as Meeker refused to move his oxen and the police had no means of doing so. The situation was resolved when higher authority ordered Mardon's release. Meeker wanted to drive the length of Broadway; it took a month to get the legal problems resolved. It took him six hours to drive the length of Manhattan. He had arranged with the press for photographers, who took shots of him at the New York Stock Exchange and the sub-Treasury building across Wall Street. Later in his stay, he drove across the Brooklyn Bridge. After a small family reunion at the old Meeker homestead near Elizabeth, New Jersey, Meeker headed south towards Washington, D.C. He had hoped to meet President Theodore Roosevelt at his summer home in Oyster Bay, New York, but Roosevelt's staff declined, offering a meeting in Washington instead. Members of the Washington State congressional delegation cleared the way, and Meeker met Roosevelt on November 29, 1907. The President went outside the White House to view Meeker's wagon and team, and expressed support for Meeker's activities, and for a Meeker proposal for a cross-country highway (there were then none) in honor of the pioneers. After Washington, the tour wound down: Meeker went home to Puyallup from Pittsburgh by train to see his ailing wife. On his return to the East, he arranged for transport by riverboat and train, with a journey across Missouri by wagon. The expedition was offloaded from the train in Portland, and Meeker proceeded north across Washington State (receiving a much warmer reception) on a slow route, finishing in Seattle on July 18, 1908. Advocate for the Oregon Trail (1909–1925) Meeker ran a large pioneer exhibit and restaurant at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle; he later ruefully stated the Exposition had cost him his earnings from the book and card sales during his wagon tour. Later that year, he spent time in California, journeying with his wagon and team. Eliza Jane Meeker died in 1909 in Seattle—she had been in poor health for some years. Ezra Meeker was in San Francisco, peddling his wares, when his wife died—it took three days to locate him, after which he journeyed north for the funeral before returning to his work. On New Year's Day 1910, Meeker and his wagon and team participated in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. In 1910, the Humphrey Bill, to appropriate money for monuments