James W. Nesmith

The board lists his offices; what he did in two of them pulls in opposite directions. As superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon and Washington, Nesmith told his superiors that the extermination of the Chetco people on the south coast "would occasion no regrets at this office." In the Senate, where Republicans had helped elect him as a Douglas Democrat in 1861, he was among the Democrats who joined thirty Republicans on April 8, 1864, to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, 38 to 6. His name is among the senators' signatures on a copy of the resolution Lincoln signed.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Champoeg — 28 mi
  The river-bend meadow where settlers voted for a government in 1843, and where the Willamette took the entire town but one warehouse eighteen years later.

More markers nearby

• Glacial Erratics — 15 mi
• Camp Adair — 16 mi
• Grand Ronde Indian Reservation — 21 mi
• Dayton Blockhouse — 22 mi