Senator Promotes Settlement of Oregon

On December 16, 1841, Senator Lewis Linn, a Missouri Democrat, introduced a bill providing for settlement of the Oregon Territory. For this action and his related unyielding efforts on behalf of American expansion, the states of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Oregon each subsequently honored Senator Linn with the establishment of a Linn County. Few senators, apart from the likes of Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, have been so memorialized.

As a Missourian, Senator Linn had a particular interest in promoting settlement of Oregon. St. Louis and Independence served as the usual jumping-off points for pioneers headed west, and among those who made the journey were many of his constituents. What made his legislation of particular interest was its provision for a grant of 640 acres of land to each white male inhabitant of the territory over the age of eighteen who would cultivate the land for five consecutive years.

Under an 1818 agreement, the United States and Great Britain jointly occupied the Oregon Territory. By the late 1830s, members of the Senate were coming under increased pressure from anxious settlers to establish military occupation and a territorial government in Oregon, or risk losing it to the British. Supporters of settlement, led by Senator Linn, distributed at government expense survey reports that described fertile valleys, easy travel conditions, and a lucrative trade in furs, timber, and fisheries.

In February 1843, the Senate passed the Linn bill by a two-vote margin. Although the measure subsequently failed in the House, it triggered an extensive migration that year. The Oregon territorial boundary was finally settled by treaty with the British in 1846. The land donation provision Linn devised attracted great attention throughout the western states and became the basis of later federal land policy, culminating in the 1862 Homestead Act.