I cannot close my brief story of Council, the valley and its people without mention of its beloved citizen for 35 years or more, the late Senator Luther L. Burtenshaw. He was not of the earliest comers to the valley, but he took as much interest in the welfare of the valley, town and country, if not more than any other person there. He never entered upon any duty in a half-hearted way, but always with enthusiasm and certain of success. Whenever Council or the valley put on a celebration the senator was drafted to lead and every one that was pulled off was a success. He was everywhere during the time looking out for the comfort of visitors and making them welcome. He served in the state senate for two terms, and would no doubt have been sent back for the third time.

The writer was the first person the Senator became acquainted with on his arrival in Idaho and Oregon. He told me he was looking for a location and I told him that I thought Council was rapidly coming to the front and that he could probably make a living up there. He said that was all he expected at first and went on up there. He immediately fell in love with the two, valley and people and soon made up his mind that Council should be his permanent home.

He soon built him a comfortable home and office which he occupied up to the day of his death.He enjoyed life and was a great sportsman, a crack short with either shotgun or rifle. It is needless for me to recount many of his good traits, as there are so many who know them as well if not better than I do.

His funeral was very largely attended, thus testifying to the high esteem in which he was held by the people of the county. His place in Adams County will be hard if not impossible to fill, as there are but few people possessed with the enthusiasm, kindness, affability and hospitality of Senator Burtenshaw.

Northeast of Council, some 30 miles lies Meadows Valley, so-called because of the natural meadows lying along the streams that course through it. This valley was a considerable lake thousands of years ago, the high water line reaching above any of the now tillable lands. The erosion of the mountains, bringing down into the lake decayed vegetation and the richer of soil accounts for the productivity of these meadow lands.

Before the coming of the white man, these meadows were the summer home of the elk, as there was abundant forage there for them. Many years before the gold seeker came to Idaho, the trappers invaded these valleys for the rich peltry they afforded, and no doubt the Meadows were the richest in fur bearing animals of any of them. Man could live here with as little effort almost as he could in the tropics and much more comfortably, as is is less difficult to ward off winters cold with a good log house and abundant fuel than the tropical heat.

Calvin White (This part is garbled. It must have have become mixed up one of the times it was printed in the paper. Sections of paragraphs are misplaced.)

The first family so settle in the valley was that of Calvin White, who moved in there from Indian Valley in about 1877 or '78. Cal as he was known all the way from Lewiston to Boise, was a Boston Yankee, whose ancestors had dwelt there ever since the days when religious fanatics took old women out and burned them at the stake for witchcraft. Wilson Williams and Tom Cooper may have been there before Cal moved in, but they had no families. Williams did some placer mining up toward the head of little Goose Creek and Cooper had a land claim on Goose Creek down in the valley, which he afterwards sold to Tommy Clay, whose family was the second to establish a home there. Before the coming of these families the only thoroughfares leading into the valley were trails, one through the Weiser canyon, one along the Little Salmon and the other from Warren by way of the Payette lakes.

Although there were no roads to reach the valley, White and his family and W.C. Jennings, his partner, managed to get in there with wagons. They went up the Weiser River, crossing and recrossing until they got to a point where the bridge spans the fords were eliminated either by bridges or grades, still it would be called an awful road now as compared with our surfaced highways.

Cal White was a pioneer of Boise Basin, where some of his children were born, Clarence and Walter, the twins, being born there. These boys bore such a striking resemblance to each other that no one except members of the family and every day acquaintences could distinguish one of them from the other. Clarence still resides in the valley not far from his fathers old home, being the only member of the larnily living there now.

The oldest of the girls, whose name I do not recall, married a man by the name of Folsom, from Boston and after remaining in the valley for a few years ,they moved to Boston. One of the girls married A. W . Branner, who is now dead and she was living inSeattle when I last heard of her, nearly 30 years ago. Belle married Bob Cochran and was married again some years ago. She is now dead. Rose died at the old home in Meadows, and Sadie, the youngest, married Homer Levander and they live in Boise. She and Walter are the only members of the family now residing within the state of their nativity. Mrs. White was a widow when she married Cal with one son, Ben, also known as Ben White, who has been dead for a number of years.

Cal secured a large tract of land, by entry and purchase and located the first water right on Goose Creek, In addition to his hotel business, he was post master and also raised cattle and horses. Travelers going that way would make it a point so get to his place for the night as they would find the best of entertainment and gain information concerning the country, as he knew every trail from the Clearwater to the Boise and could direct the traveler which one so follow, whichever way he wished to go.

After the death of his first wife Cal sold the ranch and all his holdings in the valley and moved to Boise but he never prospered as he did in the valley of his choice, the Meadows River and little ways above Starkey hot springs. There they pulled up the mountain to the ridge, which they following some distance and descended into the Long Valley; then crossed another ridge to Price Valley, from which they found fairly good going to their destination. They took land on Goose Creek where the old town of the Meadows was afterwards located, and built a large log house and prepared for the accommodatioms of travelers, as at that time there was considerable travel in and out of Warren amid some to north Idaho by way of Little Salmon.

After getting settled, Cal started a campaign so bring in other settlers and get a passable wagon road into the valley. He and Jennings, with some help, brushed out a road along the Weiser River from where they turned up the mountain, following one side as far as a wagon could go; then crossing to the other until they got to Price Valley. There were 26 crossings of the river between Council and Price Valley without a bridge. Cal kept on year after year until all Senator Borah got through a private pension bill providing $50 per month in recognition of his valuable service as a scout and as guide in early day Indian uprisings. He died some eight or 10 years ago at either Boise or Emmett at the age of 95.

All who knew Cal White will admit that he did more to get the Meadows settled and getting a wagon road through the Weiser canyon and a school started there than any other person. He and his partner, Jennings, had the contract to build the first north and south highway with a branch to Warren. This road was laid out by way of the Payette lakes and Burgdorf's; thence by way of French Creek and Florence to Grangeville. Owing to the meager appropriation made by the legislature for the construction of this road, little better than a trail could be built and it was soon abandoned beyond Burgdorf's except the branch from there to Warren.

As already said, the Clay family was the second to make their home in the valley. Mrs. Clays first husband, a man by the name of Osborn was murdered by Indians on Salmon River during the Nez Perce Indian up rising in 1877. She and her four rim children were permited to escape, but not without great hardship and suffering. They were taken up to Warren, where I believe Mrs. Osborn kept a boarding house for a while. She afterwards married Tommy Clay, one of the finest little men in the territory. He proved a real husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless bearing towards the children as much love and affection as if they were his own, and those feelings were reciprocated by them.