"Willard Hall Rees was the first secretary of the Oregon Pioneer Association and was one of the prime movers in its organization… He accumulated an almost priceless store of historical material consisting of overland records, reminiscemoes of early settlers and other similar material... A few of the old letters and some pages of miscellaneous manuscripts of his composition were saved and the rest burned in the fireplace after [his] death... In speaking of the emigration of 1844 he writes..."
