This essay was written when my great great grandmother was in her teens.

                                                                             Fifty Years Hence

          Judging the future by the past, the imagination can scarcely conceive the great changes that will pass over the country in the course of fifty years.  For the last half century improvements have been constantly progressing with new discoveries and inventions are everyday occurrences.  Where there stood the stately forests of oak, elm, hemlock and cedar are now beautiful towns and villages. Where  _____ the wild and unlettered Indian are now ______ colleges and academies.  We hear the sound of church bells where was once heard the savage war whoop. Fifty years from now the Columbia river will be thronged with steamboats, laden with goods, manufactures and passengers from every part of the world, urging their busy way through its waters, towns and cities will be multiplying upon its banks.  In less than half a century there will be a railroad connecting New York with the Pacific and a steam communication from Oregon to China by which the whole of the vast trade of China and the Sandwich Islands will then be commanded by the state of things_______ country will then be peopled by a race claiming a ____ ______, all united under the same laws and having the same patriotic pride in their country and its freedom. The former greetings of Rome will then but faintly compare with that of this republic.

                                                              Delia Wightman