as an apprentice to a member of the bar, and the only requirements for practicing law were a high school education, the ability to pass the supreme court’s test of knowledge, and membership in the male sex.
    An outspoken supporter of Abraham Lincoln, Orville had been a delegate to the nominating convention of the six-year-old Republican Party and was gaining notoriety in politics. Recently, he had been instrumental in destroying Joe Lane’s presidential aspirations.
    Early in the year, many had seen Lane, a Northern man with Southern principles, as the only candidate who could unite the Democratic Party, but a